Mother’s day began with only the best intentions. But, let’s face it, it can be a really rough day for moms, even if they get the day off from dishes and laundry. Here’s why
1. Make one day of the year that special day we all remember our mothers, and it’s okay to forget them the other 364 days. (And bonus on leap years!)
2. No matter how hard you try to keep your expectations low, your children still act like they do every other day of the year—disobeying, fighting, crying and sloughing off. Even though it’s your “special day.” (Is it just that they don’t care, or do they actually hate you? Maybe their therapists know.)
3. Everyone shares stories about the most wonderful mother in the history of creation (usually theirs), reminding us once again that we SOOO are not that. Even though it’ll probably be our kids saying those same things in 20 years.
4. Major takehome of Mother’s day: whatever the heck it is moms do all day/year long, it’s roughly equivalent to the value of a bouquet, a card, and one day off a year. Or half a day.
5. An alarming percentage of women who are now mothers have “an issue” with their own mothers. I don’t really get this one, but whenever I did a group writing project about mothers, I had people tell me they couldn’t participate because of this. And, thus, celebrating motherhood is bad.
6. The perceived emotional negativity of every little argument with you is enhanced approximately 10,000% because it’s the one and only day of the year they’re supposed to be thinking of you.
7. Our four-year-olds with the I-can’ts will doubtlessly refuse to join in singing one measly little not-even-very-mother-oriented song in church. Even though we completely expected this, and spent the whole week trying to encourage and prepare him, it will still hurt. Of course, it hurts a lot worse when the second the song is over, he throws a tantrum because he wants to go on the stand (to sit with his dad, best of all). And it’s even better when he smacks his sister with a book 10 minutes later and you have to drag two crying children out of the chapel again. But then you just have to laugh. Because Mother’s day sucks.
8. Inevitably, some well-meaning person (usually a man) suggests we should do this every day. No. Please.
Um… no personal experience in there or anything.
Had a disappointing—or hilarious—Mother’s day? Share—because sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying.
Photo by Chris A
9 replies on “8 Reasons Why Moms Hate Mother’s Day”
Thanks for keeping it real! 🙂
aw, I’m sorry it was such a disappointing day. Honestly, mine was too. Just because–like you said–I had all these expectations of it being special but Gwen still threw her tantrums. Yours sounds worse, though, so I’ll not try to trump your experiences. I will tell ya what I decided last night as I was going to bed gloomy, though. I thought, well, if I am happy every day, normal days, just doing the routine… why should I be unhappy that a so-called “special” day just turned out like a ‘normal’ day? Those days are good enough then, why not now? I guess I decided that I am already happy and I could be okay with not having anything special. And I suppose I will try really hard next year not to have special anticipations, bc hey, kids don’t get it and treat the day (and you) like a normal day. So I’ll just take my obligatory chocolate in church and consider it a bonus not a ‘right’. 🙂
@Elisa—It was a fine day, really, other than Sacrament meeting (and hey, that’s fairly typical. It’s been worse!). And the fact that I didn’t get the one thing I really wanted yesterday: a nap.
And yeah, our kids really are too young to get it. Hayden could repeat the fact that it was Mother’s day, and a special day for moms, but not what that means. (And even when they are old enough, it still happens! Just ask my mom about Mother’s day when my sisters and I were teenagers.)
And I did get some fabulous prizes. I mean gifts 😉 .
Hey I’ll take an excuse to have my hubby do the dishes and change all the dirty diapers guilt free any day. I do try to keep my expectations low on Mother’s Day though. I sure enjoyed the presents that my 4 year old made me though. They were so adorable. I see the point in a lot of your reasons, but I still would have to say I enjoy Mother’s Day. 🙂
LOL, I’m already spoiled—Ryan does the dishes all year long. Diapers, though…
I do enjoy Mother’s Day–I know I have plenty of flaws as a mother, but I still like a day when your kid gives you a little vase they painted in school or a cute card or chocolate or something. Plus my husband makes great dinners.
I think we’d do very well to replace the “reminiscing about my perfect mother” talks in Sacrament meeting (which probably involve a lot of false memory syndrome)with solid doctrinal talks on motherhood, a la Sheri Dew or Julie Beck–talks that teach, inspire, and uplift instead of making mothers feel like they don’t measure up.
When they were talking about our “nice mothers” in Primary, my sister’s three-year-old piped up, “My mother isn’t nice! She’s mean!” He was probably still ticked off about getting in trouble for acting up in Sacrament Meeting (and probably chronically ticked off about the fact that he has three-month-old twin siblings). Needless to say, that wasn’t her favorite Mother’s Day moment.
@Stephanie—Love your sister’s story! And I should post what my little boy made for me.
I agree on the Sacrament meeting talks. (Sadly, I’m not really sure what my friends spoke about this year.) I’ve actually given three or four Mother’s day talks. I don’t remember the ones I gave as a teenager (though I do remember my mother helping me write them, LOL), but a couple years ago I spoke about how we can’t be perfect mothers any more than we can be perfect people, and it’s only through Christ’s atonement that we can hope to do a good job as mothers. I put it up here: http://www.mamablogga.com/happy-mothers-day/
Honestly I never look forward to Mother’s day. My first Mother’s day my hubby asked what I’d like. I said all I wanted was the house to be clean. After having a baby in March, the house was in need of some tlc. Instead I wake up and stay up with the baby all night, so when hubby gets up and leaves me with the baby so he can go bike riding, I’m upset. I start cleaning, the vacume cleaner literally catches on fire, I take trash out, get stung twice (to which I am allergic to) And when I run back inside, all of the pictures on the mantle fall off and break so now I’m nursing an allergic reaction and picking up glass before the baby wakes up. So when dear hubby gets home, I’m a wreck and crying and he couldn’t understand why. He simply told me “but I left you alone like you asked.”….Every year since for the past four years has followed borderline disaster. So no, I do not enjoy Mother’s day.
@Sarah—That’s terrible!! Ugh—no wonder you hate it!