Honoring Moms as ‘Essential Workers’ During Coronavirus Javascript must be enabled to use this site. Please enable Javascript in your browser and try again. × Search search POPULAR SEARCHES SUGGESTED LINKS Join AARP for just $9 per year when you sign up for a 5-year term. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. Leaving AARP.org Website You are now leaving AARP.org and going to a website that is not operated by AARP. A different privacy policy and terms of service will apply.

A 2020 Mother s Day Salute

This year it becomes stunningly clear that moms are essential workers too

Faith Salie with son Augustus, 7, and daughter Minerva, 6. Courtesy of Faith Salie who save lives, deliver packages, check out our groceries, and clean our hospitals and streets on this and every day. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine. But there's another kind of essential worker: Mom. Right now, in addition to everything else she used to be, or continues to be, in her working life (and many take risks to provide essential services in the outside world), she's also teacher, cook, housekeeper, referee, arts and crafts guru and handwashing czar. On top of all that, she's still “Mom” — the one who hugs you, the one to cry to, the one who scratches your back and worries about you. I'm a 49-year-old mother of a 6-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son. I'd always been certain my kids kept me young. (Although these days I look so haggard, I doubt I even visually qualify as their young grandma.) But that was in the Before Times. Now my children provide me with something more valuable: They provide me with unwavering purpose. I wake with a quick silent prayer to stave off entropy, to preserve the mental health of my family, to invite grace and be patient. (I'm reliably graceless, but I try to make up for it by singing lots of show tunes and tossing squealing small people onto the closest bed whenever possible. Patience is a muscle I swear I can actually feel growing, so it's a good thing that I'm living in stretchy athleisure wear.) AARP NEWSLETTERS %{ newsLetterPromoText }% %{ description }% Subscribe Flowers & Gifts 25% off sitewide and 30% off select items See more Flowers & Gifts offers > I think about all the moms I know, making it work, getting up each day, scheming ways to inject joy into their kids’ lives. The impromptu dance party, the thumbs-up to living rooms being turned into obstacle courses, pancakes for dinner, PJs for school. I think about the text chains I'm on for both my kids’ schools. I do hate to traffic in gender stereotypes, but the truth is, it's moms, always moms, checking in with each other, and comforting one another by sharing stories of epic home-learning fails, such as my daughter's kindergarten assignment to write down her favorite food. With her little marker-stained fingers, she scrawled “CRAP.” (We're hoping she meant crêpe.) I think, too, about the moms of the college students and adult children who've returned home for safety and comfort. I think of the mothers who find themselves physically distanced from their kids of any age, who still manage to provide spiritual shelter, as they reach out any way they can. Our children's lives contracted unfathomably fast, and while our kids may feel virtually connected to the outside, it's parents who are truly providing their world. It's a lot; it's a challenge; it's a gift. Did I mention this is hard? A lot of us consider the day a win if we don't yell at the kids and we remember to change out of our night leggings into our day leggings. If we make our kids laugh. That's enough. That's good. And these days, good isn't the enemy of great; good is a kind of miracle. Just keep the world spinning. Here, in New York City, we have a ritual called The 7 PM Clap. We lean out windows of our cramped apartments to bang on pots and pans and clap our hands for essential workers. It happens to coincide with my kids’ bedtime. I tiptoe out of their bedroom as the glorious cacophony of human hope and gratitude, just for a minute, rings louder than the sirens. It buoys me for another day. AARP NEWSLETTERS %{ newsLetterPromoText }% %{ description }% Subscribe AARP VALUE & MEMBER BENEFITS See more Health & Wellness offers > See more Flights & Vacation Packages offers > See more Finances offers > See more Health & Wellness offers > SAVE MONEY WITH THESE LIMITED-TIME OFFERS