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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be a bit fed up that the granny's have claimed mother's day?

153 replies

grumblinalong · 20/03/2009 17:48

I've had a rubbish day, I'm feeling pretty fed up after a hellish week and I suppose I am being unreasonable and feeling sorry for myself because DP told me to buy my own mother's day present. I'm going to have a moan anyway.

I feel like mother's day has been taken over by DP's mum and my mum's wants and wishes and I feel a bit pushed aside. We have to go for a whole family Sunday lunch in a stuffy pub for MIL, when I told my mum this she was put out and proceeded to invite us for sandwiches and cakes late afternoon 'so I can see the boys on mother's day.'

DP in all fairness said I didn't have to go for the family lunch but he would have to take the DS's - I do actually fancy seeing my offspring that day though! So now my mother's day is going to be spent driving the kids miles, stressing about keeping them relatively calm in the pub, driving miles again to my mum's and feeling obliged to eat when I'm probably not going to feel like it.

I think that I'll just console myself that it's an over commercial venture anyway and I don't need making a fuss of on a designated day arranged by the card company's to show that my sons love me.

OP posts:
TheRealMrsJohnSimm · 20/03/2009 19:45

OP: Have you actually asked said granny's when it will be your turn to be centre of attention/get to celebrate on mothers' day?

JazzHands · 20/03/2009 19:47

Fallenmadonna exactly.

Fast-forward 30 years when we're all on gransnet, saying FFS apparently I don't get any thanks for all the donkeys years I put in bringing them up, the selfish little buggers say all the mummying I did doesn't count any more. Apparently I'm not a mum anymore, just a gran! They seem to think little ones are hard. Ha! Wait til the teenage years, the worrying about boyfriends, the awful ex-husband, etc etc...

southeastastra · 20/03/2009 20:00

they should have a grans day then. children love (well some) to make a fuss of their mums on mother's day. hauling them across town to see their nans is not the same thing.

anyway my mil gets all the lie ins she needs

TheFallenMadonna · 20/03/2009 20:05

But my mum is my mother - not my grandma.

How would a 'grandmother's day' celebrate our relationship?

I dunno. We don't do a whole big hoo-ha, and perhaps if we had to, I would feel the same as the OP. I'm just at all the "they've had their time" comments. And a bit sad too. My mum has 'mothered' me recently during some awkward times. Reminds me that it is a role that never stops.

JazzHands · 20/03/2009 20:05

Are all the grannies on this thread only interested in seeing the GCs then?

Mine likes to see DD obviously, but on mum's day she likes to see me, as I am her DD.

I am finding all this a little baffling. It's a bit like when you have to go for xmas at someone elses house and they do everything strange and wrong...

coochicoo · 20/03/2009 20:10

I'm with Jazzhands. I'm quite astonished at some of the attitudes on here.

My babies are 7 months and 3 years. I spend every day with them and expect nothing from them. Neither do I see the point of dh buying me a card 'from the children'. I'd rather spend the day with my mum / mil as we don't see them often and just seeing the children will make their day.

I dread being a mil when I read messages on mn.

southeastastra · 20/03/2009 20:12

my mum didn't take us over to gps on mothers day, we just made a fuss of her in small ways, wasn't a huge occasion

coochicoo · 20/03/2009 20:13

And btw there already is a Grandparents' Day which my mother has made me promise not to buy into. It all gets so silly.

chegirl · 20/03/2009 20:15

I bloody hate mothers day (cant find emoticon with a sulky face)

Blarbie · 20/03/2009 20:17

Mothering Sunday is a very old day to go home to Mother church and at same time see your Mum - it is NOT about commercialism. I was brought up to believe that it was my Mum's one day off so we all did what we could to help out and made cards etc. If you CHOOSE to turn it into a commercial day when you are celebrated and have lots of cash spent on you then that's up to you.
It isn't about spending money or presents, it's about spending time with family - Mum. Your Mum's are your family, why wouldn't you want a lovely excuse to spend a day with them? Similarly why wouldn't you want to have a nice sunday dinner out of the house so you don't have to cook? To me that's a day off.
The real Mrs. John Simm - the answer is simple, when they are dead! They aren't dead yet so for goodness sake please be nice to your Mums and encourage other halves to be nice to theirs too.

insertwittynicknameHERE · 20/03/2009 20:23

My mum and MIL will visit DD here on Mothers Day and I will stay in my jammies and have DH bring me endless cups of tea. Have lots of cuddles with DD and watch the Sound Of Music.

DH hates the Sound Of Music, but I get to choose the film lol.

Mum and MIL both get a card from DD and ourselves and a bunch of daffs.

southeastastra · 20/03/2009 20:24

i'd have to spend it with mil then and she already stays over one night a week. so we see her sunday, then monday and tuesday.

or invite her over so spend sunday stressing about driving her back and forth then fitting in all the sunday things too like homework.

muffle · 20/03/2009 20:27

YANBU, although I don't feel as strongly about it as you do, but it only occurred to me recently that mother's day for me is about making sure I have organised flowers for my mum, as well as her birthday which is around now as well. Apart from a mother's day card that DS makes at nursery, I don't tend to get anything but I hadn't really expected anything. But last year I had just recovered from flu, and DP took me and DS out for lunch and it was v. nice.

My mum is OK but I would hate to be expected to actually spend the day with her, or MIL - luckily they both live too far away. MIL gets nowt anyway as DP doesn't bother and I don't think she cares.

