Skip to content

Special people, not days, worth remembering

Maybe you heard last week of the controversy of the school that dared to cancel Mother’s Day crafts.

Maybe you heard last week of the controversy of the school that dared to cancel Mother’s Day crafts. A British Columbia school ended up making some news after a note was sent home saying there would not be Mother’s Day or Father’s Day preparations in the classroom, and that to celebrate diversity and inclusivity, these celebrations were encouraged to take place at home.

However, this raised some parents’ ire, with one gentleman seeming to draw the strange conclusion that this was some sort of attempt to hijack Canadian customs, saying, “I don't understand why we, as Canadians, need to give up our traditions that have been passed through generations. I welcome all races and ethnicities, but forcing us to give up things that are important to us as Canadians is crap. And it doesn't even have anything to do with religion? You can't celebrate your Mom and Dad?”

As it turns out, the superintendent of the school division said the decision had more to do with a trauma experienced at the school recently, which made me think the decision was a considerate one and the right one.

The incident made me think of my own experiences of special days and school celebrations. This year, for the first time, I had a Mother’s Day tea at my son’s school. I was a little late, and I saw my son poke his head out of the hallway with an anxious look on his face. When he saw me hurrying down the hall, he visibly relaxed, and a huge smile broke out on his face.

It made me think how he might have felt if I couldn’t have made it there – or harder for a six-year-old child, let alone any child that wants to belong and be accepted, to be like the other kids, if he didn’t have a mother in his life at all.

The note home from his teacher about the tea seemed sensitive to this issue of kids with mothers who couldn’t attend, suggesting that the child could bring another special person in the place of Mom.

When I was in elementary school, I remember our class having a Grandparents Day. With my grandparents living in India, my mom suggested that I take the only other elderly people we knew in Saskatoon at the time, our building’s superintendent and his wife. I felt a tad self-conscious, but I remember they came and seemed tickled pink with the invite, and really, it didn’t make the day less special. (In fact, I was maybe a bit relieved, as had my own grandparents had been there, with their typical brusque honesty, they probably would have told the organizers the cookies were lousy and the tea was pathetically lukewarm).

While I don’t have any problem with having holidays and special celebrations, I feel like we all could do with a little awareness about making sure that these days don’t exacerbate another person’s loss, absence or pain.

Maybe we take a moment to remember the boy who just lost his father, the one for whom Father’s Day feels raw; the one who just had a miscarriage and is dreading Mother’s Day; the one who’s waking up on Feb. 14 and feeling hopeless that it’s another Valentine’s Day spent alone.

Maybe we take the opportunity of these special days to – instead of posting a “Hey, isn’t my life awesome?” picture on Facebook - calling up your friend who just went through something difficult, and saying, “I know this is a hard day, I just wanted to say I’m thinking of you.” I know I could use the reminder myself, so I’m thankful that this British Columbia school – even if it wasn’t the intention – made the news to remind me - it’s not about making the special days feel important, it’s about making the important people in our lives feel special.




Comments

push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks