Mother’s Day- are we setting unrealistic expectations

[Whiteroomjoy]

Just read yet another thread where women have been upset by husbands “ruining” Mother’s Day for posters. So much disappointment, dissatisfaction and hurt being discussed

when I was young Mother’s Day was not the commercialised as it is now. I don’t remember any fathers doing stuff for his wife as his children’s mother. Usually it was schools and Sunday schools, particularly, that got kids to make a mothers day card, or encouraged kids to pick some flowers (ok, we had less regard for picking wild flowers back then🤦‍♀️) . That was it. Only involved kids that were old enough to do something for their mums under a steer from school or church. The main things for mums was Mothering Sunday church service - that wasn’t driven by dads , but by tradition and the church. In some churches mums got a small bunch of daffs to recognise their efforts whether they were new mums, Grans or whatever

up until relatively recently most dads would play little or no part until Sunday service. And certainly not be buying gifts or doing cards on behalf of babies who can’t hold a pencil yet. Mums didn’t get a day off. Often there was a bigger family roast on Sunday - I do remember though an expectation that the blokes would do the washing up to give mum a rest. But it certainly never was a “special all day” for mums to relax and not do anything with dads doing everything and all.

yes, there would have been exceptions . Some dads would have given mum a cuppa in bed etc. but that wasn’t the norm .

we all know the vast majority of men do not do the emotional labour regarding social celebrations and family rituals. A lot used to be part of a social calander through churches who upheld these traditions. But church no longer plays that role in most of our lives. I’m quite convinced that left to men we’d have abandoned birthday celebrations and Xmas years ago, when most people stopped going to church.

why are so many women setting themselves up for a fall here. Yep, there are men who will recognise and do lovely things for the “mums” in their lives including their own wives, but a lot of men are just doing the minimum or nothing in accordance with what they do for all the other traditions in the house. If you remember all the birthdays, do most of Xmas , why would you then be disappointed your husband does sod all for Mother’s Day for you.

im not saying it’s right. But I think there’s a lot of heart ache here from having very unreal expectations of Mother’s Day. It was a church service . It was a way of getting bums on seats in a church and therefore money in donation coffers (ok, bit cynical but true) .

I think if the idea of your husband cooking a meal or doing some washing up is a big once-a-year treat for you, you've got bigger problem's than Mother's Day.

I’m not actually saying this. I would not expect a partner to do bugger all and have short shrift for feigned helplessness.

I am making the point that it was always mums and their children . Now it is about mums expecting their husbands to jump through increasing hoops and unwritten rules .

I have raised to DS to take responsibility for their emotional labour, and will check them in front of their partners about how much they do, but even then , a lot of men do not , for whatever reasons, have these sort of things on their conscious radar. When younger in their late teens I had to have words with one of them about how important it is to take reposnsibity to remeber stuff like birthdays - and that message did drive home. But, and I don’t know why and not saying it is right, it is a fact that lots of men just don’t get it. And then wives express surprise.

Yep, if you find the ones that do jump through these Mother’s Day hoops, grand. But I don’t think it is grounds for divorce, or major sulks, if a husband doesn’t want to jump through the hoops of unwritten rules that Mother’s Day is now wives appreciation day, but they never agreed to that

Absolutely this.

I really hate it when people use the phrase 'you're not his mother'. No, I'm not my DH's mother but I'm the mother of his child and it's nice to be appreciated for that AND I expect him to teach our child that it is important to be kind an appreciate others.
So, yes I expect a dad to facilitate Mother's Day on behalf of young children even when they are too young to hold a pencil, and those that don't are shit partners and parents IMO.

Yep, exactly

@Whiteroomjoy

It's ridiculous to suggest that it's Mother's Day and not partner's day so men get a free pass.

Most kids under the age of 16 don't really have the means to organise a special day out. My dad always bought cards for us to sign and organised a meal out for my mum and this was before the "commercialisation" of Mother's Day

Stop expecting unbelievably low standards.

