From the Readers

How to show gratitude to mothers

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-05-17 10:40

Comment on "Time to stop celebrating mothers' sacrifice" (China Daily, May 13).

I think the confusion over the word "celebrating" has to do with the fact that celebrating one day a year someone's lifelong commitment to family can be somewhat of an empty gesture. It's just going through the motions to "show" that we care, when we could be doing something more meaningful for our mothers. I think the author wants to illustrate the point that while Mother's Day can make mothers happy for a day, with things like flowers and cakes and whatnot, those things only last for a short time, thus the show of appreciation is a short-lived token of gratitude, and that it seems strange that we let our mothers show their appreciation for us all of their lives without really trying to make their hard work a little easier or safer.

There are many issues that mothers must deal with in their everyday lives that their children, husbands, brothers or sisters can't directly help them with, but if we all work together we can find a way to improve those aspects of their lives. Just one example from this article is the dangers of childbirth, but there are plenty of other issues that make life difficult for our mothers: equal pay, equal opportunity, equal rights and equal treatment in general are just a few of the difficulties that need to be addressed.

The last issue on that list, equal treatment, is the most difficult for us to address as a society, but it is the easiest for us to address as individuals. We need only to remember that when we judge a woman's choices, we should consider what judgment we might pass on a man in the same (or at least similar) situation, and we might be able to see how we allow women's lives to be so much harder. I think most people judge women who are not virgins or are divorced VERY differently than men of the same status, and this is something that certainly must change in order for our society to offer some equality for women.

Matt Smith, on China Daily website