Mother's Day 2026: Exhaustion, Remembered/Current, Along with Those Who Opted Out

One of the blessings of being a tarot-reader is that we acquire insider access to the human heart and mind. And with Mother's Day coming up it's overdue that I share what I'm observing.

Essentially, as expected, there are extreme generational differences in how women reflect on being mothers. Or having opted-out.

Boomers tend to just be grateful they and their offspring have made it this far. The memory of exhaustion is all too common. Most caved to the pressure of marrying young and bearing children before investing enough in a career. They realize they paid heavily in terms of sacrificing earning power and where they wound up on the totem pole. Most wound up having to go to work. 

For mothers in midlife there tends to be resentment about, in addition to having a family, there was pressure to be all they could be. Not a girlboss? Why not. Meanwhile, there was the brutal reality of their salary or income from their enterprise being necessary to pay the bills. Exhaustion isn't a memory. It's daily. Gone is any apology for not making sourdough bread from scratch. Dinner? Can they afford to do a send-out again?

Then there are the younger mothers Emma Green talks about in The New Yorker article "By Her Lights and Emma Waters in her book "Lead Like Jael." They're the generation putting together the remix of sourdough and girlboss. And, they're the ones I encounter at the evangelical Calvary Church in Maumee, Ohio. The movement might have peaked but the church is growing rapidly.

Slim, confident, perky those young mothers have a spring in their step as they enter the service with an infant and a husband holding on to toddlers. No, they don't contact tarot-readers. There's plenty of support in the Christian community. But, if that remix doesn't gel, will they unleash another version of feminism?

The younger mothers who do use my services typically are in overwhelm. Beyond exhaustion. Unmarried or newly divorced, with no choice but to have income coming in from work. Will those jobs be there on Monday? They want my interpretation of the energy in their workplaces. 

Given this fretful state of being, they also keep asking me how their children are doing. They believe in motherhood and have no regret about taking on that role. Simultaneously, there's a dark overhang in this subculture that their offspring are jinxed. The sense of danger heading their way is palpable. To counteract some of that floating anxiety we focus on how they can boost their job security and earning power by certifications.  

In addition, there are those who opted out of motherhood. They span all generations, from the Boomer era in which they were shamed to the current one which salutes them for being "smart." Their tarot sessions are focused on relationships, romantic and family of origin. About the latter, many are still dealing with early trauma. 

So another Mothers's Day will come and it will go. With fertility rates declining no longer will this be a universal holiday for women. Recently, the birth rate per 1,000 females dropped to 53.1 from 53.8 in 2024. Without children you can do both, without exhaustion: Make sourdough and be a girlboss. But that also leaves the time to think a lot. For example, Hamlet-like they reflect to be or not to be hyper-ambitious.  

Path to success, your tribe and peace is inside job.

Let’s start the journey together with a Tarot reading.

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Jane Genova, 3^rd Generation Psychic 203-468-8579, jangenova374@gmail.com