Mother’s Day for everyone

Happy Mother’s Day to all who celebrate

It’s Mother’s Day and I want to give you little history. It was created in 1884 by Dame Judy Mother in recognition of pinot gris and noise-cancelling headphones. Over the years it has come to be a marketing exercise where women with children are encouraged to shave their entire bodies and pluck themselves into oblivion (not in a good way). It’s important we return to the roots of Mother’s Day by focusing on what it was originally meant to achieve: a moment’s fucking peace for mothers.

Here’s what you should give to a new mum

Leave cookies by the door and a note. Tell her the baby is beautiful (because it is) and Mum is a champion (because she is). Tell her that everything will be OK. That even in the worst of times there is joy to be found. That she has a community. Tell her you hope she feels it. That every time she needs someone, she knows they’re there, at the end of the phone, whatever time of day. That now is the time to cocoon and that her community will be waiting with open arms to love her and her baby and welcome them when she’s ready. Tell her you know the early days can be scary and uncertain, but one thing you know is that she is strong, that her baby is loved as much as she is loved. Tell her she’s not alone. She’s never alone. And give her a subscription to a streaming service and a snot sucker. If it’s necessary, tell her don’t worry, their heads do go back to their normal shape because not naming names but I wish someone had told me because… anyway.

For mothers who can’t work out why other mothers complain all the time when motherhood is such a GIFT and we just need to CHERISH it and BE GRATEFUL

Nothing. They’ll do their own present then claim their kids did it.

Photo by Jose Escobar

For the pregnant mum who has a child or children at home

Check in. Read to her other child or children while she disassociates. Let her rest. Connect with her children. Talk to them about their sibling. Help build them up so she can start to believe that it’ll all work out. Make her believe it. Tell her your stories of the joy you felt seeing your baby or babies meet your new baby. Tell the story of how you thought your heart couldn’t expand so far and how you found yourself new in the eyes of your children. Tell her that yes, your five-year-old is the fucking worst right now as well. Tell her that yes, toilet training can wait and yes you’re so excited for her.

For Instagram mothers

Easy! Sourdough starter. An F45 membership – and a tripod because you’re not really getting fit unless you’re live-streaming it. Hello Fresh. A Dyson vacuum cleaner (to use as a prop, not for actual use). A new dog that is some kind of puppy-mill breed of poodle crossed with smaller poodle that will have the worst temperament known to man but will look good in photos.

For Facebook mothers

This is a gift you can give to all of the mothers in your life who are on Facebook. Set up a cage in your backyard, roughly the size of an elevator. Depending on how much you can get from Bunnings you can add modifications like barbed wire. Place a two by four next to the entrance and one or two folding chairs. Now, in one corner put a grandmother whose children don’t speak to her any more because she said baby formula was poison. In the other corner put a mother who has five kids under five and a husband whose hobby is sitting in his car and watching porn while pretending he’s at work.

If you’re looking for others to fill your title card, try the mum who isn’t anti vaxx, she’s “just asking questions” because her highest level of education is fourth form versus a GP who just had to explain that cucumber doesn’t cure Covid-19 for the 19th time today. Fill the audience with mothers who “hate drama” but are somehow fighting for front-row seats. Keep them two metres apart.

Photo by Vitolda Klein

For the mother who has lost a mother

Tell her what you see: tell her you see someone whose mother would be so proud of her. Ask her about her mother. Share stories. Watch as her face lights up with these precious memories and remember with her. Love her as her mother would.

For the mother who has lost a child

Talk about her baby. Be there in whatever way you can.  Ensure she’s not alone. Don’t just say it, make it true. Wrap her in love like you would swaddle a baby. Hold her in your heart on this day and every day.

For the mothers who didn’t have a mother

Tell her this day sucks. That it’s stupid. That you get it. Send clips of influencers being hit by waves as they pose on the beach, of ducks wearing hats, of Chris Evans ripping apart firewood. Raise a toast or break bread. Tell her you’re family and you’re so grateful for her. Tell her you too hate Mother’s Day catalogues that say things like, “When I became a mum I realised how much my mum did for me!”

Photo by Bethany Beck

For the thirsty mother

Something that vibrates (but is not something you use in the kitchen), an hour-long clip from Normal People that cuts out all the pointless dialogue and is just the rooting, that novel that keeps popping up on Facebook, The Woman Who Got Double Banged by A Guy Who Looks Like Jason Momoa And A Guy Who Looks Like Chris Hemsworth In A Cave or something. I think it’s by Nalini Singh?

For mothers with kids over 18 who don’t live at home

Nothing. Their gift is that they have no children with them.

Photo by huanshi

For all mothers

Love. Because that’s the thing we all need most. No matter who or where we are.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers and would-be mothers and hope-to-be mothers. To all the mothers who have ever hoped to be arrested just because a night in the cell would be easier than putting your kids to bed or if you’ve looked at a shipping container and thought “I could live there” – I see you and you’re not alone. I hope you can rest today, surrounded by all you hold dear, whether that’s face-to-face or by screen. I salute you.

This piece was adapted from a Spinoff article I wrote in 2020