Everyone says it, but it’s the truth: becoming a mother changed me forever. Right now, as I write this, I can look over and see my two youngest playing happily together in our living room, and I can’t imagine my life without them. The day my oldest was born, the life I had before, the person I was before, was blown away forever, relegated to some distant memory that becomes increasingly harder to remember. Becoming a mother, it fundamentally changes who you are to your core. You think you know what love is before you have a baby; you don’t.

But in between all this love and happiness and the mushy placards about your heart walking around forever outside of your body is the reality, and that reality is that motherhood is hard. There is so much stress, and fear, and second-guessing. It’s a lifetime of putting yourself last, of spending most of your time caring for someone else. So Mother’s Day, for many of us, is a welcome holiday. It’s a chance for us adult children to look at our mothers and say, Thank you. I see you. I appreciate you. For us as mothers, well… having a day where maybe someone else cooks you breakfast, or that you get to sleep in, or maybe go get a pedicure — whatever it is, it’s pretty much heaven. Unfortunately, though, we live in a culture where motherhood, and therefore Mother’s Day, is under attack.