Why Mother's Day is actually quite stupid

“Oh come on, I’m not your mother.” I hear myself say a bit too casually after my beloved has said; “Oh crap, I still need to buy something for Mother’s Day.” It’s Saturday afternoon at three o’clock, we’re sitting on the beach. I really prefer having him next to me than losing him for two hours to buy a gift for me. Besides, Mother’s Day, what an old-fashioned holiday that is.

We sleep on the beach and because the rain is coming, we quickly clean up and skip that extensive breakfast. We do brunch in a nice beach tent, that’s for sure. After that, we drive by Karwei to buy firewood. It rains all day and in the afternoon, we have Max Verstappen on the menu. When we walk into Karwei, we pass a mother from the schoolyard. “Ah, nice to go to Karwei on Mother’s Day.” I detect irony. “What did that lady just say?” My daughter feels it too. And then, out of nowhere, the seed is planted.

Am I the only one having a Sunday like any other today? Are all my fellow mothers buried under boxes of Tiffany’s, homemade rolls, and then whisked away to a spa resort to unwind, ending with half an hour of unlimited shopping at MyTheresa?

Instead of thinking: ‘what are you doing here then? Alone?’ At least I’m with my family after an extremely cozy weekend at the beach, the grunting settles in me. Instagram isn’t helping either. I also stumble over the star dust and the happy hashtags because oh oh oh how spoiled and happy everyone is.

At home, it doesn’t get much better. The oldest little autistic one had already opened her gift at the beginning of the vacation, the middle girl has ‘kind of’ lost her gift (“But I didn’t really look that well, mom.”). I kept the youngest girl’s gift out of the claws of the oldest sweetheart and hid it, and since she is the third child who is in kindergarten with this teacher, I already have a suspicion of what kind of craft that will be. Still, I’m already touched by seeing the matching envelope. She has stamped her name on it herself and the teacher has pasted a photo of my girl on it.

I cherish the craft. Mother’s Day is just like Christmas: if you forget that it’s a special day, it’s great. If you don’t, it’s already a failure from the start.