Motherhood was not on my radar when my husband, Dan, and I packed our worldly possessions and drove west from Portland, Maine, to Los Angeles, Calif. We were starting over in the land of milk and honey, and taking a big leap for our careers. The week we arrived, I got pregnant. This was the first of many curveballs motherhood would sling in my direction.  But I remembered something my own mother has often told me: Gifts do not always come in packages we expect.

For most of the next nine months, I was sick with a rare condition that kept me in bed. Dan went out, alone, into our new lives and got his freelance career going. And even though things were more challenging than we had anticipated, I knew I wanted this baby. When my son finally emerged in January of 2009, Dan had Van Morrison and the Chieftains on the iPod singing "I’m going back/Going back to my own ones" and we knew that this little baby was our own one.

Then, only two weeks later, every job Dan had lined up through May was canceled. The recession had hit California, and then us, hard. Dan went door-to-door looking for work—any kind of work at all—but found none.

Soon, our savings were shot, we were 3,000 miles from home and we were scared. One evening, my mother called and offered a lifeline: She said, "Come home, Cait. You can live with me." Ever since my parents divorced when I was 18, being home for more than a vacation was fraught. But it wasn’t just about me anymore: I had a family and a tiny baby. And so, I took a big gulp and we drove back across America to my mom’s little house in the big woods of Maine.

It was a hard time for my husband and me—we were in economic free fall and our dreams had been crushed.  But whenever I looked at my son, I knew that the heart of the matter was intact: I would do whatever it took—even move home to mom’s when I was 35 years old—to make sure this baby was safe.

I didn’t move to Los Angeles to become a mother; I went west for my career. But what I found in becoming a mom was a larger purpose to my life. And, I also got to come home and share my new motherhood with my own mother. This was a gift, one I didn’t know I wanted but was thrilled to have.

Tags: caitlin shetterly, Mother's Day

Sure flowers and chocolates are great, but I think I know just the thing for Mother's Day: Flexible work options. Earning a good living while still having time to take care of your family is the best gift ever. And I know it can be done, having recently witnessed family life in the Netherlands, where a mix of employer and government policies have made it possible for virtually anyone to work part time.

Okay, maybe a change in employment policy doesn’t say “I love you” the same way jewelry and verse do. But the way things are now, far too many American mothers have to choose between working far more than they’d like to. And their limited options leave many working moms and many stay-at-home moms miserable.

For those who stay home, the financial consequences are dire. Despite the popular notion that most mothers who don’t work outside the home are mostly wealthy elites, stay-at-home moms actually tend to be less educated and poorer than the rest of mothers, as we learned from recent census numbers. Many of these moms, especially younger ones, simply can’t find work that pays enough to cover their childcare costs.

Meanwhile, mothers who work for pay often do so full time—even when they’d prefer not to. Indeed, the U.S. has one of the highest rates of full-time working women in the world. But, whether they’re doing it because they need the income, the health insurance or simply because they can’t find decent part-time alternatives, many of these mothers would rather be working less. According to a recent Pew poll, 60 percent of these full-time working women with children under 18 would prefer part-time jobs.

Our government and workplaces still haven’t accommodated the bumpy reality of parenting. We’re the only industrialized nation without paid maternity leave. Without that, paid sick leave, or much assistance with childcare, working full-time while being a parent is stressful. Working fathers often feel this same stress, though the stereotype of what men want doesn’t encourage them to say so.

It’s worth taking a look at how the Dutch approached the issue of building a truly family-friendly workplace. In the Netherlands, workers can tailor almost any job to a less than full-time schedule. So three-quarters of working Dutch women and almost a quarter of Dutch men have part-time jobs—and not the low-paying, low-status type most available here.

When I recently met with Dutch families in which both parents worked part-time, their lives seemed decidedly saner than what I’ve witnessed—and lived—in this country. All of which got me thinking about mother’s day gifts. Instead of the flowers and the chocolates, or perhaps in addition to the flowers and the chocolates, your mom might like a new kind of mother’s day gift—a pledge to ask your local Congressperson to champion flex-time work regulations. I know I would.

Tags: flex time, Mother's Day

Yesterday, XX Factor contributors shared their realizations about their mothers' identities outside the domestic sphere in honor of Mother's Day this Sunday. In the aftermath of her mother's death from cancer in her early 60s, Wall Street Journal reporter Katherine Rosman did something similar: She decided to investigate the threads of her mother's life that had nothing to do with her role as mom. The result is the sweet and unvarnished portrait of Rosman's mother that is If You Knew Suzy.