I bet these same men expect something at Christmas and for birthdays - more events when mum's are expected to do 95% of the hosting work

Do you not think it just teaches your children that someone else will always do their thinking and responsibilities for them?

But how is the expectation different for Father’s Day?? Fathers still expect gifts, special meals and a fuss made of them on Father’s Day.

The problems on MN come when all this is provided on Father’s Day and then Mother’s Day passes with no recognition. Every single time.

I’m mid 50’s and don’t recognise that at all. Especially not the church thing.

But buying some flowers and a card isn’t ‘jumping through hoops’. It’s a really simple thing to do.
Plus how many years of them ‘not realising the rules have changed’ are acceptable? Surely after one year of the wife saying ‘I’m a bit disappointment you didn’t help the children to buy me some presents/spoilt me a bit’ is enough, and they’d realise for the next year?
I didn’t ‘agree’ to helping my children sort something nice out for Father’s Day (I don’t remember anyone sitting me down and explaining it to me 🤷🏻‍♀️) but I still manage to do it.

But I don’t think it is grounds for divorce, or major sulks, if a husband doesn’t want to jump through the hoops of unwritten rules that Mother’s Day is now wives appreciation day, but they never agreed to that

Has anyone said it's 'wives appreciation day'? No, but decent human beings understand that young children don't have the means or ability to buy a card, cook a meal or buy a present so facilitate this. It's not rocket science.

You think taking a 4 year old to the shop to choose something nice for their mum is teaching children that someone will ‘always do their thinking and responsibilities for them’? Weird.

I’m not saying men get a free pass.

I am saying why do you expect a wives appreciation day as a special single day in the year

If your spouse/partner isn’t letting you have a lie in , or getting you breakfast in bed, or cooking dinner REGULARLY throughout the year so you know HE appreciates you (and vice versa) then why build up expectations for a single day then get hurt when he doesn’t do what you are expecting.

Mother’s Day was about making children take some “adult” responsibility to thank their care giver. It was never about those kids running round and doing all the domestic jobs on that day . As I say mothers since late 70s have been changing their goalposts to get men who are otherwise shit or not great at showing appreciation and sharing down time as well as chores, to suddenly wake up on a specific day and change their spots. And then get dissapointed when it doesn’t happen in a perfect way

The origin of the UK Mothers' Day is the Middle Ages, it was originally a day when children who had moved away, often for work at a young age, came home.

Lots of things have changed in the past sixty years. There are lots of things that are now not the same as they were then in the family dynamic, however:

Now it is about mums expecting their husbands to jump through increasing hoops and unwritten rules

....f you have children with a man who feels that taking his kids to the shop to pick up a card, and a bunch of daffs and a box of Ferrero Rocher, and explain why they're doing it and why it is important is "jumping through increasing hoops" then you are probably feeling fairly disatisfied with your lot in general.

Agreed.

There appear to be a lot of women who either give mixed messages - ‘I don’t want anything for Mother’s Day, honestly!’ then get angry and upset when they don’t get anything, or don’t communicate at all that they’d like a bit of a fuss made of them.

If women want their partners/kids to make a fuss over them (which is fine, btw) then I think they need to be open about it and not expect everyone else to magically know without being told then play the martyr while angrily doing the washing up by hand to make a point.

No, that’s not what I said. I was talking about children who can’t hold a pencil or spend their pocket money on a card for mum or make a card for mum under a parents supervision.
what I’m talking about is expecting a father to make breakfast and then taking it with barely toddlers to mum and saying kids made breakfast. It’s a stupid pretence- and mums get in a huff when it doesn’t happen becuase dads don’t realise that’s what mums expect? Yes, a four year old can do that under supervision so dad “helping” does teach them how to do things for themselves. Doing stuff a child cannot yet do and pretending, doesn’t teach them anything , other than other people will do stuff for you if it continues till their old enough to do for themselves.

it’s like we’ve rewritten that Mothering Sunday is about (husbands appreciation not kids) but forgotten to get agreement with the husbands that we’ve changed the rules.

