It's been lovely to hear from so many of you. Robby, I'm especially glad to hear from you. I'm glad difficult child phoned - it can mean so much, especially from him.
I've tried a few times to send a pm to various people, but it doesn't seem to work when I have something I really want to say - ironic. So here is something for all of you who feel your difficult child has either forgotten you or not been able to contribute much on Mothers Day. I've had years when they failed to notice that it was Mothers Day, or my birthday - I'd rather they not notice, than they notice only because they've been reminded.
Something I had to do ages ago for Mothers Day - we don't worry about material gifts. It's been a good opportunity to show our kids that the best gift they can give me is their time and consideration. We try and do something together and they usually aim to get me breakfast in bed, even if I DO have to get up and show them how to do it (when they were younger, anyway).
difficult child 1 never had any money to buy me anything. Even for Christmas one year, he had emptied his bank account well before Christmas on rubbish. We'd been trying to block access to his bank account but to do it legally was tricky. And because the bank colluded with difficult child 1 to make access to his money too easy, and then charged him extra fees for spending what he shouldn't, I had to make it clear that particular Christmas that what I REALLY wanted was a hole dug for a water feature, and the garden weeded.
We've long since sorted out the bank access problem (I even got the fees reimbursed, since the bank was at least partly responsible, in my eyes) and he's better at managing his money, but I didn't hear a peep from him this year. He'll walk in the door in the next couple of hours, like any other Monday morning. He's a lovely guy, just thick sometimes.
difficult child 3 wanted me to help him buy me something for Mothers Day - I shuddered at the thought. I have better things to do with my time than to encourage difficult child 3 to spend MORE money on things I really don't need. Chocolates? Love them, but I shouldn't eat too many. Flowers? I prefer them still growing. My family know to get me a plant, not a bunch of flowers.
But cold toast with Vegemite on Mothers Day, plus cappucino, all presented with a small vase containing two of easy child 2/difficult child 2's roses - it was very precious. Hearing the two kids working together to understand the coffee machine - priceless!
husband sitting there with a smug grin on his face, knowing that Fathers Day comes later in the year - that was cute, too.
Our local school uses Mothers Day as a P & C fundraiser. I hate it. We had to send in a gift valued at about $5, wrapped in clear cellophane. Because a lot of parents didn't do this, the P & C (Parents & Citizens) would buy a few extra fripperies and wrap them too. All these wonderful treasures were laid out in the school hall and the kids brought down by their teachers, class by class. No escape. No "opt out" clause. Often by the time my kids got there, there really wasn't much choice left. If I said I didn't want my kids involved, I was treated like a traitor to the school and someone would take pity on my child, 'lend' them $5 (which I later had to pay back) so they could buy something. My more vulnerable difficult children often bought something that was frankly a rip-off. I can just picture the scene - P & C ladies trying to offload some of the worse contributions, seeing a ripe pigeon walk in the door in the form of a difficult child who simply hasn't a clue. "Here, sonny, I'm sure your mother would LOVE a 50c bath bomb with no perfume but enough colouring to permanently stain the bathtub. That's $5, please."
I think the worst one was a pack of 10 lipstick samples, almost all of them either of two colours, both ghastly. Some were previously used; all smelt rancid.
If you had more than one kid at the school then multiply this whole ghastly situation.
So basically, we had to go out and buy a gift ($5) then send in another $5 so our child could buy it back or something worse. If I bought something nice, like a $5 box of chocolates, you can bet it never made it to the table; a P & C mother would buy it first, 'on behalf of her child'. I offered to donate $10 instead but was told it wasn't in the spirit of the thing. I said, that's my point.
The other side of it - difficult child 3 would still have the gift sitting in his schoolbag when it was time to go to school on Monday morning. If the gift was something remotely fragile then it was an interesting mess I had to clean out of his bag.
So for me, I encourage my kids to think of me and show this in some non-material way. Help me in the garden. Help me cook dinner. Get me a cup of coffee. But whatever they do, to do it with love and the spirit of Mothers Day, and it's better than anything else they could give me. It's been a good lesson for them, that material things are easy and can get you off the hook without a real thought for what it's all about, but a hug and some genuine love means that you really care and respect all your mother has done for you.
It's Monday morning now, Mothers Day is over for another year. I could be sitting back today in an empty house (apart from difficult child 3 needing to be nagged to do his geography), nibbling on chocolate or wearing new slippers and feeling a bit empty, or I could be doing what I AM doing (including nagging difficult child 3 to do his geography!) and remembering fondly that cup of coffee, the toast, the roses and the long phone call from a easy child far away. The memory will definitely last longer. I might even go and make more coffee and give difficult child 3 a cup.
Enjoy your day.
Marg
difficult child ~ a model child! She has always had a sense of humor. Only the parent of a difficult child could appreciate the true irony of this card.
