To reckon we should just boycott this whole Mother's Day bandwagon?

[NorthernLurker]

Mothering Sunday is a date in the church calendar. Mother's Day is a load of commercial bollocks and it just makes people so unhappy.

I can guarantee tomorrow this site will be filled with:

A) threads from people upset with how their day went
B) answers to a) from people who haven't got their mothers anymore and who are understandably distressed
C) answers to a) from people who have lost children and are understandably upset
D) people pointing out ad nauseam that a persons partner isn't their mother

None of these people will be having a good day. Having just messaged my friends who have lost children, and having added to that number in the last year, I would quite happily have the whole thing just go away. Doesn't mean I don't love my mum nor does it mean I am ungrateful for the tulips dds
have bought me (haven't seen them but pound to a penny it's tulips, it always is 😀)

Does anybody really enjoy it? Apart from the supermarkets, card shops, flower sellers and restaurants who make a killing, usually from sub standard service because they overbook because its Mother's Day!

To be honest i wouldn't want it banned and i am fortunate that i will get a card, it is nice.
I can even sort of sympathise a bit with the gripes when it goes unacknowledged. What i hate tho is the whole 'i just got some cheap bought at the last minute tat.. my request for expensive perfume, expensive flowers was not carried out and there is not a full day of treats planned for me'.
My dh took ds out to spar an hour ago to get my card.... am i angry? No i'm quite happy actually

Well I have two adult dc, 3 adult step dc and 9 dgc. No cards in the post or flowers or visits (all busy tomorrow or too far away).
I am a bit sad, a little disappointed etc but I love them all and know I am loved in return. It is my birthday later this month and I know that will be celebrated and remembered in various ways.

My mum is obsessed with mothers day, which spoils it for me as she makes it so much pressure for me and my siblings and gets really stroppy if she doesn't get gifts or cards that meet her seal of approval. I know it is a day to celebrate your mum, so to speak, but it spoils it for all of us.

For that reason alone I'd like it abolished.

Yabu. No one is forced to celebrate it and why should the people who love this kind of thing miss out? If you lile it, celebrate it. If you don't, then don't. No one cares.

Robbing kids is not my bag.

Oh ffs.

I don’t hate it for the reasons you describe, and I’m sorry and sad for anyone who does. To be reminded of your own losses on a day where everyone else celebrates is tough.

I don’t mind that it exists, but I do not see the point of all the FUSS. I do not want to be taken out for some awful lunch like a sad old thing who has never left the house before, I don’t need flowers or chocolate or special mum gin. I don’t need patronising with some commercial idea of women/mums that isn’t what my own children (husband, the kids are a bit young anyway) think of me.

I do, however, appreciate breakfast being made for me, and a homemade card. I think it’s ok that children think about appreciating their parents, and show that, but no one else needs to care about it. And I really don’t need to show it off.

I do not want to be taken out for some awful lunch like a sad old thing who has never left the house before

It really astonishes me how some people view what are, to me, perfectly normal interactions. I took my own mother out for lunch last week and it never occurred to me that she might think I was implying she was housebound and pathetic. (She has a better social life than I have.) I thought I was doing something nice for my mother and as far as I'm aware, she thought the same.

Crazy, crazy, crazy.

I loved spoiling my mum on Mothers' Day until she died, and then I found the day and all the hype very painful. Until I had my son - my DP knows that it's got a sad side for me so he makes a massive fuss of me with DS. He doesn't get me commercialised Mothers' Day tat though, he usually buys a book that I want or similar. And the day before we go and make a massive fuss of MIL, who spends the Sunday making a fuss of her very aged and housebound MIL. All of us are shown love and appreciation through the year but I don't see what's wrong with being throughly spoiled for a day either.

In addition, I had a trouble getting pregnant, a horribly difficult, painful and dangerous pregnancy, an almost disasterous birth, and was very ill after DS was born for more than a year, during which time I was on a lot of medication and had to have an operation that means having another child will be even more problematic. So damn right I want to celebrate Mothers' Day. I appreciate it isn't fun for some people as it wasn't for me after my mum died but I don't think that means it should be cancelled because of that.

Yes Yorick that's a fair point. To be clear, im all in favour of having special days to celebrate our loved ones, but the threads on mn that op is referring to often have an undercurrent of feeling unhappy in the relationship generally. It's often things like "I never ask for anything, just this one day" or "this is my only lie in all year and he forgot it". I don't think it's just people not being their best selves either, more a general lack of the small daily asks of love (saying "I love you", doing your fair share of housework etc) that make the grand gestures nice but not something the relationship will survive or fail over. You don't have to be the perfect partner 24/7 in order to say "thank you for cooking dinner" or "you look nice today". I suspect that if the partners in question pitched in 50% the rest of the year, or just generally treated their other half with love and respect, there would be much less anxiety and upset over whether or not he bought a card on Mother's Day.

Oh Yorick, you know what I mean.

I’m never sad at being taken out for lunch, but it’s the thought of a ‘Mother’s Day’ lunch, like a Valentine’s Dinner that fills me with horror. I waitressed many of them, and they were just not what I would want, nothing personal about them (and usually terrible value for money).

Before Mumsnet, I would have believed that no woman ever said, "My kids bought me roses on Mothers' Day then took me out for lunch. I'm so offended." I mean, I realised these things weren't important to everyone, but it would never have crossed my mind that some people found it actually offensive.

I'm just giddy at the idea that someone might say to their mother, "Hey Mum, let me treat you to lunch on Mothers' Day" and she would respond, "What, you think I never leave the house without you? Stop patronising me."

