Is It Cool to Hate Mother’s Day Now?

I went shopping Wednesday after work with all three of the kids. We went to Costco, ate pizza, and picked up some things to get us through the week. (I needed snacks for soccer as well.) The kids were… not that great. All I wanted was for them to walk through the store like normal people. They couldn’t do it. It was very frustrating.

As we were leaving, a woman behind me remarked how brave I must be to be shopping alone with three kids. I said, “Brave or crazy.” She laughed. “Well, have a happy Mother’s Day anyway.”

It made me feel kind of good.

I’m not getting the “Oh gawd I HATE Mother’s Day” sentiment that seems to be rampant on the Interwebz these days — even from some fellow moms. It just reads like the hipster thing of the day.

It’s similar to the angst I see (and have felt) surrounding St. Valentine’s Day. “It’s a Hallmark holiday!” (Almost literally true about Mother’s Day. Even the woman who got it made into a national holiday in the United States ended up hating how commercial it was by 1920.)

I can understand ambivalent feelings about Mother’s Day. I have my own complicated feelings about it due to my experience of being a baby loss mother. And I can even understand the scorn heaped on it by women who are not mothers (understand it, but not accept it — I mean if you hate it so much, just let it go. Is it worth it to get so very riled up about “push presents’ — which I agree are icky — or brunches?) I, myself, don’t like the huge gift expectations that the day has engendered in the past few years.

If your relationship with your own mom is complicated, well that’s a whole ‘nother story. I, fortunately, don’t have a complicated relationship with my mother. She is a good mom, and she’s a great Nonna, and although our relationship has never been an entirely smooth road, it’s been important to me and how I see myself as a woman and as a mother.

As always, I told Dan for Mother’s Day, I just don’t want to do anything. (I will end up doing something.) Church with my family, a brunch I don’t have to slave over and/or clean up; ditto dinner. Homemade cards from the kids. I did ask Dan for perfume (and told him what kind). I won’t be devastated if I don’t get it.

(I will be seeing my mom Saturday evening; if my MIL wants to join us for dinner on Sunday, I’m all for it. I’m just not doing the planning. Cards will be distributed. Possibly chocolate chip banana bread, too, but I’m not promising anything. Depends on soccer.)

No matter what kind of mom you are (and there are so many kinds of moms!), I hope someone, somewhere, wishes you a happy Mother’s Day. And I hope that you can accept it for what it is.

Do you hate Mother’s Day? Why? If not, what are the reasons you like it? I like it because I like my mom, my MIL, and my kids. I’m pretty blessed as a woman, and that’s what I try to remember every day, not just on Mother’s Day.