The answer for all of you with this problem is to make sure you book a holiday and are away on the date. Your DH/DP can treat you and you just send flowers to the mothers.

thegreatescape · 20/03/2009 20:30

Christ, this thread has me breaking out in a sweat. We are taking my mum out for lunch on sunday (my md treat as well) and my dh is saying he will 'make something up' to tell his mum so she doesn't have a tantrum! FFS, he's 46! I asked if he had spent every md with her and he said apart from a couple of years ago and she went mad about it (I was 9 months pg and she lives an hour's drive away).

Last year we went there and I cooked a meal so thought she would understand if we didn't see her this year. Apparently not.

muffle · 20/03/2009 20:31

Blarbie you have a point, but some of the mums and MILs on here sound like really difficult women who demand compliance from everyone and throw hissy fits about not getting everything exactly as they decide on M-day. Not nice and makes everyone unhappy. I never want to be like that and I'm trying to start as I mean to go on by not having any particular expections about the whole thing (and I don't mean that in a martyrish way!).

random · 20/03/2009 20:33

Does being a grandmother stop you being a mum? Confused

McDreamy · 20/03/2009 20:36

YANBU like muffle mother's day is making sure I get flowers and cards delivered on time.

DH sorted his mum out this year, we had a phone call this afternoon to say she had received her flowers, as I went out on the school run a van turned up with a delivery of flowers for me.

I didn't have time to open the box and racked my brains all the way to school, wondering who they could be from.

Decided they were from a friend who stayed at ours for a couple of nights.

Came home to open them and of curse they were from the children (DH). Still took me a couple of minutes to realise they were my mother's day flowers!

2rebecca · 20/03/2009 20:47

It sounds as though next year you have to tell husband that you want to celebrate your mothers day with your kids. I do think mothers day with young kids is more special than when you are a granny, because although you are still a mother if you have done a good job most of the active mothering days are behind you. When my kids are older and have their own families I'll be happy with a card, flowers and a phonecall.
If you don't want to do this stuff you have to say so in advance and make it clear you are a mother and having your own mothers day celebration and will see them on other days.

Bumperlicioso · 20/03/2009 20:49

See now, I have come up with the perfect solution: My mum lives too far away for it to be an issue for her, so send DH off with DD (21mo) to MIL for the day. MIL happy to see grand-daughter, DH gets brownie points for visiting his mum, and I get a whole day to myself to read magazines in peace without having to draw 50million cats contemplate the joy of motherhood, everybody's happy!

Jux · 20/03/2009 21:10

I was 14 when I first heard of mother's day - mum wasn't interested in it and it was never mentioned in school, no one I knew talked about it. Mum still isn't interested in it.

Likewise I am not particularly interested, but as dh makes a big deal of father's day (or expects us to make a big deal of it) I have become a little more inclined to feel he should make an effort on mother's day.

He used to make a card for his mum and write in it left handed (oh how twee but she loved it [vomit]). Now he phones her.

I'm not allowed breakfast in bed as dh really can't bear the idea of food and bed happening in the same place! One day ... one day ... I have sent him a link for my favourite chocolates. Here's hoping

piscesmoon · 20/03/2009 21:18

I am very confused by the thought that as soon as I have a child my mother is my grandmother and needs a grandparent day!!
It is mother's day-I have a mother, DH has a mother-neither of us has a grandmother so whereas my DCs might like to celebrate grandparents day it is nothing to do with me.
It is a church day, taken over by commercial interests,it is like saying it is MY Easter. You can share!

notagrannyyet · 20/03/2009 21:23

Both my mum and DHs are no longer around. So make the most of them while you can.

However I do think Mother's Day should be a special day for mothers with younger DC not grandmas.

I was lucky that both my mum and DHs mum lived close so we could just pop in with cards and flowers....and then pop quickly out again. Both saw their DGC most weekends anyway. Neither of them expected to monopolies the day so Sunday lunch was always at home with my own DC. From age 12/13 DS1 & DD took over the cooking and now DH does it.DSs 2,3,4,&5 are not as well trained as the older two were. I must work on this!

If they all brought me flowers & chocs I'd be struggling for vases and be even fatter.
I'll be more than happy with a phone call from the 2 living away and a bunch of daffs out of the garden. And of course a kiss from my teenage boys!

If I ever become a granny! it won't be my day. It will be their mums..........But they better not forget the phone call.

JazzHands · 20/03/2009 21:50

Out of interest what about the bit between the children leaving home (say) and when they have their own children? Do people say thanks to their mums up until the day they have children of their own and then just stop? Or do people stop doing mothers day when they leave home or something and that's that?

I'm also a bit surprised about thinking the hardest mummying is when the children are small. I am expecting a lot of teen angst and then worrying about them for the rest of my life... I will still be DD's mum no matter how old she is and whether she is a mother herself.

random · 20/03/2009 21:57

Jazzhands I agree ...I'm still my grown up dds mum ..I never stopped being her mum just because she had her own children [still confused by this thread]

JazzHands · 20/03/2009 22:03

Baffled here too random.

I'll be going to see my mum on mothers day and DH will see his. It's not anything to do with DD, as much as they love to see her, as they aren't her mum.

I feel that it's so much more important now that we're not dependent on our mothers, showing that as adults we look back and appreciate all the hard work they did and all the love they gave us.

I really don't get this thread at all!