The 'right' way to celebrate Mother's Day

Last Sunday was Mother’s Day in the U.K. Since it isn’t the same day as the U.S. holiday, it proved to be a sort of diluted version of Mother’s Day. Only about a third of my social circle (and inbox) mentioned it. And I found this quite beneficial.

I tend to brush off those emails that some vendors send in the weeks before Mother’s Day, allowing you to opt-out of Mother’s Day messages if you find them upsetting. I assume those are for people who are having trouble conceiving, or have lost a child or recently lost their mother. I suppose I don’t think I’ve suffered enough to be someone who can’t bear to acknowledge Mother’s Day.

But then the day arrives and I feel anxious for reasons I can’t explain. Mothers deserve a day to celebrate all they do. They deserve a lot more than a day. But I think in some ways the day was warped — for me — into a responsibility for children to make their mothers feel that their sacrifices are worthwhile.

My mother put a lot of value on Mother’s Day. Now I can see that it was important to her because she was a single mother with four children. It was a lot of work and sacrifice for her, and she didn’t have a husband to share the burden. To her, Mother’s Day was supposed to be the day she got all the appreciation she deserved.

Except we were kids. Our dad lived far away and didn’t take us to the mall to pick something out. He didn’t tell us it was Mother’s Day. While, in retrospect, I’m absolutely certain we did not show her enough appreciation, the fact is children are self-involved. I think my sisters and I thought our mother took care of us because it was her duty. I realize that sounds very callous, but I don’t think it’s unusual for kids to think that way. And it’s a hard fact of life that mothers endure that callousness for years, until their children grow up and realize all the sacrifices their parents made for them. Ideally, the kids are filled with appreciation, their parents forget the times they were taken for granted, and everyone moves ahead as a happy, evolved family. Ideally.

And I think most of the time this can be true. Even single mothers might rationalize that of course their kids are too young to know much more than to hand over the card they made in school. But others don’t, and might see their kids’ appreciation on the day as compensation for their sacrifices. This is a lot of burden for children to carry, and while I do believe it’s wrong to put this burden on kids, I don’t think it’s just the mother who does this. Since society often treats motherhood as some kind of majestic sacrifice, endured by women who inherently want to and know how to be moms, we set them up for failure and feelings of inadequacy. And for my mom, those feelings had to be fixed, by me, on Mother’s Day.

Mother’s Day in our house was celebrated correctly if an entire 24-hour period was dedicated to appreciating Mom. That meant no arguing with each other because that made her unhappy, giving her a gift, preparing her a special breakfast, cleaning the apartment, etc. In short, it was not about us in any way. If my sisters and I got it wrong, which we often did, life was pretty miserable for a long time. One year we entirely forgot it was Mother’s Day. The following year, a relative took us shopping the day before to make sure we adequately marked the day. Every year following, we nervously planned to wake up early and make our mother breakfast in bed, but in my memory, we overslept more than once. Waking up to the smell of frying bacon can be wonderful, until you realize it’s Mother’s Day and that bacon is part of the most passive aggressive breakfast that has ever been prepared.

One year, shortly after Mom cut off contact, my step-mother, paternal grandmother and aunts all decided to meet me and my sisters for a Mother’s Day brunch. It was all very relaxed and I was looking forward to it. But on Sunday morning, I slept through my alarm. When I woke up around the time of the brunch reservation, I looked at the clock and burst into tears. I was reliving my childhood fear while at the same time feeling a strange nostalgia for it.

Over the last eighteen years or so, I’ve gotten better at managing my anxiety around the day. I always send a note to my step-mother and my two sisters who are parents. Their jobs are hard and they do them remarkably well, and I think they deserve recognition for that.

Against any sane person’s better judgement, my step-mother married a man with four kids, and has two daughters of her own. She knows all our favorite meals, stuffs our Christmas stockings with personal little trinkets, and patiently listens to anything that begins, “don’t tell dad, but…”

Gina works more than anyone I know but somehow manages to be present for every single minor event in her two daughters’ lives while constantly thinking of ways to make them happier than they already are: over-the-top themed birthday party? favorite meal for dinner tonight? new outfit just because? matching mother-daughter manicures? check check check check.

Ness is a step-mother, too. To my knowledge she has never missed a baseball, football or basketball game (all those sports for one kid); packs what I would consider a fancy lunch every day and checks that it was eaten; reviews homework; and volunteers on the PTA.

Meanwhile I can barely stay on top of the laundry for two people. My nieces and nephew, and even my younger self, have no concept of the sacrifices these women make. So when I say they deserve recognition, I am sincere. But I haven’t been able to fully undo the damage of many Mother’s Days that demanded my appreciation.

This year, for U.K. Mother’s Day, my husband and I made plans with his family to meet for Sunday lunch. His mother is one of the most generous people I’ve ever met, and she welcomed me into the family from our very first meeting. I wanted her to have a nice Mother’s Day. So I must have reminded Chris half a dozen times about getting a Mother’s Day card. I could have bought one myself, of course, but I still feel a bit wary of any perception that I’m stealing his mother (my own personal paranoia). Besides, Chris is not a man who needs to be nagged. He keeps a drawer full of gift wrap, and at Christmas during Covid, he bought holiday Cadbury and left it at all our neighbors’ doors. Still, I was anxious until the card was in-hand. And on the day, I was gripped by fear that the card and lunch were not enough. Shouldn’t we give her something else? Chris shrugged.

He gives things — including his time — out of the kindness of his heart, and I think that’s because he’s never been ordered to give things and pretend it is out of the kindness of his heart.

We gave my mother-in-law a book by an author we both admire (The Dutch House by Ann Patchett). She was very grateful for the gift and the day, and gave everyone a long hug hello and goodbye. It seemed just our time together made her happy. Before we left the parking lot, my in-laws gave us a trunkload of plants for our backyard, several bars of chocolate, and a greenhouse for the tomatoes I’ve said I want to grow. It was Mother’s Day but it wasn’t only about thanking mothers. It was about kind gestures and time together.

I’m still getting used to that.