Michelle Obama Host Mother's Day Tea At White House

On Friday, May 7, 2010, First Lady Michelle Obama hosted a Mother’s Day Tea at the White House. Her distinguished guests were the mothers, daughters, and granddaughters of those that had previously resided at Pennsylvania Avenue.

During her speech, Mrs. Obama got emotional when she described the “beautiful experience” of raising her daughters.

Personally, I think mothers are overrated.

When confronted with the evidence that my mother gave me life, I always reply, "I never asked to be born."

However, that's neither here nor there. A more compelling topic is what precisely should we celebrate on Mother's Day?

On Mother's Day, should we celebrate all mother's or just our mother?

Now that I'm OLD, I realize that Mother's Day should be a vertical celebration, not an horizontal one. That means you celebrate your mother and/or grandmother not people you know that are mothers.

You take your mom to brunch. You don't take your sister who is a mother to brunch.

You give your grandmother a card. You don't give your cousin who is a mother a card.

Why?

We should celebrate mothering, the verb, not being a mother, the noun. Anyone can be a mother, only a few actually excel at it.

You could make the case that doing both is a possibility however the unique and odd relationship between mother and offspring makes that difficult, i.e. its creepy to celebrate the mothering exploits of someone that's not your mother.

Besides, you can honor other mothers besides your own with a simple and cheap, "Happy Mother's Day" greeting.

And that brings us to the ultimate reason why Mother's Day should be a vertical celebration, buying cards for every mother you know is too expensive!