From the beginning of the memoir, you know that Rosman isn't going to make this memoir a saccharine affair. She tells the reader up front that mother-daughter relationships are complicated, and does not shy from revealing her mother's less-than-stellar qualities. Suzy was materialistic (There is an entire chapter devoted to Suzy's eBay obsession), and she could be manipulative in the stereotypical mom way. Rosman tells a funny, familiar anecdote about how even when Suzy was almost dead from cancer, she still tells her daughter, "It'd be very healing for me if you had a baby." There are also amusing, ambivalent passages about Suzy's love of anything new age, which brought her comfort and drove her daughter batty.

None of this is to say that If You Knew Suzy is an unkind portrait of a mother—the image of Suzy Rosin that emerges is ultimately one of a truly caring, large-hearted person who mothered friends and protégés alike. Suzy was a Pilates obsessive, and she taught and truly mentored countless future Pilates instructors, teaching them far more than just exercises. There were Suzy's life-long friends from suburban Detroit, and her later-in-life friends from Tucson, all of whom adored the spunky-yet-demure woman. Though Rosman questions her mother's shopping obsession, whenever she needs to feel "powerful and sophisticated" she wears something from the "Dead Mother Collection," which makes her feel like she's got "Suzy Rosin juju pumping through my veins."

No one can ever know who their mother really is outside of the mother-child relationship—the history is too strong to allow for any objectivity. But they can learn to accept what they learn about their mother as a whole person, and Katherine Rosman does this with grace and humor.

Tags: if you knew suzy, katherine rosman, memoirs, Mother's Day

In honor of Mother's Day, XX Factor contributors discuss the moment they first realized that their moms had an identity in the world outside their place in the family. We invite you to join in the discussion and share your story below.

June Thomas: My mom left school at 15. This was typical in our town, but she had been expected to pass her 11-plus, the exam that, back then, decided if kids went on to an academic or a practical secondary education, so there was always an air of thwarted ambition about her. When I was growing up, she was a dinner lady at the school at the end of our street, and when I enrolled, I saw her rule the dining hall and playground with a will of iron. Some of her rules were random—kids could be sent to the corner for stirring jam into their rice pudding rather than taking dainty bites of each, as she insisted—but every dictator knows that instilling fear is far more important than being consistent.

Cecile Dehesdin: As a little girl, I was reminded every day of the week that my mom had this other life outside of being a mother to me and my brother when she would get dressed for work. We spent a lot of time together on weekends where she was always—and still is—dressed very casually and wearing no makeup whatsoever. But Monday to Friday, as I was getting ready for school, she would don a skirt suit, sheer tights, and heels, and I still remember watching her put on blusher and mascara, marveling at the transformation of my mom into this businesswoman whose exact job description I had a hard time grasping until I was in my teen years.

Jessica Grose: I realized my mom was more than just "my mom" in the world when I was 13 and saw her standing up in front of a town-planning committee fighting to keep her home office. My village’s old guard was trying to outlaw home offices—the blue hairs said they brought too much traffic into residential neighborhoods. Watching her appear so poised in front of a crowd was thrilling. It was also the first time I remember feeling proud of her.

Amanda Marcotte: When my parents divorced when I was 9, it was a crash course in realizing my mom had a life outside of being our mom. It wasn't just that we had more exposure to her work life and finances. It was also the realization that my parents had adult romantic lives, needs, and desires that had nothing to do with us. It made it the transition to being her adult child much easier for both of us.

Emily Bazelon: When I was 10 or so, I went to my mom's office—a rare event—and saw a dollhouse that had belonged to my sisters and me. She's a child psychiatrist and she'd brought it over for her patients. We were done playing with it. But I realized: She thinks about other kids! I was sort of proud and sort of nonplused.

Amanda Fortini: I realized my mom was more than just a mom when I won a college scholarship from her company (nepotism? maybe...) and, one school-day afternoon, accompanied her to her office to receive the little award certificate that had been prepared for me. There, I met several men who reported to her and were obviously in awe of her, even a little scared of her. I was 17 years old, and though I’d known for years that went to an office everyday—in the evenings, she’d lounge on the couch in her suit and pantyhose, which was all the evidence I needed—I’d never seen her businesswoman-boss self in action. It made me proud, to see my mother like that. I didn’t know any other mothers who were also business executives, and I felt our family, which consisted of my mother, my two sisters, and me, was unique. In a larger sense, though I didn’t realize it at the time, and she would never have explicitly said this, seeing my mother at work showed me that the gender roles and hierarchies I saw out in the world could be overturned, reversed, tossed aside: that a woman could be the boss, too.

