…to ask when Mother’s / Father’s Day becomes less about your parents and more about you (as parents)?

[TellMeStraightpls]

Just that really. Does it transfer when you become a parent, does it take a bit longer? If you are the older, retired parent, would you expect your children with children to prioritise you over their ‘day’ with their family? Thank you.

@Secondsop

Haven’t really managed the shift here. I completely get what you mean. It’s a day when I don’t want to be the one doing emotional labour but I end up doing it. The thing that annoys me is that I have 2 siblings but end up default Mother’s Day organiser because our mum lives nearest to me. The last one pre-lockdown my siblings made plans that couldn’t involve my mum which meant it all fell to me again. Obviously I love my mum but as you’ve said she’s HAD tons of Mother’s Days within our household growing up, including one notable one where pre-mobiles I made a journey from Oxford to London and waited for hours at the agreed meeting place and none of the others turned up because my other siblings were ill and my mum decided for some reason not to make the journey just for me…. I do get her a card and gifts and I’m not saying I don’t want to see her on that day but I would love for that day to be about my small children’s relationship with me.

Sorry, I’m not sure how to highlight certain bits, but I’m so sorry that you made that journey and ended up on your own

Our DC are all pre teen / early teen, so we are ‘established’ parents! DH works very long hours and I feel that his parenthood should now take precedence over his Father’s. Am I wrong?

For Father’s Day, I meant!

I feel that I’m in an uneasy truce over Mother’s Day! However, I still seem to be the one running around, organising, cooking and trying to keep everyone happy! Lockdown Mother's Day was fabulous 😂

Once my SS is 16 I will stop buying
His Mother's Day things. I mean me and my D H as he should be sorting this himself really.

But His mum is amazing so I will prob end up sorting it to make sure she gets a card etc.

We now have DD who is 10 months and are having mothers and fathers days all about us for now. I am the closest child to my DM and it's always been me seeing her on Mother's Day when the others don't, but not anymore. I don't think it's selfish OP, I think when you have small children it should be about that immediate family. I daresay lots of our DC may want to do bigger get togethers if we all get along well, but I would never expect that when DD is an adult.

@AngeloMysterioso I said the same to DH last night after reading the OPs comment, both my Mother's Days have been in lockdown and next year we should have DC2 as well and I intend to spend the day as I please. Although I say that now and when it comes to it, I'll probably give in

Mothers/Fathers day has always been pushed as my parents day, over mine or DH's. In more recent years I've stood my ground if I fancy doing something just us and our children - but it's gone down very badly.

My parents very much regard themselves as the Matriarch/Patriarch, M/F day revolves around them, Christmas revolves around them etc. I do often wonder when I'll actually get to do things with my own children as I want them?

What's odd though, is that neither sets of my grandparents behaved like that, so it's not like my mum and dad missed out on opportunities when my brother and I were growing up, so now think it's their turn, we saw very little of the GP's so they've had Christmas/fathers/Mother's Day all about them when we were little and now we have our own children it's still all about them.

This Father's Day I have stood my ground though, we've recently lost my FIL and I feel it would be insensitive to DH if we spend the day with my Dad (or I leave DH alone whilst we visit) so we won't be seeing him on the Sunday. Just having a quiet one at home, the 4 of us .

For me when the children were 2-15 or so I'd say more about us as parents doing actual parenting. Older relatives got card/ present and a phone call. Now the kids are older and live independently I focus more on my dad and they do what they want for their dad. I still rarely visit my dad as he's too far away for a weekend visit but would if he lived nearer.

My mum really hates having a fuss made of her, and I’m the same, so whilst this isn’t an issue for me (aside from the fact my MIL is the most self-important person I know, who loves the fuss), if I look at it objectively, I think it should really be about the person who is going through the “intense parenting” stage, who have children living at home; they’re the ones who most deserve a bit of a special day.

@nancybotwinbloom I’m trying to work out what all the SS means in your post- are you step siblings?

I thought it happened as soon as you had kids! Yes I would always send something to my folks but won’t be a big deal or necessarily a visit.

My Dad tends to get more Father’s Day fuss as I’m divorced now, so my kids go to their dad but that doesn’t involve me. I do help them to have something to give him though!

