Monday 31 March 2014

A Mother's Day post-mortem

So that's it for another year then. Mother's Day 2014 has been and gone. If you're lucky, the memory of being made to feel like a queen for the day will sustain you until next year.  Or then again, maybe not...
 
Here at Average Towers Mother's Day 2014 was a mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly.
 
The good consisted of the heavily hinted about breakfast in bed, some lovely home-made cards and some extremely thoughtful small gifts, which I suspect (well, I know) that hubby was responsible for.  Lunch was a failsafe M & S meal deal (I believe our local store was packed with bewildered looking men on Saturday morning) and I enjoyed the unusual but pleasant sensation of sitting throughout the entire meal while others fetched and carried.
 
So far we'd stuck to the script.
 
 
Then came the bad in the form of a point blank refusal from my daughter to come for a walk with me, which she'd hitherto happily agreed to.  The reason for her volte-face? Her brother was coming too. 
 
This was swiftly followed by the ugly - in the form of my reaction.  Why oh why, for just one day, couldn't they be nice to one another - if only for my sake? That was just the start of my rant - once I got going I trotted out every 'angry mother' cliché in the book.  I followed up my tirade with an extremely mature sulk.
 
If you're thinking that this was something of an overreaction to a minor everyday blip, you'd be absolutely right.  I may not be Mother of the Year but I like to think that I'd have normally handled the situation far more equably.  Instead, I made the whole thing worse and spoiled part of the day for us all.
 
So, what's my excuse then? While there's no justification for the way I reacted, some subsequent soul-searching led me down a fairly obvious path...
 
Unrealistic expectations.  I'd stupidly fallen for all the hype that surrounds this type of celebration (I think we all know which event in the calendar year is the worst for this).  The imagery and media messages that I'd been exposed to in the lead up to Mother's Day made me think that I was entitled to the perfect day, with nothing whatsoever to ruffle my maternal feathers. I'm not materialistic about Mother's Day - not in the slightest - but I had been greedy in terms of what I wanted from my children.   Because, as every parent out there knows, perfect behaviour for an entire day just doesn't happen with little ones. Stupid, stupid me.
 
In case you're wondering, once I'd come to my senses, the rest of Mothering Sunday was a hoot.  My personal highlight was our family game of football, played in the back garden with limited skills but huge smiles.   My day may not have been perfect, but there were some truly perfect moments.  And those left me feeling like the luckiest mother and wife in the world.
 
As for Mother's Day 2015 - average behaviour is just fine. Sprinkles of perfection? They're a bonus.
 
How was Mother's Day 2014 for you? Leave a comment and let me know.
 
Enjoyed this article? Why not like Average and Proud on facebook or follow me on Twitter?

8 comments:

  1. Sounds familiar...did you enjoy your walk...you should have knocked...I could have escaped with you�� xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I certainly came back with a clearer head after my walk - even if I was accompanied by only one child! Fresh air - the free antidote to a multitude of problems :-) x

      Delete
  2. This sounds familiar! I took my sons to the cinema on Mother's day (hubby stayed at home with the baby) which was lovely, but trying to go for lunch afterwards was a nightmare as everywhere was horrendously busy. We all ended up hungry and stroppy and I realised that a normal Sunday would have been much less stressful! I felt more grumpy because it was mother's day so I felt like the day should have been perfect. My expectations were too high. I got some lovely handmade cards though! #pocolo

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks so much for commenting. The handmade cards sound like a lovely memento :-) Who on earth are all these organised people who book Mother's Day lunch in advance, eh?!

      Delete
  3. That does sound familiar! My Mothers day wasn't too bad....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for stopping by Kim - glad your Mother's Day went alright!

      Delete
  4. Honest view and I agree on all points. Mothers day is overrated and we should always give our mums appreciation she deserves always. #pocolo

    ReplyDelete
  5. This sounds familiar to me too. There is so much pressure on days like this to be 'ones to remember' that unfortunately it does go this way sometimes! I tried not to think about it and we had a great day. Thank you for linking to PoCoLo x

    ReplyDelete