Mother’s Day: A Crash Course
I made the mini waffles, but Tyler and Jennie cleaned up the kitchen.
I honestly, legitimately, sincerely dislike Mother’s Day.
It’s not for the reasons people might think- nothing bad happened to me. I have a wonderful caring mom… I truly believe she ranks in the Top 5% of moms worldwide.
I think my distaste for Mother’s Day started when I worked as a waitress at a kind-of-expensive-but-not-really-high-end seafood restaurant in Hartford, CT.
It was a pretty busy place… but on Mother’s Day, people would come out of the freaking woodwork- and many of them seemed 125% miserable.
Mothers who looked like they hadn’t felt sunshine in 364 days were suddenly dusted off and brought out for lunch while their partners and kids awkwardly made conversation over mediocre seafood casserole.
There was no visible emotional connection between the people at the table.
When the bill arrived, everyone looked relieved, mentally checking off their obligatory “to do” list, and went back to normal life.
I knew I didn’t want this in any of my relationships. Not with my parents, not with my children, not with any partner. I didn’t want fake obligations.
So I wrote the holiday off (along with Valentine’s Day) as kind of dumb and unimportant to me.
Until this year, when my kids have suddenly become old enough to not auto-make the Mother’s Day card in school. The card that probably prompted them to microwave frozen pancakes for me, deliver them to my bedside table (even if I had long been awake) and then clean-ish the dishes afterward. And to my surprise, without this tradition, I just kind of felt invisible… like nothing I did as a mom was even noticed.
So this morning, on a rainy, chilly Mother’s Day, we had a kind of hard talk- about noticing people how they need to be noticed… and loving people how they need to be loved.
I made the mini waffles, but Tyler and Jennie cleaned up the kitchen.
I told them about Gary Chapman’s classic self-help book, “The Five Love Languages.” In the book, Chapman discusses the five ways people feel, and in turn, show love:
Acts of Service
Quality Time
Physical Touch
Gifts
Words of Affirmation
We noticed that all of our love languages are different. I’m a huge acts of service girl. You want to wiggle your way into my heart? Clear the table or walk the dog. Tyler likes quality time. Playing a game or building a project together makes him feel loved and seen. Jennie is all about the words- cards, especially handmade cards, are her currency.
Here’s the thing. If we never learn how to help the people we love really feel loved… anything we do really doesn’t matter. It never clicks. So we grow disconnected and wind up sitting across the table clocking it in at a cheesy seafood place.
To really show up on Mother’s Day, we need to know how to love our mom well. And as moms, we need to teach our kids how to do this for us.
An Acts of Service mom is going to really feel honored when the chore she hates most is just… done. She will feel even more loved when the next three chores on the list are done too. She probably won’t want to “put her feet up…” that doesn’t make sense to her. But when a couple of items are spontaneously removed from her mile-long list? Mother’s Day Bliss.
A Quality Time mom will be grateful that she gets to do something she loves with people she loves. Maybe that means spreading mulch or pulling weeds while Mom plants flowers. Or putting on an apron and cooking with her. Maybe it means taking an interest in her knitting or quilting- and letting her teach you how.
A Physical Touch mom wants the hugs and the cuddles and the hand-holding. She wants to snuggle up beside the people she loves on the sofa. She wants to gently move your hair behind your ears and not have you squirm away.
If a Gifts mom is well cared for, she doesn’t need a Tiffany’s blue box… she needs someone to pay attention to the little things that bring her joy… new fuzzy socks, a mug full of daisies, her favorite Starbuck’s drink, nice and hot, delivered to her unprompted.
A Words of Affirmation mom will feel appreciated when she is told, out loud or in writing (or better yet, both!), how her impact matters. She will appreciate a well-chosen or handcrafted card. He eyes will fill up when she hears proof in words that her love is felt and appreciated.
Here’s the catch- if Mom is well-loved in a way she can feel all year long, Mother’s Day is really no biggie. But if not, Mother’s Day becomes a big, confusing, guilt-laden, overblown seafood festival.
If you’re a mom, help out your kids (and possibly your partner) by removing the mystery. Teach them how to love you well.