Thoughts on Mothers' Day

As my Facebook page fills up with my friends' urgings to celebrate my mother, the TV shouts at me to buy a gift for my mother and the junk mail in my letterbox splatters images of mothers all over my consciousness, I've started thinking about children who don't have a mother and how they (and their dads) deal with Mothers' Day. And of course there's the flip side- mums who've lost their partner and children who've lost their father, and who have to deal with that as Fathers' Day approaches, complete with school craft projects and gift stalls and morning teas and card-making.

I'm thinking like that, of course, because all this Mothers' Day saturation still makes me wince- and it's nearly 25 years since my mother died.

So, how do teachers make sure they don't bruise feelings through their programming at this time of year? And how do parents who've lost a partner- whether to death or divorce- ensure that their children don't feel lost and miserable at these times of year?