This Older Mom Doesn’t Like The Hate Grandmas Are Getting For Mother’s Day
“You do not just stop being a mom.”
A video of a grandmother went viral on TikTok earlier this week, encouraging mothers-in-law and grandmothers to kind of take a step back, assess where they are in their motherhood journey compared to their daughter, and then celebrate Mother’s Day accordingly.
After the video took off, several other TikTok users came forward and expressed their agreement with her sentiment, saying that Mother’s Day should be for the moms who are in the trenches, changing diapers, cleaning up puke at 2 a.m., and running on three hours of sleep. The moms who are currently really “momming!”
However, one grandma finds these kinds of perspectives offensive, and she wants those moms to know that she’s still a mom, too.
“OK, I have been scrolling on TikTok, and all I see, every single TikTok that’s coming up on my ‘For You’ page, is these young mamas out there hating on their mamas and their mother-in-laws for Mother’s Day. They do not want to come and see us. At all. So, they say it is their day. We need to take a seat in the back and let them have their day,” Biba Lubenski says in her video.
She goes on to say that she gets why moms take this stance as she was once a mom in the trenches with young kids and “didn’t have any help.” However, she says that she’s “still a mom,” too, mothering “just as much” but in a different way.
“You are tired. You’re changing diapers. You’re in the trenches of it, but we are still moms. Like, we still are moms. You do not just stop being a mom. You still worry just as much. You still mother just as much. It might be in a different way, but you are still doing all those things,” she continued before expressing how baffled she was about all the hate grandmas and “old moms” were receiving saying it makes her feel bad.
“You’ll see when you get older. Yeah, you’ll see when your kids are older. It’s just a different kind of, it just changes a little bit. Yeah, you’re not changing those diapers, but believe you me, you are mothering,” she concluded.
Thousands of TikTok users commented on Lubenski’s video, agreeing with her take that there’s an overflow of “hate” for no reason against old moms while others tried to rationalize the Mother’s Day hierarchy.
“I think it’s because the young mothers end up doing all the work to prepare for the mothers day celebrations for the older generations. They feel left out,” one user wrote.
“Everything I’ve seen has basically been young moms asking that older moms come to them because it’s generally easier,” another noted.
Another echoed, “My mom insists that I enjoy my Mother’s Day relaxing the way I want to spend it. I’ll see her another day. You are not in the trenches.”
Others sided with Lubenski on the Mother’s Day discourse, writing, “I have daughter in laws who come over every Mother’s Day guess they were brought up right.”
The OP replied, “Same here 🥰 blessed.”
“I’m 38 and call my mom with one problem or another every day. This woman hasn’t stopped mothering for one minute for 38 years 🤍,” another noted.
“They say they are in the trenches but what about us gramas that are in the trenches with them? I have my grandchildren every week on certain days while they work doing all the things,” one user pointed out.
The OP replied, “I’m a Mimi too! ♥️”
While I hear the OP’s point, we got to be real about a couple of things here.
She is not in the trenches. Worrying about your grown kids is not the same as literally losing sleep over your kid’s milestone development at the same time you need to remember to buy your oldest new soccer cleats and make sure you get that Teacher Appreciation gift before the end of the week. We’re wiping butts. We’re touched the f*ck out. It’s just different.
A text, a card, or a phone call to a grandma or a mother-in-law should be fine for Mother’s Day. Celebrating on another day should be fine. If the idea of not being with your children or your grandkids on Mother’s Day is truly that heart-wrenching and offensive to you, then this is a bigger conversation. So let’s direct this frustration elsewhere — the men!
Here’s a thought: Why don’t all the moms in the trenches, the grandmas, the old moms, the empty nester moms, etc. all get together and demand that the men in their lives take on all the planning, prepping, and responsibilities that come with Mother’s Day!
Seriously, why are we, as mothers, all turning against each other, guilting one another, and pointing fingers about who’s a narcissist and who’s more “deserving” of being celebrated when we have a whole group of DUDES who are sitting on the couch, watching playoff hockey while we disgruntledly do the dishes from our own f*cking Mother’s Day dinner? We’re mad at the wrong people!