Ellen Tarlin: When I was younger, realizing my mom was more than just a mom came with resentment. She was a Boston schoolteacher and was very active in the teachers' union, which meant she was out at meetings a few nights a week, which I hated, but I do remember stuffing envelopes with flyers that bore her face when she was running to be an officer in the union. I suppose I finally realized she had an emotional life that had nothing to do with motherhood one day when we were talking about a couple that had broken up because of infidelity, and I said something to the effect that she and my dad never had a hard time being faithful to each other and she said, "Don't be so sure." Wow. (My parents have been married for 47 years.)

Ann Hulbert: I'll date myself here when I say my mother, like so many women starting families in the 1950s, quit her teaching job to be home with us kids. So there was no office where I could watch her in non-mom mode. It was in bringing my friends home and hearing them talk with her, and then about her, that I realized how much she transcended the usual role: Their mothers were, by comparison, just mothers—who showed little of her unself-conscious, direct interest in people younger than she was. This dawned on me, I would say, in early teenage-hood, and I remember it as a very useful jolt.

KJ Dell’Antonia: Maybe because I was an only child, I don't think it ever occurred to me that my mom was "just my mom." She went back to college when I was small, and then to work as a teacher. I loved going with her over the summer to watch her arrange her classroom and be the only kid in a strange school. We'd see her students at the store, and they'd wave, kind of timidly, and I would feel so proud that a teacher (I loved my teachers) was also my mom. It was such a big part of her life, and, by extension, of mine that I can't remember ever feeling like she wasn't bigger than just the person she was at home.

Jenny Rogers: When I was in the 4th grade, the principal came to talk to our class about how we all have to work to make the school better. She pointed to me and said, “This school couldn’t run without Jenny Rogers’ mom.” I was blown away. I knew my mom was always going to PTA functions, but I hadn’t realized her work was so meaningful.

Hanna Rosin: I still don't think I fully realize that my mom is something other than my mom. How else to explain my sulky explosive preteen behavior whenever she comes over? My endless stream of contradictory, unreasonable demands and objections? (Yes, that shirt you bought me is too big! No, I'm not in a bad mood.) Did I mention that I just turned 40?

Tags: children, family, Mother's Day, mothers, parenting

Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake, the duo responsible for Saturday Night Live's viral video "Dick in A Box," were at it again this weekend, pasting on absurd facial hair and recording "Motherlover," a spoof song in honor of Mother's Day about two friends who really want to love each other's mothers (played, in the video, by Susan Sarandon and Patricia Clarkson). Like really, really: "We both love our moms, women with grown women needs/ I say we break ‘em off/Show ‘em how much they really mean/'cause I'm a Mother Lover/ you're a Mother Lover/ We should fuck each other's mothers/ 'cause every Mother's Day needs a Mother's Night," and so on.

Written out, the lyrics read raunchy, but the overall effect was... sweet. (Not so sweet that you would actually send this to your mother, but sweet enough that you theoretically could). These are two absurd dudes trying to do a solid for their moms, and sometimes that means considering, as they say, "that place that you came out as a baby," which, let's be honest, very few children willingly do. Happy belated mother's day!

Tags: Andy Samberg, Justin Timberlake, Mother's Day, Motherlover, Saturday Night Live

Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake, the duo responsible for Saturday Night Live's viral video "Dick in A Box," were at it again this weekend, pasting on absurd facial hair and recording "Motherlover," a spoof song in honor of Mother's Day about two friends who really want to love each other's mothers (played, in the video, by Susan Sarandon and Patricia Clarkson). Like really, really: "We both love our moms, women with grown women needs/ I say we break ‘em off/Show ‘em how much they really mean/'cause I'm a Mother Lover/ you're a Mother Lover/ We should fuck each other's mothers/ 'cause every Mother's Day needs a Mother's Night," and so on.

Written out, the lyrics read raunchy, but the overall effect was... sweet. (Not so sweet that you would actually send this to your mother, but sweet enough that you theoretically could). These are two absurd dudes trying to do a solid for their moms, and sometimes that means considering, as they say, "that place that you came out as a baby," which, let's be honest, very few children willingly do. Happy belated mother's day!

Tags: Andy Samberg, Justin Timberlake, Mother's Day, Motherlover, Saturday Night Live

Meghan, I so feel your pain about being motherless on Mother's Day. I lost my mother last October and have felt unmoored ever since. Losing my mother was like losing my sense of place in the world; the sense that I belonged to this one person in way that I could never belong to anyone else.

