When I was a kid, I developed a routine with my mother that almost became a ritual. It certainly took on a liturgical tone.

Leading up to the day in question my mother would remind me not to forget that the following Sunday was Mothers’ Day. I would respond by saying, “If we have a Mothers’ Day and a Fathers’ Day, why don’t we have a Kids Day?”

“Everyday is Kids Day,” my ever-wise mother would counter. I had no comeback.

It started as a spontaneous exchange but as the years grinded on it became family folklore and we even started to say each other’s part.

Now that I am a father, and a grandfather, I do have a comeback, “Everyday is Mothers’ Day and everyday is Fathers’ Day.”

Why? It’s partly because of the privilege but largely because of the responsibility.

I never stop being gobsmacked by the gift of life and the way it is given: from conception to birth; from birth to maturity; and from maturity to conception and birth all over again.

Whenever I am having an occasional blue day, I allow myself the luxury to reminisce and recall happy times as a kid, as a parent and as a grandparent. It works every time, like a summer breeze, blowing the blues away. Every day is, by God’s grace, my day.

But with every privilege comes responsibility. Every day is not my day in some selfish way. Every day is, by grace, my day to serve the Giver of that grace and serve the people He has put into my life with that same grace. Dare I never forget that I have a father and a mother (who, in my case, are frighteningly frail), that I am a father and that I am married to a mother.

Dare a day pass that I don’t remember it responsibly and serve them joyfully. In this sense I say that every day is Fathers’ Day. And certainly, because of this, we rightly celebrate it on a special day.

In the movie Parenthood, the father and grandfather (played by Jason Robards) is seeking one of his sons’ (played by Steve Martin), advice about his other adult son. The latter boy, well into his thirties, has racked up substantial gambling debts and is hitting on his almost retired Dad for financial help.

When the ‘good’ son asks his father what he will do, he responds by saying he will help him because he is his son and then says of parenting, “It’s never over. There’s no finishing line. He’s my son. He’ll always be my son.”

That’s why every day is Parent’s Day and that’s why we should make a massive thing of Mothers’ Day.

And there’s another reason. In the aid and development space that I now work in, I have noticed, in a more pronounced way than ever before, the courage of so many mothers and the cowardice of too many fathers.

I’m not suggesting this is a first world/third world thing, nor do I want to make an overgeneralisation.

Tragically, across the world, too many men leave and too many more leave without leaving. With book titles like Fatherless America and syndromes like AFS (Absent Father Syndrome) we are left in no doubt that this is a universal problem.

Throughout the world, it is mostly the male who drinks and/or gambles away the grocery budget. In parts of the third world, when the budget is less than seven dollars a week, survival strategies become more desperate.

Most aid and development agencies will testify that it is the women in extremely poor communities who stand up to be counted. They are taking the lead in forming savings groups, receiving micro-loans and starting small income generating activities.

When a child with a major health issue is born into a family it is all too often the mother who is left holding the baby and shouldering the future alone.

Make A Mothers’ Day is a joint project between MU Sydney and Anglican Aid to help mothers, woman and girls to break the cycle of poverty and abuse in developing countries.

Spoil your mother this Mothers’ Day with something special to eat, wear, listen to, spray on, lather up, rub in and wipe off. Augment your gift with a Make a Mothers’ Day card available from many local churches, the MU shop or the Anglican Aid office.

Or make a tax-deductible donation through Anglican Aid to help women and girls escape the abuse of the sex industry in the Philippines, or to help mums (and dads) care for their disabled children in India.

My wife, mother of three and grandmother of eight, was about to drive out of our carport with our two oldest grandchildren safely strapped and buckled into the back seats.

Out of the corner of her eye Helen noticed the tap under the house was dripping. So she yanked on the handbrake, jumped out of the car and tried unsuccessfully to turn the tap off.

Undefeated, she saw an axe leaning against the nearby woodpile, grabbed it and gave the tap a couple of seismic thumps with the flat back of the axe-head.

This manoeuvre improved the situation significantly so she jumped back into the car, turned to the wide-eyed grandkids and said,

That’s what you call Girl Power.

Campbell, aged seven, responded to this over-confidence by saying that the tap was still dripping slightly and why didn’t Grandma put the green bucket that was next to the tap underneath it to catch the drip.

Helen swallowed her girl power pride, jumped out of the car again and positioned the bucket under the drip.

Finally, back the driver’s seat, Grandma turned her head to reverse down the driveway. Without missing a beat, Campbell caught her eye and said,

That’s what you call Boy Brains.

This Mothers’ Day as we celebrate good old fashioned girl power and perseverance, let’s pray for more boys with boy brains, and a few more boys beyond that, with girl guts.