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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review May 9, 2008 / 4 Iyar 5768

The Real Meaning of Mother's Day

By Linda Chavez


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Remember when Mother's Day was a simple affair? The kids woke Mom up with breakfast in bed — Froot Loops floating on a sea of slightly pink milk — and handmade cards. Everyone was especially nice to one another so Mom could enjoy some "peace and quiet," commodities in short supply in most mothers' lives. Maybe Dad cooked dinner or everyone went out to a restaurant, the kind with endless supplies of soft, warm rolls that filled everybody up before the overcooked roast beef soaked in brown gravy arrived. All mothers were "Queen for a Day" in those less-harried times.


Maybe it's just me, but Mother's Day seems to have become a much more complicated affair these days. First, there's the choice of deciding whose mother we're celebrating. In multi-generation families, especially those who live in relatively close proximity, are adult children obligated to spend time with their own mothers, even when they are moms (or married to moms) themselves? Let's see, in my family alone, I count eight mothers: mine, my husband's, my two daughters-in-law, their mothers, and, in one case, their mother's mother, plus me. You need a professional logistics expert just to arrange a schedule for each mom in this crew to spend time enjoying her own Mother's Day while fulfilling her obligations to honor the other mothers in the family.


I've been fretting about this all week, when suddenly I realized: Mother's Day isn't really for moms at all; it's for children. When the kids are young, they're eager to show Mom they can take care of her, just as she takes care of them every other day of the year. When they get older, even when they become mothers (or their wives do), the phone calls, cards, or visits are a way to say, "I still remember all you did for me."


This insight came to me as I was reading a short book a friend of mine, John Kramer, passed on: "The Road Taken: A Memoir — One VW Bus, One Widow, Nine Kids." The story is the remarkable tale of John's mother, Therese Powers Kramer, who became a widow at 41 but still managed to finish her college degree — and chose to celebrate her achievement by taking her nine children on a bus tour of Europe. The story is poignant but hilarious, mixing in reflections on her husband's slow death from heart disease with antic tales of kids walking in on naked tourists having a pillow fight, or getting their heads stuck in balustrades in Paris hotels.


What struck me about the book, however, wasn't so much the extraordinary achievement of John's mother — that goes without saying and is amply demonstrated in her beautiful writing — it was how much John loves his mother. His passing on his mother's memoir was his way of showing her how much he loves her. I'm not alone in that estimation. Humorist Erma Bombeck, whose best-selling "Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession" was her funniest book, wrote in a preface to Mrs. Kramer's memoir: "Do you know what your son John did? He has such love for you that he wrote to tell me about your book and the life that inspired it."


Children — even when they're adults — need a way to express their love for their mothers. It was easy when they were young and could fashion a statement out of construction paper and glue. It gets harder when their lives become filled with new duties and obligations.


When we grow up, we need to find a new way to say "I love you." And for those moms on the receiving end, we need new ways to hear what our children are telling us. It may not be soggy cereal or a handmade potholder but, instead, a long-distance phone call or store-bought card. We may not get the luxury of a whole day when we are the center of attention, but for those few minutes when the kids are wishing us Happy Mother's Day, we know they are telling us how much we still matter in their lives.

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JWR contributor Linda Chavez is President of the Center for Equal Opportunity. Her latest book is "Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.)

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