TOMORROW IS MOTHER’S Day. Yes, the day the clocks go forward for summertime, and we all lose an hour’s sleep. You know, because mums are so oversubscribed with sleep that when they were handing out celebratory days, the one with the least shut-eye seemed the most appropriate.
It never ceases to make me smirk, and it’s just one of the many ironic idiosyncrasies of motherhood, where most of us have to work like we don’t have children and parent like we don’t have jobs. If you ask your mum what she wants for Mother’s Day, she’ll usually say ‘Oh, I don’t want anything,’ but of course she does. Although I’m willing to bet it’s not what you think she wants and is almost always not going to be that panic-bought item you got at the very last minute.
I can already feel the eye rolls from those generally tasked with buying the presents (cough, *the dads*). The marketing boffins would have you believe that the things ‘mums will just adore,’ need to have the word ‘mum’ on it. Go into any retail outlet, and you’ll be met with old reliables like a candle with #1 mum written on it, tea towels with #1 mum written on them, and wine glasses with #1 mum written on them.
Anything at all with the world ‘mum’ slapped on it is apparently ‘just what she wants.’ Everything from bath bombs to chocolates, and weirdly foot spas are trotted out as ideal gifts for the mum in your life. I could think of nothing worse than my feet sloshing about in some lukewarm wat.
