"That's Expensive": A Mother's Day Musing

It’s Mother’s Day and so I join all the legions of mothers who are celebrated on this day with surprise breakfasts, perfumes, potted plants and charmingly handmade school art projects. This year, in addition to my sweet-smelling lotions and soaps, I was presented with a big floppy hat. I’ve been wearing it all day with my yoga duds and giving the royal wave to passersby.

I always enjoy the effort my family puts into making Mother’s Day special for me. I imagine it’s the same at many homes. When the kids were small, they presented toddler-quality gifts with a smile and an innocence that was all love and tenderness. Now that they are ‘tweens and teens, the desire to present that same love and tenderness is still there, complicated by sibling relationships and teenage expectations.

There is a competition for who can pick out the best card, and sometimes a sigh when I open one card first versus another. There is an inevitable shuffling of duties when it comes time to clean up the breakfast they so proudly presented only an hour ago. Very often, there are muffled arguments about who has already done the most work. Sometimes my husband has to intervene. After all, it’s hard to keep up all this “special treatment” for a whole day. So, before morning’s end, I was busy removing the smell of bacon from the kitchen with a good Lysol scrub.

It’s like that for moms, isn’t it? I think back on my own mother’s duties. She worked full time and came home and put dinner on the table every night before 6pm. I didn’t realize how nearly impossible that was until I had kids and responsibilities of my own. I didn’t know she was Superwoman back then.

But, then we have those moments of connection that bring us that little bit of balance that keeps us from tipping over the edge. These days, it’s usually something as simple as agreement. Where my daughter is concerned, agreeing on her outfit is sublime. For my boys, I am refreshed by their sensible comments on a news item or a reasonable approach to a problem.

Once in a while, you get that feedback that really sticks with you. There is one particular remembrance I enjoy pulling out on days when I’m between agreements. When my second son was born, we packed up and moved to Atlanta where I decided to stay at home for a while before returning to work. My oldest boy was surprised to hear that Dad was the only one “working.” Then that little 3-year old boy surpassed his years when he replied, “But you work a lot taking care of me and Chase, and that’s expensive!”

He’s right. That’s expensive. Happy Mother’s Day to all those mothers doing all that work that is so expensive!