In the pantheon of lame annual days of celebration, Mother’s Day is right alongside Father’s Day, Festivus, Talk Like a Pirate Day, and Love Day (which was made famous by The Simpsons).
Let’s face it, if it weren’t for the marketing departments of Hallmark, the Chrysanthemum Growers Association, Breville and whoever puts together Human Nature’s Mother’s Day albums, Mother’s Day would never have gotten off the ground.
That is my firm an unwavering view. Or, it was my firm and unwavering view up until I became a mother.
My husband Chris has heard about my objections to Mother’s Day every year since we’ve met. It was a commercial conspiracy to sell pink stuff. And anyway, why did we have just one day to show our mothers how much we appreciate them? Shouldn’t we be doing that every day of the year?
Who could blame him when last year my first Mother’s Day came and went without so much as a flower or a bag of bath salts? I could! That’s who.
I don’t care what I said all those years before, had he not noticed the 14 hours of labour and emergency C-section I had endured to become a mother? No?
Well, what about the buckets of tears I cried trying to establish breastfeeding, or the truck tyres under my eyes from not having slept for more than a couple of hours in a row for almost a year? How about the mushy food and vomit in my hair and all over my clothes?
I had never worked so hard in my life and I was quite sure that I had never been more deserving of something pink, fluffy, smelly and tacky.
Having struggled with infertility I felt fortunate beyond words to be a mother, but I was still grieving from the inevitable sacrifices that motherhood brings. I was missing my autonomy, my sleep, my body and adult conversation. I wanted to be recognised for all that I had given up.
Damn it, I wanted a Mother’s Day present. And a good one too; not a vegetable peeler or a household appliance or anything else to remind me of how much my life had changed. I wanted something for me — something that said in large capital letters ‘I CAN SEE WHAT A GREAT JOB YOU’RE DOING AND I LOVE YOU FOR IT. OH, AND BY THE WAY, WOULD YOU LIKE A BACK RUB?’
Poor Chris was baffled when I told him as much last Mother’s Day. He had logically assumed that because I had never believed in Mother’s Day when I wasn’t a mother, that I would feel the same when I was.
I’ve since realised that Mother’s Day isn’t logical. It’s emotional. And I am not alone.
In the week that followed Mother’s Day last year, I heard from countless new mothers who felt the same as I did. Like me, they too had scorned Mother’s Day as a commercial conspiracy to push more pink products. Yet, they were hurt and offended that their partners had not appropriately recognised their mothering efforts.
In fact, every mother in my mothers’ group was disappointed that her partner had listened attentively to her anti-Mother’s Day speech and had reached the entirely reasonable — and completely wrong — conclusion that she didn’t care for Mother’s Day. And nobody was more surprised at their change of heart than they were.
Let this be a word of warning to the first-time fathers. When the mother of your child says something like ‘It’s not important’ or, ‘It’s not really my thing’, this means ‘I expect some recognition for the past year, and I’m going to be unimpressed if you don’t get me something’.
As we head towards this Sunday, you’ll be wise to disregard anything she said before she gave birth; Mother’s Day will be important to her. No matter how gorgeous your baby is, it is not capable of acknowledging the hard work and sacrifices it’s mother has made. That’s your job.
Kasey Edwards is the author of Thirty-Something and The Clock is Ticking.
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