<\/a><\/p>\n

I love holidays that honor families and Mothers Day is no exception. \u00a0This year my family is celebrating some wonderful changes that make it even better. \u00a0We are thrilled to join our family with that of \u00a0our new daughter-in-law… who, in addition to being crazy about my son, is a wonderful mother. \u00a0Yes…. I’m now the proud grandma of a 5th grader!<\/p>\n

So this is sort of an unusual Mothers Day for me…. \u00a0sitting here with my husband, talking about so many wonderful moments during yesterday’s events and looking forward to time with my own Mom a little later on.<\/p>\n

I realize that I’ve spent many years\u00a0celebrating with Moms who were separated from their kids in order to change their family stories by committing to addiction recovery. \u00a0 It was in that setting we asked “just WHO invented a holiday with the power to make incredible women feel like both \u00a0inadequate mothers AND a bad daughters all at the same time????” \u00a0It’s true for so many people… and acknowledging that truth breaks the ice, let’s us laugh and create a day that works for the circumstances.<\/p>\n

A single Mom for many years, I once received a card and a necktie for Fathers’ Day. \u00a0I was wonderful. So I suggest that Mothers’ Day might be a fine time to honor\u00a0anyone<\/em>\u00a0who has consistently nurtured you, lifted you up and supported you in giving life to your dreams.<\/p>\n

Happy Mothers’ Day, Mrs. Patten!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love holidays that honor families and Mothers Day is no exception. \u00a0This year my family is celebrating some wonderful changes that make it even better. \u00a0We are thrilled to join our family with that of \u00a0our new daughter-in-law… who, in addition to being crazy about my son, is a wonderful mother. \u00a0Yes…. I’m now the proud grandma of a 5th grader! So this is sort of an unusual Mothers Day for me…. \u00a0sitting here with my husband, talking about so many wonderful moments during yesterday’s events and looking forward to time with my own Mom a little later on. I realize that I’ve spent many years\u00a0celebrating with Moms who were separated from their kids in order to change their family stories by committing to addiction recovery. \u00a0 It was in that setting we asked “just WHO invented a holiday with the power to make incredible women feel like both \u00a0inadequate mothers AND a bad daughters all at the same time????” \u00a0It’s true for so many people… and acknowledging that truth breaks the ice, let’s us laugh and create a day that works for the circumstances. A single Mom for many years, I once received a card and a necktie for Fathers’ Day. \u00a0I was wonderful. So I suggest that Mothers’ Day might be a fine time to honor\u00a0anyone\u00a0who has consistently nurtured you, lifted you up and supported you in giving life to your dreams. Happy Mothers’ Day, Mrs. Patten!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-2104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parenting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2104"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreapatten.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=2104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}