The reason I hate mothers day...

[Hullabaloo9]

Every year I wake up stressed and already annoyed on mothers day. I accept that maybe I am a bit of a control freak but I absolutely HATE it when people, especially kids are "helping". It really makes my skin crawl.

I hate it when the kids craft for me, make my food, make me a tea or worse bake a cake!!! I sit in silent agony while this goes on around me, every nerve on edge, anticipating the inevitable mess, chaos and arguing. I am patient and do smile and appear grateful but my god it is my own personal hell!!

My best day would be just being allowed to get on with my jobs uninterrupted, some nice light coversations maybe while I'm doing so and basically just nobody being a dick for 1 day!!!

Or, you could simply teach her how to make it like you prefer it, then your thanks would actually be genuine, and you’d get your tea the way you like it. 🤔

Oh, there's a thought! I haven't tried that. Silly me, must be a better mother in future. FFS, of course I've taught her previously. Doesn't mean she'll get it right when she brings it to me in bed the next time 🙄

I think it’s good for kids to “help”, even though it takes forever. But there are also days to pick your battles - day at home just cleaning, yes let’s help and we can do it slowly, 25 people coming round in an hour, no we can’t just take our time, someone take the kids out. I think it’s also fine to admit when some thing is out of your depth. I hate messy play, so does DH so we leave that to nursery or we do it through paid sessions out of the house. I hate baking with DC, I find it so stressful but DH doesn’t. He hates painting with DC. So I do painting and he does baking, DC help clean up after each activity and the parent supervising that activity will make sure it’s actually clean and tidy after.

Can you start small with something you are happy with? Maybe gardening? It’s outside and it’ll be spring soon, you can dust them down before going inside and they can go straight for a bath. If you find baking too stressful, maybe try cooking instead.

Assuming you have a partner at home though, them engaging the kids in an activity for you, then not cleaning up properly afterwards is a partner problem, not a Mother’s Day problem. I think Mother’s Day just highlights the issue as you’re told it should be stress free and feet up day for you.

@WhereIsMyLight This is exactly it. I do do these activities with my kids as obviously it is a part of parenting. I can't help that I don't really enjoy it, and I do hide it well on the outside. I think it's the mothersday narrative that we get a nice day, but my idea of a nice day is just getting on with my stuff.

Also the difference with fathersday. Can you imagine if the kids said they were going to tidy Dad's shed and fix the car for him! Would he smile his way through? No chance. My husband laps up the being waited on (clearly this is always probably far too micromanaged by me) and then his treat is the kids leave him alone while he watches formula 1 or something.

@Hullabaloo9 DC help DH with tasks like DIY and sorting the garage. There are sometimes a bit more danger with these activities than say baking a cake so they are managed carefully and some just need to be done alone by an adult but we do try to do some of these activities. DC has helped change the battery in the car key, topped up the washer fluid, tidied and cleaned the inside of the car, helped DH put shelves up in the garage, helped put some photos on the wall and build a storage unit (slide the shelves in). It’s still slow but DH knows we need to show DC how to do these things.

It does seem like your DH needs to helping the DC more on Mother’s Day for them to do these things for you, without creating work for you. If he isn’t facilitating that on Mother’s Day, then on Father’s Day get the kids helping him clear out the shed and just respond with it’s what he did for you so you thought he appreciate it if the favour was returned.