How to Honor Mothers Well, on Mother's Day and Every Day

Key takeaways

• Honor matters more than the holiday. Adam Mesa points out that Mother's Day is a cultural day, not a holy one, so the goal is to honor mothers well, whatever the ads say.
• Appreciation belongs to every day. If a mom only hears thanks once a year, the group saw that as the bigger problem.
• Ask what she values. Some moms want a gift, and some simply want time with their children.
• Teach children while they are young. The hosts are training their sons now so that one day they will appreciate their own wives.
• Celebrate motherhood in others. A grandmother who feels overlooked can start by honoring the mothers around her.
• Single mothers can invite good examples. Adam urges them to put strong male leaders and healthy marriages in front of their children.

A Mother's Day conversation at the table

This episode of Beyond the Letter was released on Mother's Day and combined with Beyond I Do, so it ran as one longer conversation. Around the table with host Adam Mesa were his wife Ashley, his brother Nathan and his sister-in-law Sanaz.

They started with gifts. Sanaz said what she wants most is time by herself, and Nathan said they were working on something, with a treat planned for the Monday after. Ashley changed her mind about her gift partway through the day, and a mop came up in the teasing that followed.

Adam also told about his two boys talking in bed the night before. One of them wanted to ask a grandmother to buy mommy some clothes. When Adam offered to help, they asked what he was getting his own mom.

A day with no holy status

Adam said plainly that days like Mother's Day are national or cultural, not biblical or religious. Because of that, he said, it is hard to give a Christian ruling on the correct way to celebrate. The day is open to family and culture, and what matters is what each mom actually finds valuable.

He also pointed to the money behind the day. As he put it, "Marketing is what makes it significant." He suggested we ask whether we feel the day is important or whether the ads from Macy's and Nordstrom's are telling us it is, and he named the pressure to spend and to go big. He added that he was not trying to knock the day, only to separate care from pressure.

Ashley said she might not have thought much about it had her sons and their school not made a point of it. This was the first year both boys understood what the day was. Last year they were six and four.

Ask what she values

Nathan described himself as a gift giver, but he said their mother values time more than anything now. He plans to take her to lunch. She has never been vocal about expectations, so her sons have to read where she finds value. Nathan said he would rather she simply tell him, so he can love her in a way that fits instead of guessing.

Adam added that the season when a mother feels the most daily pressure is roughly the years raising children, up to eighteen or the early twenties. He said that is when she most needs to be recognized, relieved and celebrated. A retired mom with much of her day free needs something different, and for their own mother that means time with her children.

When one day has to carry everything

Ashley said she is fulfilled as a mom, and she wants her sons to learn the habit of appreciation. Even so, she put it this way: "every day needs to be Mother's Day". Sanaz said she hears "mom" about thirty times a day and takes it as a sign of love.

Adam said that if a husband and children are kind to mom only on Mother's Day, that is a bigger issue than whether the day gets celebrated. He wondered if that is why some moms make the day a big deal: they hope for one day of the appreciation they deserve. He compared it to Valentine's Day, where the person who is not loved the rest of the year is set up to be let down.

He also spoke to husbands. If his wife needed the day as an excuse to get rest, he said, that would tell him the home needs changes. He gave a small picture of the other direction. He took his boys out of school for a day, and his oldest thanked him over lunch for not going to work. Adam said that was all the Father's Day he needed.

Raising sons who will honor their wives

Adam said his main reason for teaching his boys to appreciate Ashley is that he wants them one day to recognize what their wives will go through. So he does it on ordinary days. When the boys complain, he tells them, "Mom did a lot for you. Go tell her thank you."

Nathan told a similar story. One of his sons complained about the hamburger Sanaz had made. Nathan stopped and asked if the boy understood that she made it with love and could have just heated up chicken nuggets.

Adam tied this to his own marriage. He said that "The moment I start parenting, it now no longer can be about me." He and Ashley will not be the ones to benefit from their sons' habits. Someone else's daughter will. He also said he and Ashley need to stay on the same page, because the boys' attention will turn to other women as they grow, and she should not have to look to them for what a husband should give. He said that in couples counseling they often see the result: a mother who lacks a close relationship with her husband holds on to her sons and treats her daughters-in-law like competition.

Celebrating motherhood in others

Adam described how his own mother celebrates the daughters-in-law who have borne her grandchildren, sending flowers, cards and gifts. She does not ask her sons to celebrate her, and the appreciation comes back to her. He offered this as an option for an older mom who feels forgotten. "You could celebrate motherhood." That could mean nieces, daughters or daughters-in-law who are raising children.

He also said a mom or grandmother who is still looking for thanks from adult children might ask whether she is getting appreciation regularly, and if not, what has been missing in the relationship. He acknowledged that nobody can turn the clock back and redo parenting.

A word for single mothers

Nathan asked what advice Adam would give a single mother raising a son. Adam called single mothers incredible and said they juggle more than anyone. Still, he urged them to get their children around strong male leaders as early as possible: a male coach, a male teacher in whatever the child enjoys, church programs with male mentors, and married relatives.

He explained that he sees the gap in counseling. Some wives say a husband raised without a father is sweet and caring but struggles to take initiative or make decisions. A daughter who never saw her mother in a healthy partnership with a man may find it hard to trust men. He was clear that a single mother's home is not incomplete, and that a home with a present but unhealthy father can be worse. His point was to look for healthy examples.

What this means for you

If you are a mom, you may be hoping this one day makes up for a hard year. If you are a husband or a grown child, you might ask yourself what you could do on an ordinary Tuesday, without waiting for a card to remind you.

Ask the mothers in your life what they actually want, and listen to the answer. Let your children see you thank their mother. If you are older and feeling overlooked, think about whose motherhood you could celebrate first.