Coronado Moms Council Reflects on Mother’s Day

It was Mother’s Day on Sunday. Did you call your mom? Did you send her a card or flowers? And did your kids do anything special for you?

Like so many things, the true meaning of certain holidays seems to get lost in the shuffle of our daily lives. We forget, as one of our moms points out, that Mother’s Day is all about reflection and remembrance—to honor the women who raised us and made us the people we are today.  

Below, our Coronado Moms Council discusses their experiences and what the day meant to them.     

And in case we forgot to say it: “Thanks to all the moms out there! You are superhuman. And we love you.”

Tonia Accetta: Like all these holidays that we celebrate, Mother’s Day is commercially driven. The origins are simple ones from the early 1900's when people used to wear a white carnation to reflect and remember their deceased loved ones. This, by 1914, had driven a florist to advertise that on this particular day one should wear a white carnation for remembrance and a colored one to celebrate the living. What a great ad campaign! Donnie Deutsch would be so proud of that one. Fast forward to 2011, and we spend thousands on flowers, along with other products that have been pushed on us over the years. We may just have forgotten how it all started from those simple roots of remembrance. On this Mother’s Day, I did think about the strong women from my family, their accomplishments and their struggles—for which I am ever so grateful.

Tam Dorow: No Tiger Mom here! For Mother's Day, the kids thought my husband should take them to Santa Monica to do some shopping, to give me some time off from taking care of them. My husband thought it was a good idea. I thought, it's wrong to teach an almost-teenager to manipulate Mother's Day to engage in her favorite activity: shopping. I asked them to clean the garage instead.

By 11 a.m. on Mother's Day, I asked my husband to get the kids started on cleaning the garage because we had a lacrosse game at 3 p.m. His response was, “How much of the garage do we have to clean?” It was the first of many reasons why things could NOT be done that day, all of which I promptly disproved.  

I had an opportunity to teach my family how to use a broom, to move things out of the way and clean under them, and how to organize. Obviously, I failed to teach my family how to do things for others. But this Mother's Day I discovered some flaws in my approach. I need to do more than modeling desired behaviors. I've got to ask them to DO things. It looks like I've got some work to do. 

Let's hope we make some progress by next Mother's Day.

Lynette Penn: Mother’s Day. A day we get to relax, to be pampered and to have it be all about us! Most of the time, this is probably true. Our children are older now. I think they celebrate the fact that they ARE older and don't think they need me to “mother.”  I celebrate that they survived to voting age. I celebrate my mother—who has raised her children, buried a child and loved the children of others. She taught me that being a mother is not a right—it's a gift. I became a grandmother 12 days ago. Do I now get another day on Grandparent’s Day? I will look have to look into that.  

For now, this Mother’s Day, I enjoyed watching our children prepare to enter new stages in their lives. One is a new father. One is moving away to another state for college. The youngest is graduating high school and heading to college this fall. It was a wonderful day. We spoke of the mothers we know in our lives: the one who adopted her children, the one who buried both of hers, the one who visits her terminally ill child, the ones who are off fighting for this country, and the ones who have a child in jail, in a gang or just simply lost. We celebrated the mother who has quadruplets and the ones who help mother the mother-less. This Mother’s Day we celebrated them all. 

I wore a tiara. The kids thought it was over the top, but funny. I simply wanted to set the tone for the day. Yes, this one day, I wore a tiara.   

Suzette Valle: There's only one word that fully embraces the significance of Mother's Day for me: family. That about sums up my day—and what a day it was! 

This year was especially meaningful because my son came home from college the night before so we could all be together.  I will admit the requisite flowers, cards and presents were an added bonus on Mother's Day. But I was so content this year celebrating Mother's Day by simply having my brood curled up in bed next to me, eating breakfast—which included cupcakes—while we watched a movie in our pajamas together at 10 a.m.

The Mother's Day celebrations came full circle when we headed to grandmother's house later in the day with the college kid in tow. She had no idea he had arrived two days early to be with us. Tears and tight hugs all around were the take away from this year's heartwarming celebration.

Now that my kids are older and family gatherings are becoming few and far between, I'm glad I've always been the type of mom who looked forward to school breaks (gasp!). Vacation is still highly anticipated around here because it means stress-free, uninterrupted time with my children. I am very protective of the little time off my teenagers have from school and sports these days, so when we do have the gift of spending time together as a family, without anyone laying claim to it, I rejoice!

I consider myself one of the lucky ones because I have my mother and my family still intact. This is truly the best gift a mother could ask for.

I hope all Coronado moms had a very special Mother's Day!

Meet our Moms:

Tonia Accetta is a British born, boarding-school educated, stay-at-home mom of a teenage boy and a preteen girl. She moved to Coronado in 2002 from Florida with her husband of 15 years looking for a better school system than Florida had to offer. Both children attend Coronado Unified Schools. She is currently on the Coronado Youth Softball board covering many positions (offers of help are always welcome!), and she is a co-leader and cookie mom for Girl Scout Troop 5039.

Tam Dorow emigrated from Vietnam to the U.S. when she was 10 years old, and grew up in Lansing, MI. She has a B.S. in Engineering from Michigan State University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. She worked at all Big 3 US car companies in Engineering and International Finance.  She was a management consultant and started a management consulting firm in Indiana. She's been a stay-at-home mom for the last 10 years. She's served on the board of directors for Village Elementary Parents And Teachers Together (PATT), is a past president of Coronado Youth Softball, and is a current member of the board of directors for Coronado Little League. She married her college sweetheart, two children, a dog, and a 21-year-old cat. 

Lynette Penn is a military wife and mother of three children, whose ages are 18, 21 and 24. She moved to Coronado in 2003 as a result of the school shooting at Santana High School. She was recognized by Time Warner Cable as one of San Diego's "50 Best Moms" in 2006. Her kids have attended Coronado schools since their move to this wonderful place. Penn was a paramedic for 15 years and worked for a law enforcement agency as well. She stopped working in 2000 when her kids started high school, and her husband started to deploy regularly. But now she says, "I just recently started working part time to fill the void of stalking my children." She told us her latest achievement is the fact all three of her children made it to age 18 without her changing her pro-life stance. 

Suzette Valle is a 20-year resident of Coronado. She graduated with a B.A. from the University of San Diego, and has an M.A. from Oxford University, England. After a career as an investment banker, she married and moved from high finance to high drama. She’s the mother of two teenagers, one at Purdue University, another at Coronado High School. She is bilingual and bicultural. She's held many volunteer positions among various Coronado community organizations: vice-president of Coronado Youth Softball 2007-2010, director for the Islander Sports Foundation 2008-2010, and served on both the PTO 2006 and PTA 2005. She was recognized by Time Warner Cable as one of San Diego's “50 Best Moms” in 2006, and has been part of the judging panel for the last four years. She blogs at MamarazziKnowsBest.com, and is a featured Hollyblogger at TheWrap.com, where she blogs about parenting in a celebrity-driven society. In 2010 she appeared on the Dr. Phil Show discussing Reality TV, and was a presenter at San Diego’s Head to Toe Women’s Expo speaking about Hollywood’s far-reaching influence on children's daily lives and family values.