I recently saw a quote about motherhood; a woman recalling that her favourite meals with her mum growing up were the cheese and cracker nights with cut up apple, having a picnic on the floor in front of the TV. When she told her mum that, she was floored, “But, those were my fail days, the days I couldn’t get my shit together.” In those fail days, memories were made, but her mum was probably racked with guilt that the dinner wasn’t planned, wasn’t up to snuff in her head, that the TV was on, that she was probably exhausted. Too exhausted to even notice that those might be the moments her daughter would remember.

Motherhood is nothing short of many fail days in our eyes, but to our kids we really are supermums. We kiss the boo-boos better, we soothe the nightmares, pack the lunches, give the tickles, read the stories, and share in our kids’ dreams. For every day we feel shitty about ourselves as parents, our kids are looking at us to help guide them, care for them, and love them.

For my fellow single mamas, we do it all with no breaks and no one to tag team with us. We pay the bills, we save for university, we get all the fail days, but we also get all the hugs, all the kisses, all the hilarious stories. Unless you’ve lived it, you don’t know it. And we are like a sisterhood of breaking down barriers and beliefs that others hold. We work tirelessly to keep our families strong and to ensure we just keep swimming. We do it without thanks or the help or support or love of a partner and Mother’s Day is usually just like any other for us until our kids are old enough to start to fathom our experience. But we are tough and raising some amazing humans and when they grow up to be something incredible, we can say, I did that.

To all the special needs mamas, here we have found ourselves living a new different life. A life of therapies, surgeries, equipment, doctors, and hospitals. A life of worry and sometimes of grief over what may never be. We are the strongest of the strong. A life many will never understand and we wouldn’t want them to. We were thrust into becoming more because our beloved children needed more. And they always will. They may always need our hand to hold, but we will be strong together. This week, Ella received her first Botox injections and after I told her how brave she was, how proud of her I am, to which she replied, ” I’m proud of you too, Mama.” Together, we got this. I am strong because she is strong and she is strong because she got it from her mama.

So to all the mamas, all the mamas to be, all the women wishing they could be mamas, those who have found themselves in the motherhood through chance, circumstance, love, or fate, today I salute you. For all the days we fail, all the days we are super, all the days we got our shit together and especially the days we don’t, the days we miss the school concerts, the days work has drained us, the days the dishes just don’t get done, the days we advocate for our kids, the days we demand better, the days we need another glass of wine, the days we laugh, the days we cry, the days we feel alone, and the days we feel loved. To all the days it takes to be a mama, you got all of them. Be easy on your soul and your heart and know you got this.