New York moms just want time to breathe this Mother’s Day
Mother’s Day brunch at a fancy restaurant is off the table this year, but there’s still no better time to cater to mom.
Her round-the-clock role as caregiver and confidante has expanded in so many ways during the coronavirus pandemic.
Many mothers are pulling double and triple duty caring for kids, juggling jobs, homeschooling, navigating financial hardship and acting as unofficial family doctor at time with unprecedented health concerns.
We checked in with several super moms around the city to see what they had planned for their big day and what they really want this year.
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For Brooklyn firefighter and mother of five Kinga Mielnik, Sunday will be a special Mother’s Day because, a few weeks ago, her life was touch and go. It wasn’t clear she would be alive to celebrate with her husband and boys.
Just last month, Mielnik, 41, was lying in a hospital bed at Bellevue Hospital, suffering from COVID-19 and fighting for her life.
"I’m still recovering,” the 20-year FDNY veteran stationed at Engine Company 282 in Borough Park said. “But I try not to make it a big deal. If I had thoughts about dying, I knew that my kids would have been fine. I just feel blessed I have more time to be able to love them and watch them grow up.”
Mielnik hasn't been cleared to go back to duty yet, so she happily spends each day with her husband Pawel and her her boys Patryk, 11, Gabriel, 9, Adrian, 7, Krystian, 5, and 2-year-old Eryk.
“I’m sure they’re going to get me cards and (I’ll) get a ‘Happy Mothers Day’ from them,” she said. “Hopefully it will be a sunny day and (we’ll) be able to go outside.”
One thing she hopes to steer clear of on her special day is helping her kids with their remote learning schoolwork.
"That's driving me crazy," she joked. "I think I'm going to go back at work for a mental break."
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NYPD Police Officer Melissa Trance will be missing her two children when she goes to work Sunday, but she still has big plans to make it a Mother’s Day to remember.
The eight-year department veteran plans to act like everyone’s mother when she’s out enforcing social distancing in Midtown, making sure that everyone is keeping at least 6 feet apart and wearing their masks.
“That motherly touch really helps right about now,” said Trance, 34, a youth services officer who is now part of the NYPD COVID task force and will be hitting the streets in Manhattan.
When she sees someone without a mask, she almost automatically kicks into mother mode, and begins grilling them.
“I ask them ‘Why don’t you have a mask on?’ and then we give them masks,” she said. “We make sure that everyone is doing the right thing.”
Like any mom would do, she said.
Trance will miss her 9-year-old son Hollis and 11-month-old daughter Ryleigh, but hopes to get home in time on Sunday to Face Time with her own mother, who is in Florida, get a quick meal - and get a few well-deserved presents.
“It’s my first Mother’s Day with two children,” she joked. “I better get double flowers!”
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Brooklyn bus driver Letty Pringle, 33, will be on the job as well Sunday, and also hopes to spend some relaxing quality time with her 2 1/2-year-old son, Amir.
Pringle, who is stationed at the MTA’s Flatbush Depot in Brooklyn said she was out of work from April 13 to May 6 with a suspected case of COVID-19. She managed her symptoms at home and never got tested.
Now back to work, the Crown Heights mom said she typically wakes up at 4 a.m. and is at the depot by 5:30 a.m. each day. She usually drives the B44 route from Flatbush to south Williamsburg and is home at about 5 p.m. each day.
“I only have three hours to see (my son), play with him, then I gotta feed him, get him changed then it’s time to go to sleep and repeat the cycle," she said.
She hasn’t seen her mother, who is 68 and has high blood pressure and diabetes, since the pandemic locked the city down in March.
At least 109 MTA employees have died from COVID-19, all but three of whom worked in the subway and bus division. Pringle's family and friends worry she may pass the disease to them, either directly or through her son Amir.
“It’s been a struggle to find a baby-sitter with the daycares closed,” she said. Sometimes family members chip and watch the boy, when he’s not with his father.
“If I can’t find a baby-sitter I can’t come to work, that’s what they stuck us with. I was thinking to take a leave of absence because I can’t do it.”
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Long Island mom Jill Werblin, 46, said she just wants a breather from her dual role as middle school math teacher and home school principal to her two young daughters.
“To be honest, I really don’t have any specific plans for Mother’s Day — depends on the weather. All I know is that I don’t want to cook dinner, so we ordered Thai food,” she told The News.
If it’s nice out, the family will go to a local park or beach to enjoy the sunshine.
“Between teaching six 30-minute classes and doing work with my kids... I turn into supermom,” she said.
“It’s insane!" she said of the constant grind. “Some days, I start teaching at 8, and I’m not done with teaching/schoolwork/tutoring until 10 or 11 p.m.”
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Elmhurst retiree Edith Mack said she plans to bask in the attention from her three adult daughters and three grandchildren, ages 14, 18 and 25, albeit from a distance.
The 70-year-old former NYCHA employee said she’ll be alone, but she will still get dressed up to connect with her loved ones on Face Time.
“We usually go out to eat for Mother’s Day. They come over and we celebrate. I have gifts, they have gifts. Today, we already talked, they’re not coming down," she said.
