A Mother's Day Wish
Apparently, according to the Internet, the mothers are not okay.
I’m talking about the cis hetero mothers here, the ones who paired themselves with the cis hetero dad types. I’m not talking about the lesbian, non-binary or trans parents because I always assume you and your partner figured things out faster than the rest of us. You’re probably reading this from some beach on the coastline of Greece wearing matching linen outfits, drinking a passionfruit mimosa because your partner thought of Mother’s Day nine months in advance.
I’m also not talking about the single mothers. Single mothers: This paragraph is for you. I was raised by a single mom. I recognize now how hard she worked with very little support, and every day I think about how I should have given her the world. Instead she got my bad art projects and that one crooked shelf that I made in 8th grade and that time I tried to do the dishes but ended up flooding the kitchen because I forgot to turn the faucet off when I got a phone call from a friend. I know your life is full of challenges. I see you and respect you. Happy Mother’s Day, Queen.
Okay, now I’m talking about the other mothers.
Which isn’t to say, the women are not okay. The women are fine. The mothers are not. We were okay, but then we partnered up and had children and were consigned to a lifetime of making umpteen billion decisions for other people while everyone else in our life is just along for the ride because the mothers get to do all the thinking for everyone now. It’s exhausting.
Which is why on Mother’s Day, the best gift you can give a momma is to do the thinking for her.
At least that’s what I gather from reading the Internet the past few days. Everywhere I turn, influencers and mom’s groups and social media pages are talking about how tiring it is to be a mom these days and how the only thing they want on Mother’s Day is to not have to decide a dang thing.
Just take a look at this viral post by Jen Hatmaker:
“Here is what we want to do about Mother's Day: ZERO PERCENT OF 100 PERCENT OF IT. We want you to Olivia Pope us by Wednesday: "It's handled." We want to wake up like precious princesses on Sunday to *waves hand around* whatever it is you have done. All the gifts are bought. You know why? It's YOUR mom, bruh! She gave you life! We just married you or whatever you are to us. We have our own moms to thank for creating such perfect, gorgeous women. Handle it. Don't ask us any questions about it. You're grown and have access to Amazon Prime.”
If my husband had asked me what I wanted to do for Mother’s Day the answer would be simple: I want to work in the garden but I also want to lay around in bed all day and let my mind escape into TikTok for hours. And I want to do a family photoshoot, but I also just want to take photos of just my kids, plus I want to go shopping by myself but also with my closest girlfriends, and speaking of them, I want a mini-mom vacation sans kids, but I also want to spend all day with my kids showering them with love and receiving homemade gifts, but could I have breakfast in bed. But nothing that my kids have made, they are crap cooks. I want to stay home all day but I also want to go to Disneyland, but like, as a surprise, but also don’t surprise me, I hate surprises plus you wouldn’t know what to pack for me.
What we actually want is for the fathers or the dads or the whatevers to take make sense of all of that mess in our brains and do SOMETHING. Wanna buy us that kitschy Mother’s Day jewelry from Kay Jewelers? Go for it. Wanna make us breakfast in bed? Awesome. Wanna help our kids construct a little card and write a note with their tiny little fingers? TREASURE. Wanna take us to get a manicure. Dude, do it.
I promise there is no wrong answer, other than, “What do you want to do for Mother’s Day?”
