I am not all about the taking me or my mom out to dinner or expecting expensive jewelry or flowers. I send my Grandmothers and my mother cards from me and then one from the kids. I also made some handmade garden stepping stones the kids made and we gave those to my mom and Grandmother a couple weeks ago as an early Mother's Day present. They really liked them. Gave some to my Father too as an early Father's Day present. I will send him a card from me and one from the kids too for Father's Day.
So that is all I do. Then my hubby will take the kids out this afternoon I believe to pick me out some earrings from Old Navy (love their jewerly!) and maybe have them make me a card or buy me one. Then on the actual day I try to sleep in and DH will make me breakfast in bed and let the kids help and bring it to me. That is about all we do. We might go to church. Our church actually does not make a big deal out of Mother's Day though. Which I can get behind. Because it can be a painful day for some people who have lost their mother or who are going through infertility or are estranged from their mother, etc. I think they just have the mothers stand up and get applauded and then they go on with the regular sermon. So you could just come in a bit late and avoid that if you wanted.
I hate going to restaurants when they are crowded so definitely no going out on Mother's Day for brunch or whatever. I would adamantly refuse to haul around to visit all the mothers too. The kids have fun picking me out a present and bringing me breakfast in bed so we mostly do it for them.
-- Edited by Balloon Animal on Wednesday 7th of May 2014 10:01:29 AM
42, I am totally in your camp! In fact, I used to start annual "I hate Mother's Day" threads. There are plenty of us around. Some hate it for the Hallmark occasion reason. Others no longer have their mom and it makes them sad.
My reason for hating MD is two-fold. First, my mom has been gone since 1998 but I still feel the guilt of MD's that I didn't honor her enough. Secondly, I have a history of being totally ignored on MD. By everyone. One particularly miserable day of no-one even saying "happy Mother's day" I had to stop at the grocery store and some random guy in the parking lot called out, "Happy Mother's Day!" to me and it was all I could do to not run over and hug the man. Pathetic, isn't it? My very first MD as a mom we were at my in-law's and not.one.person made any mention of the occasion. I've had a few good ones over the years but for the most part, this is the one day of the year I am most likely to commit a heinous crime against a loved one.
Kinalikamom: have you tried just setting it up for your family? My husband sucks with remembering dates and doing stuff like that and my kids are too young to do it alone. So I take the steps to make it happen. I tell DH to take the kids and buy me something. I tell him where to go and what in general to direct the kids to pick out. I tell him to have them help make me breakfast in bed and make sure the ingredients for that are in the fridge and cupboards easy to find.
I know that kinda defeats the purpose of the whole they should do stuff for me without me having to make it happen, but again, I accept that is how it is and I am okay setting it up.
BA, my children are grown and out of the house. They are pretty good about remembering to call and/or send a card now. But the distaste was sown long ago and no, there is absolutely no way I am going to orchestrate an occasion in my honor.
This is probably the one thing in my life that I am bitter about. Perhaps some day I will let it go. To be fair to myself, no one in my family knows the depths of my feelings and I doubt I will ever air my grievance since I can see no good it doing so.
I am sorry it has to be that way then. I am the type of person that I will tell you point blank what I expect and want and people know well enough to follow suit.
If I did not spell it out for DH, it would not happen. I forsee in the future even calling up my kids when they are grown about a week in advance and reminding them to buy me a card and send it. If I have to, I will. That is just how I roll. That way the blame is 100% on them if they disappoint me because I spelled it out for them and made it easy for them.
No because I think it is a stupid holiday and people make such a big deal out of being a mother and I really don't think it is a big deal. I know for some women it is a huge part if their life and part of their identity were I think meh NBD.
42, I totally understand that. Kinda like to me high school graduation was no big deal because it was not hard for me to pass high school. I barely studied and still made honor roll. I also was not super involved in high school and did not have a lot of friends at the school, etc. So to me I was like "Whatever high school graduation yeah......that's cool." While some people make a HUGE deal out of it and send out invites and announcements and pay tons for pictures and blah blah blah. I can see if they were super involved at school and had tons of friends or had to bust their butts to pass why it might be a much bigger deal to them than it was to me.
As long as you get why to some mothers it is a big deal and don't look down on them for that. I certainly don't look down on people that thought high school graduation was like the end all be all. I just could not make myself feel that way about it. I actually did not care that much for college graduation either. I almost did not attend either. I had to really try to make myself care. But, again I realize its a big deal to some people and I won't knock that.
At least be grateful 42 that you were able to become a mother when many others cannot and that you have healthy smart loving children which again many others do not. Maybe you could look at it more as a day of being thankful for what you have and less about thinking you need to be worshiped and then you might find you can enjoy it a bit more.
I do not put any hallmart perfect expectations on holidays. Because I learned a long time ago, that is not at least my reality and never will be. But I still try to get into the spirit a bit and participate in the holiday in some fashion. So we do the little things I talked about above, but I am not one of those people who will fake a heart attack because my grown children don't visit me on mother's day. As long as I get a card and maybe a phone call, I would be happy barring that they visit me other times. Then that particular day does not matter that I get a visit.
-- Edited by Balloon Animal on Thursday 8th of May 2014 12:18:39 PM
-- Edited by Balloon Animal on Thursday 8th of May 2014 12:19:17 PM
I think Mother's Day is important and valuable because raising children (not just making them), is very important, and yet was in many ways "invisible", like so much of "women's work" throughout history.
Another reason I think Mother's Day (and Father's Day) are important is that holidays have become very kid-centric, and I think it's really good to have a day that is all about kids celebrating others.
Mother's Day is a hard one for me because I have no children. We didn't really plan on not having children, it was something we thought we'd get to one day, but life got in the way. My husband isn't in the best health and we've always struggled financially. So I guess I was kind of waiting until we could afford kids which really never happens right? Then I got sick in 2006 and I had to take medicine that causes birth defects and so we just decided we'd missed out on the kids boat.
Most of the time I'm OK with it but sometimes I do regret not having kids. Mother's Day is one of those days because everyone assumes you are a mother and wishes you a happy Mother's Day.
BA your comparison to high school is a good analogy. Even better would be middle school graduation.
funny you should say that because I skipped my elementary and middle school graduation. Did not even show up. The teachers were surprised I did not show up but I had something better to do involving an after school thing that conflicted and the other thing was more important to me.
Now just popping out a kid is not a huge feat. Being a good extraordinary mother however is something I think is okay to consider an accomplishment and be proud of. So some crackhead mom probably does not deserve accolades just for being a mom but a mom that goes above and beyond and gives her kids a really nice life and raises them to be good people does deserve to be celebrated.
