Nawww, look at their sweet faces. Now, off you go little darlings, Netflix calls. Photo: Guillaume David.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This has been written with some tongue-in-cheek humour, but we wanted to also acknowledge those who find Mother’s Day difficult – those who have lost mums, those who have difficult relationships with their mothers or children, those who are trying to become mums and those who cannot become mums.
I love my children. Obviously. They are squishy-faced miracles who once lived inside my body and now live inside my pantry, mysteriously able to consume vast amounts of packaged goods five minutes after declaring they were “full” from their plated, home-cooked meal.
But Mother’s Day is nothing if not a time for brutal, maternal honesty — and if I am being honest, here’s how I want to spend the day dedicated to my sacred, life-giving role:
Alone. Completely, unapologetically alone. At least for part of it.
Yes, I know. That’s not what the floral greeting cards say. According to Hallmark, Mother’s Day should involve handpicked wildflowers (which are weeds), lovingly burnt toast in bed and finger-painted “I love you” signs smeared with suspicious sticky substances.
Please don’t think me mean or ungrateful. I do cherish these crusty tributes with all my heart. It’s just this year, I would like a slight change in programming.
I would like to check into a hotel. Alone. No one asking me where their socks are. No one bursting into the bathroom to inform me they’ve “probably swallowed a LEGO”. Just me, a king-sized bed and the sweet silence of nobody needing me for anything.
I want room service. I want to eat overpriced fries with aioli and binge whatever sexy, terrible reality TV show or drama all the cool kids are watching right now. Bridgerton? MAFS? Don’t care, gimme.
I want to take a scalding hot shower without someone knocking every 12 seconds to ask where the scissors went. (They’re in the junk drawer. Everything is in the junk drawer.)
Now, I am rather partial to brunch. I am more than happy to get into that maxi dress that conceals an expanding waistline and eat eggs that cost $26. I am fine with smiling politely while someone else’s toddler screams because their pancake is touching the syrup. That is the same sound my own child makes when I put the bolognaise on the spaghetti instead of beside it. (Yeah, OK kiddo, I’m the psychopath).
Now, does this make me a bad mother? Maybe to some. But I would argue it makes me a replenished mother.
And before you say it, rest assured I have been given the spiel in as many forms as there are inexplicably grotty fingerprints on every mirror and glass surface in our home: one day, I will miss this. I will pull out one of approximately 1000 finger-painted love hearts and lament the loss of the little fingers that made them. When they’re off living their own lives, and the opinions of their friends hold much more sway than my own, I will yearn for the day when they needed me, and wanted me near.
I know it to be true, too. Once in an emotional, sleep deprivation-driven spiral I wrote a poemy-thing about this relentless march of time. Heck, even as I sink into that luxurious king-sized bed, contentedly rubbing my fries belly, I know I will invariably start wondering what they’re up to, and there will be a twinge that I’ll ignore.
But that’s the duality of motherhood. And while obviously, I don’t speak for everyone, I am sure more than one other mum out there can relate: we yearn for the space to breathe, yet miss the weight of them close. We give them roots, and we give them wings. We want to protect them from pain, but we know they must experience it to grow. We want to freeze time, but we delight in watching them unfold. We hold them close and cherish them even as we push them towards independence.
We lose ourselves and find ourselves through them.
So this Mother’s Day, bring on the brunch and the handmade “one free hug” coupons (which I will promptly lose in the junk drawer with the scissors). But then, give me solitude. Give me silence. Give me a bathrobe that smells like hotel soap and not peanut butter.
Just for one day. Then I’ll be back. Probably.