It's not about husbands' appreciation, at all. It's about a partner's parental responsibility to either act on behalf of young children or to supervise older children so that the children show their appreciation.

The origin of the UK Mothers' Day is the Middle Ages, it was originally a day when children who had moved away, often for work at a young age, came home.

In the middle ages, the "mother" in Mothering Sunday referred to your mother church. You went back to the church where you had been baptised, the one that ushered you into Christianity, as it were.

It was only in 1913 that the day became associated with human mothers.

So what you seem to be saying is 'accept male weaponised incompetence and keep your expectations low'. Great.

The avalanche of MD threads has been soooo depressing.

Many of them describe partners who, year after year, make zero effort for birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas etc. Yet posters almost always say that when the tables are turned they shower people with gifts and treats (that they can barely afford in the first place) and these are never appreciated.

Why do people persist in throwing money/time/emotion at these thoughtless, selfish feckers in the vain hope that they will have a magical personality transplant?

The world has changed in many ways since then though.
I had never thought about the fact Mother’s Day wasn’t the big thing it is today back when I was a child, but you are right, I don’t actually even remember what we did for my mum when I was a child on mothers Day.
I think social media plays a big part in peoples disappointments these days because a lot of people like to have their perfect moments and perfect gifts in a photo on social media to compete with each other or to brag. That’s the part of Mother’s Day I find distasteful. People uploading the photo and checking the likes and comments rather than focussing on the children that gave the gifts to them.
That said, I think it is important to teach children to appreciate their parents, and Mother’s/Father’s Day is a good opportunity to do that. When the children are small it is up to partners to lead by example. So I can understand a mother being disappointed if her partner ignores the day.

And yet some expectations I've seen on MN in the past few days have been staggeringly high. Entire special days out expected on Sunday, posh meals, presents such as jewellery ... and worst of all, "he spent time with his own mother instead of me!"

I’ve not said that. Perhaps you should read more comments

im talking about so,e ofcwtuff mums have been disappointed with in these posts

• having an entire day off and expecting husbands to do everything on that one single day. That’s nowt to do with kids , they can’t, if young, cook dinner, wash up etc. they might help dad but they can’t do it all. Why this one day? Why is that a “mothering” recognition when it’s about a partner doing all that
• not getting a present or a shot present from husband - when was this a thing ?
• not going out to eat- again fair do at any time being critical if husband expect you to cook all Sunday dinners , but why expect to eat out on mothering Sunday if you’re kids are small non wage earners. It’s not the, paying - essentially it’s you anyway

Etc

Im just a bit gob smacked at some of the comments about the high expectations that some women have had they have then been crushed in reality because some bloke hasn’t followed the unwritten rules of wife appreciation day. And that so much is expected of a single day high implies the bloke is Whitby enough not to do this at any point in the year, so exactly sort of bloke that ain’t going to follow those unwritten rules or be complelety unaware of them

As I say mothers since late 70s have been changing their goalposts to get men who are otherwise shit or not great at showing appreciation and sharing down time as well as chores, to suddenly wake up on a specific day and change their spots. And then get dissapointed when it doesn’t happen in a perfect way

Crikey, if the goalposts changed 40+ years ago, its hardly been sprung on these poor men, has it? A lot of the fathers who can't bring themselves to make a cuppa and grab a £1 bunch of daffodils are younger than that, and have been raised in a society where it's common knowledge that if you give a shit about your mother and the mother of your children, you'll do something, however small, to mark mothers day.

I think it probably is a papering over the cracks thing- I’ve noticed the new mums I’m friends with who have equally shared the nights and one who’s dh has gone part time for new baby are much less interested in big gestures- presumably bc the load is actually more towards equal, and so they already feel appreciated?