“I’m not comfortable. I can’t come together in a group yet, I’m not ready to gather more than 10 people, you know? So I won’t do anything, but just thank God for that day, that I lived to see that day,” she said.
“I just need for everyone to be safe, my family’s safe, I’m safe. Listen, I can see you over the phone. I just thank God for every day," she said.
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Amber Morris will spend her special day with her two older children and 16-month-old foster daughter as she pays tribute to her own mom who passed away six years ago.
She said the lockdown has been “brutal” without her community of friends and church members to help with childcare.
“I’m not one to want the limelight or to celebrate myself but this year I’m going to celebrate hard because we have to get the celebrations in where we can right now," Morris, 36, told The News.
“My mom was super wild and immature at times, and I find so much joy in acting like her when I want to celebrate her,” she explained. "I feel like I can hear my mom saying, ‘You need to party hard with those children and celebrate with them.' I feel pride in being their mom and being a foster mom, and so I’m going to celebrate that.”
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Brooklyn mom Anna Marchuk, 40, said this year’s Mother’s Day will be “extra special” because she’ll gather three generations of matriarchs for a family meal.
She plans to cook at home with her own mom and spend time with mother-in-law and her children’s great-grandmother.
"I will spend Mother’s Day at home with (my mom), not going anywhere, cooking, just being with the family,” Marchuk said.
“Typically, we would go out somewhere, we would go to a store, shopping. Now, we’ll just spend it at home, just quality time together and that’s it. That’s the difference," she said.
“It will be just a more meaningful Mother’s Day this year,” Marchuk said.
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Liza Porter, a seventh-grade math teacher at Public School 99 in Brooklyn, hopes to take a break from her packed schedule home schooling her two young children, including one with autism, while continuing to teach her own students.
“I have two kids with super busy schedules, so we’re now their assistants,” planning Zoom appointments with teachers and helping them map out their school assignments, she said.
“There’s very few boundaries anymore," Porter, 36, said.
She worries sometimes that her seventh-grade students are getting short shrift.
“I’m never feeling like I’m doing enough for them because I have to give so much to my own kids," she said.
To celebrate this year, her family plans to order takeout brunch from a DUMBO restaurant and “just enjoy being a mom and not a teacher for the day.”
“My son did a Mother’s Day card with his class, but I had to sit there and make him do it. I’m helping him make my own card," she laughed.
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Yasmina Garcia, a nurse at Mount Sinai West hospital in Manhattan said she’ll be pulling a 12-hour shift on Sunday instead of enjoying her usual family barbecue.
At least she’ll get to enjoy a potluck with her coworkers, Garcia, 53, said. The group has bonded more than ever during the pandemic.
“It was like an emotional tidal wave roller coaster coming all at once,” she said of the onslaught.
Now, it’s slowed down, but that has brought with it a different kind of worry.
“It’s been the quiet after the storm – or before the second wave is coming,” she explained. “It’s that strange quietness we’re not used to which kind of makes us nervous.”
She said her husband is an Emergency Medical Technician and her son is a firefighter. With so many family members on the front line, they decided to keep things low-key this year.
“I’m so scared of getting my family sick,” Garcia said.
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Toiyia Rudolph and her two sons will be thinking Sunday about their big move from a homeless shelter in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, to their own apartment in Far Rockaway, Queens.
“We just can’t wait,” the 43-year-old mom said, adding that the appointment to sign their new lease was scheduled for Tuesday.
Rudolph said her son Khalil is set to graduate high school, and she’s heartsick over the fact he won’t get a proper graduation ceremony.
“The hardest part is seeing him complete the assignments and not getting to see him graduate," she said. "It’s depressing. He’s 18. He wants to go out with his friends.”
She also worries about her younger son Tahir, 8, and whether he’s getting enough stimulation.
“That part is very challenging. They want to go outside, but they can’t do that right now," she said.
She said usually her kids make her a meal for Mother’s Day, but this year she’s not sure what to expect.
“They’ve been very hush hush," she said.
She also has two daughters, 15 and 23, that she hasn’t been able to see since March because they don’t live with her. They keep in touch by video chat, but it's not the same, she said.
“We can’t interact the way we usually do,” she said. “It’s hard.”
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Diana Wilson, an FDNY Emergency Medical Technician, said she hasn’t seen her boys Javon, 15, and Devin, 11, in six weeks.
Her children are living with their father as she works 12-hour tour after 12-hour tour, answering coronavirus calls from EMS Station 54 in Springfield Gardens, Queens.
It was decided her children stay with their dad during the pandemic in case she contracted COVID-19 on the job.
“Right now it’s a little difficult going home to an empty house,” Wilson, 41, said. “But I Face Time with them as often as I can so that helps.”
“When I reach them, the first thing I ask them if they’re OK and they ask me, 'Mom, are you OK?” she said. “As long as I speak to them, I’m good.”
Wilson still plans to celebrate Mother’s Day with her fellow moms at work.
“I’m kind of the mom of the station, so I’ll probably come in and make breakfast for everyone,” she said. “We have a lot of strong ladies working at Station 54 and we try to support each other and make sure everyone is happy and has a smile on their face.”
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