Honestly. My head's spinning.

I hate Mother's Day. Every year I sit in my mother in laws house.

Oh Yorick, you know what I mean.

Honestly, I'm not being facetious. I really, really don't.

I would understand it if they were perhaps taking you to a restaurant they know you hate, but I'm assuming it wouldn't be. Or if they know you don't like chocolates/flowers/gin and got it for you anyway. But assuming they thought you would like it, and you'd never told them otherwise, I honestly can't see what the issue is.

Is taking someone out for a meal somewhere they like not 'personal'? You're spending the whole time with them and presumably going somewhere they've indicated that they enjoy.

And I'd have though that if you're taking your mum out for a meal, you're more concerned with going somewhere that's nice, even if it means spending a bit, than getting 'value for money'. I get value for money with the Boots Meal Deal. If I'm buying Mum lunch, I just want to get her the nicest thing I can afford.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just shit with gifts. At last Christmas' Secret Santa in the office, the limit was £5 and I didn't know anything about the lady I drew, so I got her a pretty Hotel Chocolat mini box. Wasn't until I read MN that I realised I might as well have presented her with a pig's head in a crate....

As with many other 'special' days during the year, Mothers' Day has become yet another reason to sell a load of tat, this time to kids. Anyone notice how flowers suddenly become more expensive, just for this weekend? Mothering Sunday was originally the one day in the year which servant girls had free to visit their mothers and take them a cake or a present. What has it become?

My head would probably be spinning, but I don’t believe it. The posturing about commercially produced cards and flowers, the protests of hateful organised rip off lunches, the cries of pressure and the scorn reserved for imaginary people who claim their lives are over because they didn’t get the Mother’s day they wanted.

I just don’t believe it. It’s hysteria on an Internet forum and you’re just egging each other on. No one behaves like this in real life.

My DMum insists on the day being called Mothering Sunday - never Mothers Day.

And is genuinely happy simply that we mark it at all. Handmade card was her favourite thing, but as I'm now in my 50s it's moved on to a bunch of daffodils. Perhaps I need to dust of my lack of artistic skills for the next occasion

YABVVVVU

Just coz YOU don't like it. Don't wreck it for everyone else.

Just don't participate. Not rocket science is it?!

And there is no need to spend spend spend FGS. Nothing wrong with just getting a bunch of daffs and a box of dairy box.

My lovely MIL's Christian faith is very important to her. I make a point of finding a Mothering Sunday card for her (DH is perfectly capable of getting choosing and sending cards I just like to do this one thing). I actively discourage DC from doing the Hallmark thing- my choice. to all of you who find tomorrow so very difficult for whatever reason.

I’m sorry but you are being totally unreasonable. I think it’s a wonderful day. My little boy is 4 and he told me that “tomorrow is mother’s day which means we have to look after you tomorrow !” He super excited about looking after me. If it bugs you then ignore the day but for us it’s lovely. I am the main care giver in the family and it’s lovely to have a day where I’m completely looked after, it’s like another birthday. I’ve lost my mum to dementia but tomorrow doesn’t make me sad it just makes me stop and think about her and what a lovely mum she was.

I'll be happy with my bunch of daffs and handmade card.

I like it because ds likes it, but every year I just say " I don't want anything, just make me a card" and he does, and I have them all. That's all I want-not lunch in some overcrowded mediocre restaurant.
In a way it's like xmas in that if you have this large, happy, healthy extended family it's lovely. If you are grieving, or alone, or life isn't going well, it's like a slap in the face.

Nordic has it. People confident in their relationships do whatever they want about special says and make them suit themselves. People hoping for a sign their partner appreciates them will be more anxious.

I have made clear to my kids that I want breakfast in bed (dcs 1 and 2 have recently learned to make tea and toast respectively), and a home-made card that took more than two minutes. And DH can assist.

Both our mums wouldn't want to go out on Mother's Day as the restaurants are too crowded and overpriced and let's go next week instead. We'll phone them on the day on principle but most likely get an answerphone.

I do like flowers but DH hates cut flowers. May get a nice potted plant, maybe not, but I did tell the kids I really don't want anything bought from the supermarket as I don't need anything else (I got tea towels and a frying pan and excellent chocolate over the last couple years.)

I always used to get a card and present for my DM but she died just after Mother's Day 2016. My DD died just before Christmas in the same year. Last year my DS was home and working so he bought me a gift and card for MD. He is away at Uni this year and I fully expected to get nothing as he has very little money and I didn't think it would be on his radar. I was pleasantly surprised and delighted to get a delivery of flowers today from DS! And that was after a conversation with DH this morning in which he said he had thought about reminding DS but he decided that DS was old enough to remember (or not) for himself.

I really wouldn't have been upset if i'd got nothing at all though (but love that I did)

@heratnumber7

We have no truck with it in this house. DDs don't have to buy me overpriced cards or flowers to show me they love me. They show me that every day almost.

What a spiteful post. So are you saying that people who get their mother a card and gift (for mother's day,) DON'T show love and affection the rest of the year?

Funnily enough, many people who buy a card and a gift for their mother on mother's day, ALSO manage to show love and affection all year round too!

Sounds a bit like you're trying to convince yourself that you're ok with getting nothing.

I think everyone who says mothers day and Valentines day and Christmas and so on is 'commercial bollocks' is just bitter because THEY never get anything.

So they come out with this huffy kind of line that goes "I don't need anything from MY loved ones to know they love me." Classic defence mechanism. They have to say that.

I am sorry you don't get anything, but don't be nasty about those of us who do. (and our loved ones!)