On Mother’s Day

I thought I might have more to say on this subject than I did fifteen years ago, in another lifetime, but for the most part I don’t, except to acknowledge how hard and awful a day it is for some people, and how I wonder, much as I enjoy seeing pictures of people’s mothers, if this might not be one of those days Facebook has made worse and not better.

I posted this there yesterday, but I wanted to get it into my own space as well, having gone to the trouble of scanning it and so on. A friend there commented that my name was bigger than the headline, and I said yeah, I used to be sort of famous in this town. That was long ago, when we had an independent weekly, and Dan Coffey (of Ask Dr. Science) and I both were columnists for it, and I was twenty-four years old and had just gotten arrested and accepted into graduate school, and I never planned to have a child. I still believe what I believed then, though, and that’s some comfort (as is the fact that I have a much, much better haircut now).

Here’s a PDF if you want something easier to read/download.

MD2000 1

A column from the Iowa City / Cedar Rapids ICON from 2000.

Iowa City / Cedar Rapids ICON, May 11, 2000.


  1. thank you again. What I learned today–from your perception of the family we’re both part of–is that when someone gives you the gift of wishing you a Happy Mothers’ Day, you should just say thank you. I wish my score were better today.

  2. Ah yes. Manners strike again. It’s hard, though.