To wish schools ignored mother's/father's day

[formerbabe]

I remember when I was growing up, a child in my primary school class lost her mum...next mother's day, we all made mother's day cards at school and she was told to make a card for her dad

I lost my mum when I was in secondary school...I hated mothers day.

So many children may have lost parents, have absent parents and all sorts of different situations which make these days hard for them.

Aibu in thinking schools should just ignore these days and not get the children to make cards?

Accepted @bookmum08

Until these things affect your own families it can be hard to see how difficult it is for some children. Don't sweat it

I agree it's unnecessary, schools should for the most part stick to the job of teaching kids to read, write etc. Our DC go to a faith school so there's a religious element of celebrating the Holy Mary but aside from that they go a bit OTT with prayers, poems, flowers

As a single mum who has no contact with the dad, a card made by my young dc at school is the only thing I'll get and makes me really happy as it's made with love

I do get that.

But maybe it really would just be better if we did away with all these made up days. They're no good for peoples' mental health/wellbeing for all sorts of reasons!

I whole heartedly agree OP. I’m not mad on mothers day at all, I just think of the pain it cause those who haven’t got their mum’s. Much like Valentine’s Day if you’re single. It’s all just a money spinner.

I made cards for my grandma and grandad on those days in school.

Our school does Fathers Day but not Mother's Day. They also do grandparents day every year which is difficult as dd3 has no mrmories of her one grandparent who was alive when she was born.

Probably best to just not make cards for these kind of occasions at all.
If its a generic across the school rule, then nobody can get upset.
It may sound a bit over the top, but I know adults that are upset because their mum has passed away/ dont see them or are poorly are whatever for a small child its much worse!

I think at our old nursery, they took little groups of children away to make cards, so those without a father/(rarely mother) wouldn’t make one and no one realised.

If I knew that it was a whole class event and one child didn’t have a mum, I’d rather none of the children make a card. I can live without receiving something from my children if it means another child is saved the trauma of not being able to join in. Really sad

For some single mum’s this will be the only card they receive. It was like that for me for a few years. I absolutely adore receiving their handmade cards. There are very few children without a Mother or any female relation such as Grandmother.

I had an unorthodox family in a very 2.4 children family school. I lost my dad in childhood. I liked to make him cards in the first few birthdays/ fathers days to think about him and keep some normality. "Fortunately" for that first year he died suddenly two days after fathers day, so it's a raw time of year since then anyway as his anniversary tends to be very close to fathers day.

I think it's the know the child and be sensitive about working with them and what they want rather than blanket policies of doing or not doing something generically to avoid upset. My y3 teacher was lovely and let me make two broaches, one for each mum so I could treat them equally. My y4 teacher would only let me do one craft so I had to pick a favourite mum.

For some children, doing something for their "mum" is an important part of building attachments and feeling normal in an unusual situation. It works both ways. It's always been important to me to acknowledge my parents, the biological, the non-biological, the living and the dead.

One of the pinch points about losing my dad was not being facilitated in acknowleging my mum's birthday/ mother's day. The first mum's birthday without my dad, I went hungry and saved up my dinner money for two weeks to get her a card and present. Had I have been slightly younger in junior school, missing out on the chance to celebrate mother's day would have made grief for my dad worse because it would have amplified the difference that I no longer had a dad to provide for the occasion.