In the midst of all the judgey / goady / angsty Mother's Day threads...

[SelectAUserName]

...to spare a thought for all the people who would love to be able to spend the day with their mother but can't, for whatever reason, and for all the women who desperately long to be mothers but for whom it hasn't happened, either yet or at all?

Ahhh so I'm not the only one who gets cards from the pets!

To be perfectly honest, I don't see the point of Mother's Day (or Mothering Sunday to the pedants). I'm a cynic...

We send cards to my gran (DS's great gran), MIL & my stepmum.

Great gran lives alone, a card makes her day.

Stepmum lives alone, has no children of her own, so a card from her only grandchild makes her day.

Costs little more than the stamps, to make people smile. Cynical, sentimental crap or not... count me in.

GlassCaseofEmotion

Yes, that is a very wise post too

A little more kindness would well behove MN sometimes I think.

laurie that must be heartbreaking poor little mites foster carers do an amazing job

I am sorry for all of your losses all that have lost your Mothers.

I have spent my life from the age of 3 trying to make my Mother love me and spent yesterday anxiously shopping for a gift that a) I can't afford and b) she won't give a shit about.

My DH wouldn't do anything special for me unless it was Mother's Day so screw me if I enjoy that as I put every effort into making sure my DD never feels like me.

The thought of Mother's Day is making my Dad miss my Nan (his mum). She died at Christmas 2012, she was very elderly and wasn't always the best mother but it was a difficult time for the family. I know Dad is missing her because of some comments he's made the other day.

I bet my sister or my mum will buy me a card from the cat!

It's such a simplistic argument to say there are some people who don't have a mum so you should appreciate the ones you've got. Some parents are just not that interested and if you've never felt that love from a parent it can be very painful. I've lost my mum but I knew she loved me and I was her number one concern. She has taught me to be a good mum and enjoy a lovely relationship with my children.

Yes my friend lost her mum when she was a very young adult and is divorced from her dc's dad. Mother's Day sucks every year for her. I have other friends getting divorced this year and they don't even have their kids on that day, utterly sad. I agree, people should really be kind before anything. Hard to always bear in mind though.

Can we please not turn this thread into yet another 'what's the fucking point of it' thread.

It's a lovely idea to start a thread like this for those who would like it op.

Laurie it must be so so hard to watch kids go through that, you do a wonderful job

Several of my colleagues have lost their mums, some in the past year and my colleagues are all quite young that have been bereaved lately - 30s and 40s.

I will be thinking of them too on mother's day and make an extra fuss of my mum.

I'm working all day mothers day, won't see my kids or my mother.

Not too bothered tbh, it's just a hallmark holiday and I'm lucky enough to be able to spend time with them the rest of the year. It's such a lot of fuss over nothing, if your family need to be told to treat you nicely on a particular day you have bigger problems than not getting a card imo.

Like the op said, plenty of people don't have a mother/kids, and a hug to anyone for whom this is just another reminder of what you don't have x

Mothers day makes me think of my nana. She had five girls and loved mothers day. She was over the moon with the five cards rowed up and flowers around the sitting room, chocolates on the coffee table. I can close my eyes and see her massive smile as everyone piled into her little flat. It was her day to bask in the lovely big family she had. She has full blown dementia now and is in a nursing home, she doesnt know any of us. I miss her, and i miss her little flat full of love. So i think ill avoid all the goady threads and close my eyes again and think of nanas delighted mothers day face.

Why are the forster children making cards, surely it heightens anguish?

Is there something else they could do....

BornFree I wondered that. Personally I think the fuss about it is a load of codswallop but it seems exceptionally unthinking to make anything out of for a child in foster care.

As a Brownie leader I often find the other Guiders (and it seems teachers too) assume that making Mother's Day cards is compulsory for all children in all settings. I tend to avoid this and do something else that week.

If it's a planned activity at school, the fostered children are going to feel even more left out if pushed to the side and told "do something else".

And some of them will have fond (if misplaced) views of their mother and will actively want to do it, or will feel "if only I was better and made a better card, she'd love me/turn up/not hit me".

I don't get on that well with my mum, and we've never made a big deal of Mothering Sunday, and DH's mother passed away a couple of years ago, and (although this has not come up yet directly from him, I'm sure it will at some point) DS has a birth mother too... so it's even less of a big deal for us now. We try to do church things but that also seems to have become a Hallmark holiday too, with either flowers for all mothers (and memories of sitting there not getting one) or flowers for all women (which just seems patronising) or all adults (so I'm not quite sure what relevance they have as they are not part of any traditional celebration of Mothering Sunday that I know of).

Bah humbug.

(And also, even if the school does not do a Mother's Day activity, fostered children will hear from the other children what they are doing for Mother's Day, and will feel left out, and may want to do something for the above reasons/so they can tell their school friends what they and their mother "did" for Mother's Day).

Damn, triple post. Meant to add this link.

www.twoguysadopting.com/2013/03/we-survived-mother-day.html

SaucyJack: what a horrid post.

After years of failed ivf and miscarriages I find Mother's Day hard sometimes, especially as all my sisters have children and are there when I visit my Mam talking about their day. Obviously the world can't stop, nor do I expect them to tiptoe around but it doesn't stop it causing a twinge of sadness each time.

So, I appreciate the thread and the thought behind it. for OP and all who feel the same.

I hate Mother's Day as my mother abandoned me and even though I have children now I can't see it as my day iyswim. I welcome anything the children do, and show them excitement and happiness, but tbh I just want it over with . This year I have said to DH not to buy me flowers but a bush for the garden we can all enjoy if he wants to buy anything as we are doing up the garden.

This is going to be my first mothers day without my beautiful Mum. She died only 8 months ago at the age of 63 from cancer. I never imagined that this day would come but it has. So i will spend the day remembering her and will take some flowers up to the place where her ashes are scattered. for everyone who has posted on this thread.

Coumarin I share that twinge of sadness too. I would have loved to have had children, but it's looking unlikely now, and all the Mothers' Day advertising reminds me it's a role I'll never have, and a special kind of love I'll never know. Most of the time I'm fine about it, but something about the blanket ad bombardment reminds me that everyone else I know is a mother, and of all my friends from school and university, it really is just me who hasn't managed to get married and have a family.

But, as you say, the world can't stop, and I'd hate anyone to feel sorry for me. And clearly it's not a straightforward day for lots of people, with children, or without. But there is a twinge, all the same.

all round, and a bit of kindness, and maybe a day's ceasefire on the 'AIBU to think my SIL is a loon for getting a Mother's Day card from her cat??' threads.

Dora