Confessions of a Former Mother's Day Hater

If you're a mom, or if you know a mom, want to be a mom, have a mom, or know how to spell "mom," do not Google "I hate Mother's Day."

The results are devastating. All 38,700,000 of them. I read a few blogs and some of them are pretty funny, poking fun at burned-toast-and-runny-eggs breakfasts in bed, wearing those dreadful carnations at church, or having your three-year old stuff ant-laden flowers into your hair. Those are the sort of playful haters, if that's a thing. They might really just need a good night's sleep and a long shower (alone), because if they have to wade through spit up stains and goldfish crumbles for one more second they might explode.

Other "I hate Mother's Day" posts are sad, sadder, and saddest, recalling broken relationship after broken relationship between every possible combination of grandmothers, mothers, and children in tones either bittersweet or with downright vengeance. I wish I was totally unable to connect with any of those stories.

It's not always pretty out there.

I have been a mom for 18 years, and about three years ago, my impossibly wise oldest daughter saved me from the Mother's Day Haters Club.

On my first Mother's Day, I decided I would send Mother's Day cards to all the mothers on both my husband's and my side. I counted up all the moms, a step-mom, grandmothers and step-grandmothers, and wound up with a whopping ELEVEN moms and grandmothers:
my mom
my grandmothers -2
my daughter's godmother
his mom
his step-mom
his grandmothers -2
his step-grandmothers -3

I didn't know it at the time, but I was setting up an impossible precedent for myself. I did it anyway, because
I wanted to LOVE the wonderful day that is Mother's Day. 

And I wanted it to show.

I was so thrilled on my first Mother's Day that I truly felt called to celebrate every mother-figure that ever impacted our lives. Eventually, that yellow list would shorten a little at a time. Some sort of naturally fell off the list if there was not much relationship to begin with. In other cases, there would be a massive falling out and our relationships were lost as a consequence of purportedly irreconcilable differences between the person and someone else in our family. Like I said, I wish I couldn't relate to losing a relationship. After a couple of years, the list was shortened to:
my mom
my grandmother- 2 1
my daughter's godmother   (She just really didn't expect a card or gift, This was totally ok to let go of.)
his mom
his step-mom
his grandmothers -2
his step-grandmother- 3 1

Now, it should be noted that during our first couple years, we always went to brunch with my husband's mom, usually one of his grandmothers and one of his step-grandmothers, so that meant small gifts/cards for all of them, plus making sure that I stopped by and dropped off cards/flowers/little gifts for my mom and grandma, AND sent cards to the others on the pink list. And no, it never occurred to me to have my husband take care of his side and I would do mine; I did it all and he just signed his name. It just never occurred to me to NOT try and control it all.

Are you exhausted yet? I was, but I just kept it up anyway. See how in control and organized I am? SEEE??

We did this for a few years, until we moved out of state. We had three Mother's Days with just my little family. I didn't know how good I had it there. My two kids were still little, so I never expected much, and their dad was always good about helping the kids do some cute little things. There were cards to ship and that was okay, but there was less running around to do.

When we moved back to our home state, we picked right back up with the brunch tradition. But now we had three kids. Each year, I would start to stress out completely about trying to make it "fair" for all the mothers and grandmothers try to coordinate it so that each mom/grandma had some special recognition from us, and I would shake myself into a little corner just thinking about it. In the beginning of May I would start to fret about coordinating it all, and my husband would wish I could just chill out about it all, but year after year I still juggled the brunch, three kids, church, gifts, cards, flowers and "stopping by's" for:
my mom
my grandmother
his mom
his step-mom
his grandmother
his step-grandmother

 I hated Mother's Day. I hated the very idea. I hated the juggling. I HATED it.

And it showed.

About three years ago, on my 14th Mother's Day, this time with four kids, we went to a very early Sunday Mass, then to my husband's step-grandmother's church for an early brunch, then to a later brunch with his mom and his expanding side of the family. We sent our usual cards and flowers out of town, probably late. I didn't acknowledge it, but I was an impossible stressed out train wreck. I don't know what I was trying to prove by keeping that kind of schedule; I was just trying to be agreeable to each invitation we'd gotten. Our day started at 7am and we didn't get home from all this "celebrating" until after 3pm. I had been already exhausted and a wreck at the second brunch, and my nervous behavior ended up further straining relationships that were already in precarious places. I was a disaster by the time we got home.

In the late afternoon, my 14-year old daughter looked at me and said something like this: "Ok. We spent all day doing what other family members planned for their Mothers' Days. When does it get to be YOUR Mother's Day? When do WE get to plan something nice for YOU?"

It hit me like a ton of bricks. My kids were old enough to have their own list, and in their world, their list looked like this:
their mom (me)

I had spent years and years and years, robbing my kids of the peace of knowing that they had the time and space to do something nice for me on Mother's Day. And now my oldest was 14, and the years with all of us under one roof all the time were quickly speeding by. I had very little time to change things around.

But I did.

I would never have wanted to stop visiting my mom or his mom, etc., but I just hadn't seen how my focus was so heavily centered on them and all the grandmothers on my lists that my own kids felt like I was practically forcing them to ignore me for much of Mother's Day, year after year. 

We haven't been to a single brunch since. And guess what? The extended families seem okay with it. I had to say stuff that was VERY uncomfortable for me when we were first declining invitations, but my husband was there to soften the changes. He was thrilled at the idea of having a wife who wouldn't be shaking herself to death with the stress of making things "fair," so he's been great at making sure to find other ways and times to celebrate the very worthy mothers on his side.We split up a little now to do lunches with our respective sides BEFORE Sunday, and still make sure to send flowers and cards to the non-local moms/grandmas.

Now, my list is much shorter. Some of our grandmothers have passed away and we have unfortunately lost touch with another, so it looks like this:
my mom
his mom
his step-mom 

My husband and his siblings took their mom to lunch a couple of days ago, and we sent along a card and small gift; one of my sisters and I and some of our kids went to a great place for lunch with our mom today, and we sent flowers to his step-mom.

I totally LOVE Mother's Day again.

It shows... to my kids for sure. It's not nearly as important that "it shows" to anyone else anyway.

My last three Mother's Days have been absolutely fabulous. My hubby and four kids shop and cook for meals at home, or sometimes we go out to a meal, just the six of us, and we just chill. We go to a late Mass. I don't do laundry or cook, and if they serve me burned toast and runny eggs, I am genuinely happy about it. I read or crochet and they plant flowers. We don't do any running around. We spend the whole day just being together without any stress and it. is. amazing. 

I only wish I had thought of it sooner. ;)