Still, instead of trying to avoid everything Mother's Day-related, I planned to embrace the day and comfort myself with good memories of good times with my mother. Until a few days ago, I was certain I would face down Mother's Day with aplomb and sail through the schmaltzy television commercials and radio promotions for floral arrangements, Sunday brunch reservations, and all other manner of consumerism pushed on us in the name of showing our mammas love and gratitude—without being overwhelmed by grief. I didn't mind hearing about my friends' plans for their mothers and I didn't avoid walking through the aisle bursting with Mother's Day cards at the local CVS. I read dozens of first-person pieces by writers writing about their mothers and even wrote one of my own about my mother's late-in-life-journey to feminism.

I was good until about Thursday when the sense of loss returned to me with such force that it surprised me, and deeply saddened me. Then I reminded myself that although Mother's Day will obviously never be the same for me, there is no rule that restricts the day to celebrating only the living. We can still honor our departed mothers by remembering the life lessons they taught us, by living up to the moral code they gave us, by modeling the limitless love they showed us—whether or not we are ourselves mothers.

Mother's Day belong to us all, mother's past and present and the children who love them. I, for one, am not giving it up.

Tags: grieving, Mother's Day

Meghan, I so feel your pain about being motherless on Mother's Day. I lost my mother last October and have felt unmoored ever since. Losing my mother was like losing my sense of place in the world; the sense that I belonged to this one person in way that I could never belong to anyone else.

Still, instead of trying to avoid everything Mother's Day-related, I planned to embrace the day and comfort myself with good memories of good times with my mother. Until a few days ago, I was certain I would face down Mother's Day with aplomb and sail through the schmaltzy television commercials and radio promotions for floral arrangements, Sunday brunch reservations, and all other manner of consumerism pushed on us in the name of showing our mammas love and gratitude—without being overwhelmed by grief. I didn't mind hearing about my friends' plans for their mothers and I didn't avoid walking through the aisle bursting with Mother's Day cards at the local CVS. I read dozens of first-person pieces by writers writing about their mothers and even wrote one of my own about my mother's late-in-life-journey to feminism.

I was good until about Thursday when the sense of loss returned to me with such force that it surprised me, and deeply saddened me. Then I reminded myself that although Mother's Day will obviously never be the same for me, there is no rule that restricts the day to celebrating only the living. We can still honor our departed mothers by remembering the life lessons they taught us, by living up to the moral code they gave us, by modeling the limitless love they showed us—whether or not we are ourselves mothers.

Mother's Day belong to us all, mother's past and present and the children who love them. I, for one, am not giving it up.

Tags: grieving, Mother's Day

Bonnie, Jess, I confess I haven't been able to read Jess's piece about talking to her mom yet; I started to, and it brought tears to my eyes. Like Jess, I used to talk to my mom all the time, about matters large and small. (Should I refrigerate peanut butter? Should I take that job? Who are you voting for?) But my mother passed away on Christmas Day of 2008. And so I can't talk to her. I didn't think that Mother's Day was going to hit home at all, because my mother, a wry pragmatist, considered it a fake holiday. In her view, it was more about Hallmark than her. Still, we often gave her flowers, or, in the past few years, when she was sick, made a point of seeing her. One reason that Mother's Day is hard, though, is that I see all these other daughters talking about their mothers. The hardest part about losing her are times when I realize that the unique mother-daughter relationship is one I will never again experience—not as a daughter, at least. And frankly, the idea of having children without her around to impart her wisdom makes the whole enterprise seem a lot less appealing. I'm sure that will change over time, but the pain won't. In fact, there's a moving piece about this over on the New York Times parenting blog. So this Mother's Day, I will be thinking most about daughters and sons; the motherless ones.

Tags: Mother's Day

Bonnie, Jess, I confess I haven't been able to read Jess's piece about talking to her mom yet; I started to, and it brought tears to my eyes. Like Jess, I used to talk to my mom all the time, about matters large and small. (Should I refrigerate peanut butter? Should I take that job? Who are you voting for?) But my mother passed away on Christmas Day of 2008. And so I can't talk to her. I didn't think that Mother's Day was going to hit home at all, because my mother, a wry pragmatist, considered it a fake holiday. In her view, it was more about Hallmark than her. Still, we often gave her flowers, or, in the past few years, when she was sick, made a point of seeing her. One reason that Mother's Day is hard, though, is that I see all these other daughters talking about their mothers. The hardest part about losing her are times when I realize that the unique mother-daughter relationship is one I will never again experience—not as a daughter, at least. And frankly, the idea of having children without her around to impart her wisdom makes the whole enterprise seem a lot less appealing. I'm sure that will change over time, but the pain won't. In fact, there's a moving piece about this over on the New York Times parenting blog. So this Mother's Day, I will be thinking most about daughters and sons; the motherless ones.

Tags: Mother's Day