What We Really, Really Want

As I work with men and am a mother, I have been asked what it is we mothers really want for Mother’s Day.  What we want is so very simple: to be loved, to be acknowledged, to be adored and then we want you to leave us alone.  We want you to take the kids and the dogs and anything else small and underfoot and go have a great day.  Come back sweaty and exhausted and smiling ear to ear and tell us all about it, but give us three hours to ourselves so we can miss you.  This is especially true if your kids are littles.  Guys, take those littles to the park, run them into the ground and bring them home limp and pliable with exhaustion.  She will have spent those alone hours doing things she wanted to do, in the middle of the day!  No, you don’t need to know what it is.  Maybe it is catching up on TV or reading a book or simply sitting in the quiet and smiling.  Whatever she does, she will enjoy it.

Mr. Frog got it right.

For the men who say things like “My wife isn’t my mother”, I simply say “You jerk.”  Were you in the delivery room?  Did you see what she went through to bring out the life you helped create?  You owe her an internal organ let alone a card or some flowers or the chance to lie in bed while you make breakfast.  Remember that Father’s Day is a month away and what comes around goes around because you are not her father now, are you?

If you have middle to older children, remind them that Mother’s Day is this Sunday.  Put the pressure on the kid with the good heart to make a card, draw a picture, and use their words to tell mom they really do still love her.  Then pressure her/him even more to guilt the other kids into doing the same.  Preteens and teens aren’t as forthcoming with love as they are with sarcasm and derisive sneers, so we need that one day to be reminded that they do actually love us and like us a little bit.  It gives us the energy to keep trying with them.  We are the ones they blame when they can’t find something or they are running late or they told us they needed this thing ten minutes before they needed it.  This can get old.  A well written card or just an “I love you Mom” will keep us in the game without being mean for quite a while.

We really don’t want much at all. Let us revel in the fact that we are givers of life and that they, and you, appreciate us for it.  Say things like “I know I always made you clean up the vomit and well, I really appreciate you for that.”  Or “I know our kids are horrible, hot messes right now, but there is no one else I would rather do this with”.  Little things guys.  We are the people who oooh over a sweaty handful of dandelions picked out of the front yard or exclaim over the crumpled art project in the bottom of a backpack; we don’t need grand gestures, we just need gestures.