A Gift from My Mom

On this Mother's Day I find myself thinking about what my mother did for me. As you might suspect, she fed me, bathed, me comforted me, and all that. Further, she kept me alive through infantile pnemonia followed by asthma, the first seeing me in oxygen tents and the second making for midnight runs to the ER some forty minutes from home. All that aside, she taught me some valuable lessons. I think the most valuable meant to make me a good citizen with fulfilling relationships: you are not the center of the universe. 

My mother often pushed back against becoming a martyr to her children. There were nights she slept on my bedroom floor monitoring my breathing (asthma, see above) and plenty of times she went the extra mile to make a day special. Even still, she often refused to suffer in silence for our own stupidity or selfishishness, though she did often suffer or endure unnecessary burdens of her children, like last minute notices of needed school supplies. 

"I'm not your maid," seemed her favorite refrain. My mother cleaned with an uncommon fervor, but she didn't care for our laziness increasing the job. She chose to clean the refrigerator weekly and kitchen cabinet shelves at least once a month, but she balked at us making for more work by being too careless to put dirty dishes in the dishwasher. 

The exchange that sticks out in my mind comes from my first day of work. I came home from the farm tired and a little dusty. As I sat down on the step of our sunken living room she asked me to get up, shower, and put clean clothes on. I had no mud or oil on me and had been working since 7 AM that morning, so I wanted to rest: "I'm tired from work; just let me sit for a minute." Rather than a marytyr's sigh or infantilizing acquiescence she retorted, "And I've been working all day cleaning house, so go shower and change your cloths."

That moment captured my mother's philosophy for her children to learn: yes, you're tired (hurting, scared, or whatever) but so is everyone else; it's not an excuse. Further, from my mom we learned that we give for those we love, but we also have the right and duty to stick up for our limits. She taught us it's ok, even necessary, to tell people how you feel and what you need for your sake and the future of the relationship. Looking back that was a brave lesson but a good one. 

Maybe Don't Take Mom out for Mother's Day

I'm encouraging people to not take their mother out for lunch/brunch on mother's day. Of course, do what you want: maybe going out to that "one place" is really special to your mom and because it is such a drive, so expensive, or whatever, that going to "the place" is a special thing to her. Many times, I dare to opine, going out for Mother's Day is just the lazy way out.

What lucky mom wouldn't feel special?

I admit to not being a huge fan of restaurants and being more of an eat-at-home kind of guy (even as someone who does a considerable amount of cooking in my household, I would often rather eat in). Even still, Mother's Day seems like the time people just shrug their shoulders and say, "I guess I'll just take her some place for lunch." Based only on my own experience, it seems to me that restaurants are crazy busy on Mother's Day but less so on Father's Day? Do fewer people celebrate dads? Maybe. I would venture that also many times they (often read as moms) put on something at home for Dad, serving his favorite food(s), making a real "thing" of his day.

Once while waiting interminably for a table on a Mother's Day (not my idea, thank you), I saw a car pull up and from the backseat a woman hopped out, as her husband and son sat in the front; she checked with the hostess to see about the wait, finding it too long. On her way out she remarked to a friend who happened to be waiting there, something to the effect, "I guess we'll just drive around until we find something else." What a delightful prospect! She shall spend a yet-to-be-determined amount of time in the back seat of the car as her husband and adult son try to figure out where in the hell to take Mom on this special day. Lucky her! Of course, I have only sparse details on the story, but the scenario I spelled out here hardly seems difficult to imagine.

I have heard mothers say—my own, even—how much they enjoy just having their family together (often a reference to having multiple children). That's fair enough, but it seems that for all the talk of moms and how loving, giving, sacrificing they are, a number of people essentially write a check to a restaurant just to get the thing done with. I mean, who wants to go to all the trouble of planning, shopping, cleaning, making, and then cleaning up? Gosh, so much work! Mom does it of course; she's so great; let's just take her out for Mother's Day to show her we appreciate all she does.

It's true, my mother enjoyed going out to eat pretty much any time because she was glad to not have to cook the meal; then again, my mother refused to complain about airline food because "at least I didn't have to make it," so we're talking about a pretty low bar. I also remember comments about dining out in her honor being commended by my mother as saving her from having to clean house after her own party. Again, that just sounds like we ran down the poor woman into being glad she didn't pay for the flowers we gave her (fun fact, we rarely gave her flowers).

Perhaps a person wanting to honor one's mother or the mother of one's child(ren) could, say, put in the effort to plan and put a bit of a day together for mom, maybe a meal, maybe not, but something that requires the kind of forethought and effort that embodies the words of gratitude otherwise said so easily in a greeting card . . . written for you by somebody else.