I must admit the posts about MD on MN surprise me - especially the ones that talk about husbands not being responsible for giving gifts on behalf of babies etc.

Surely in the year where a woman has become a mother, therefore given up huge chunks of bodily autonomy just to give a baby life, a card and a box of chocolates isn't beyond expectations?!

But then in my family growing up, MD was always about us kids spoiling our mum, and yes, our dad helped us with that when we were too young to do so ourselves. (vice versa for dad obviously)

For my very first Mother's Day, my own Mum bought me a beautiful card and some flowers. She's a sweetheart and I love sharing that day with her. Before we moved away, we would spend some time together on the day, both get our cards and gifts and then we'd go home. Now we live a distance apart, I send her her gift and spend the day with my children.

My brother ticked me off (mildly) as I had the audacity to make a mother's day about me and not about our mother! I did send a card with gift but on the day we went to a local attraction for a day out for ME. DB texted about something, I said about how busy it was where we were and DB replied: "Not busy at mum's house".

I couldn't be bothered to reply but one day I will point out to him that mother's day was celebrated in plenty for our mum when we were kids, but when you are no longer a child and have children yourself, the focus is no longer on the older mother who doesn't have dependents to slog for... two days I was in labour for, damn right it's about me Do brothers just not think of their sisters as being mothers in their own right, like there's only ever one mother to consider? 🤔

FWIW, Mother's Day is also in a rubbish part of the year with crap weather, so I prefer to transfer it to summer along with Father's Day. So I could actually visit my mum on the official one, but there are issues around neglect and general not-giving-a-shit about my childhood, so I'm not putting myself out. She made me feel unworthy and useless, so why should I?

If there are choices to be made then Mother and Fathers day are about the people actively parenting IMO.

MIL does loads and LOADS of parenting of her daughters kids - and SIL rightly makes a massive fuss of her mum on mother's day and gets her DCs to send Happy Mothers Day Granny cards. She herself gets a mothers day card ect, but they very much share the day. This makes sense to me. MIL is sharing the parenting of the DCs, SIL shares mothers day.

Me - i pop a card round to my mum and DH posts MILs one (long way away) - but we've got 4 DCs (youngest at primary), so while we think of our parents on M + F day, it's us at the coalface of parenting our DCs and so it's us that get spoiled on the day in this house :)

As each of my older ones start having babies i shall not expect them a that point to do more than bung a card round to me :)

Never. It's always been a day of thanking and celebrating all the mums or dads up the generation in my family. We have always got together as extended family (for those that could and wanted to) so usually have a bit of time just each family unit that day then the wider family do something too.

@DDIJ time to tell her no and do something for yourself xx

Surely when you become a parent it becomes more about spending time with your own children? I think I’ve spent one Mother’s Day with my own Mum since I became a parent, we all went for a meal together. Other than that, I’ve spent the day with my own DC. I still send my Mum a card and gift every year and she’s happy with that.

As soon as I became a mother, we made the day about me first instead of my dm. Same with dh. So I would make plans according to what I would like to do and invite the grandparents if they would like to join. But no way would we be traipsing from parents to inlaws and making the day least enjoyable for myself and dc. Fortunately both sides don't have any issue with this.

We stopped doing presents, Christmas etc and just did meet ups. When my GC got to about three, I made it clear that I wasn't bothered about MD for me, but my eldest DD cooks a roast so we tend to go there. It's a rubbish time of year in the North, sometimes it's still snowing. My birthday falls on MD every few years and I'd be happy to just do MD, as a group on those years. I think that the expectations some people seem to have on their adult children are very selfish.

In most families it’s not practical for “all the mums” to get together. If I met with my mum do I include my MIL? If my MIL is included then my SIL must be too. But she has her own MIL and SIL...

So should we split my own family and my husband sees his mother? Which grandmother gets to see the grandchildren?

Unless you have a very small family someone will not be able to see their own mother or their own children.

If grandmothers accepted that Mother’s Day is for mothers who are actually caring for children it would be much simpler.

That’s before we get to all the mums who have lost children or women who can’t have children that find Mothers Day very difficult.

Can we just ignore it altogether?

And the day is about me and my dc. I'm not going to let these moments pass to only get my turn as a gp myself. Break the cycle op.

This is why restaurants exist so no mums have to cook on Mother's Day