Happy Labor Day!
"Happy Labor Day!" A friend of mine says to her mother on her birthday each year. After all, she says, her mother is the one who went into labor and did all the actual work on the day she was born!
It always cracked me up to hear it put that way. But now that I'm 38-weeks pregnant with my first child and preparing for labor myself, the references to Labor Day everywhere—from free day off on my work calendar to the many end-of-summer advertisements—can't help but remind me of what's coming up...and SOON!
The truth is I'm not worrying too much about labor. One nurse practitioner put it to me this way: "Oh you'll be fine. Labor is a violent experience and it's going to be a tough day, but you'll get through it, and then you'll move on."
She's a mother of two, so I'll take her word for it. What really gets me is that someone went through that for me—my mother—and I wouldn't be here without it. Labor is a part of life—a part of life so universal that it had to occur for each person to get here.
It's something so easy to forget for something so true. Today, as we celebrate the American holiday of Labor Day honoring workers who have contributed to the prosperity of our country, let's remember to thank our mothers as well, for all their hard work to get us here.
Photograph via ilyoungko on Flickr.
