Yesterday was Mother’s Day, at least here in the States. Some of us have great mothers, some of us have less-than-stellar mothers, and some of us don’t have mothers at all.

So how did you choose to spend this day? Did you give jewelry? I did, and it was made by one of our very own Persephone Magazine editors. Did you bake yourself a cake to celebrate yourself? (I would have done this if I had children of my own because I do not trust husband to make me a cake.) Or did you let this day pass you by in recognition that perhaps not all mothers deserve props? If you did, then I hope you did something special for yourself, too. Tell us all about it in the comments!
45 replies on “Lunchtime Poll: Mother’s Day!”
As the weather was nice, me and my younger brother helped out with gardening at mom’s country house, then later the older brother and his wife came over too, and we had a nice, casual meal. I made fruit salad instead of baking anything, and it turned out really well.
Still, it’s a touchy subject for me. I’ve had some rather bad phases with my mother, or more likely one long bad one up until I moved away from home. I’ve since come to appreciate that she did try her hardest, but often enough just couldn’t cope with 3 kids, university sweetheart turned hubby with a drinking problem, and generally hard times. I know tough childhoods are a dime a dozen, and there were okay parts, and towards the end, she actually started apologizing after incidents. But I still can’t help wondering if I could have ended up with less issues if things had been different – as in, there’s stuff that I can’t even mention to people or they’ll freak out and ask why I’m still in contact with her.
Currently the fact that she wants grandchildren way more than I want children is becoming a bit of a problem – can’t really have a reasonable discussion over it either, when one of my major reasons for being wary is not wanting to turn into the kind of parent she was.
Apologies for raining on everybody’s flowers and puppies and cupcakes.
This is the reality for some of us. It’s not all Hallmark commercials when it comes to mothers. :-/
*huggles*
Here’s to an emotionally healthy rest of the year with your mum.
Thanks! I’ve found my way to things far better than any Hallmark commercial, too, so it’s okay.
My mom’s birthday is tomorrow so we usually celebrate both around the same time. There was brunch, made by my dad, with my grandmother (who managed to behave this time) and my parents’ best friends. It was a great day. Dad got Mom and iPad and I gave her an all expense paid trip to the farmer’s market of her choice (in the tri-county area). I gave my grandmother a big ole bouquet of roses also.
Even though it was All About Mom Day, she still gave me some things. A dozen eggs from her chickens and 6 (!) squash starts that I didn’t even know she had grown for me. I was pretty happy. :)
My parents are good people. They work hard and they have done a lot for me. They actually kinda are the boot-straps kind of people but they don’t expect any medals. Our first home may have been a single-wide trailer in my great-grandmother’s garden but you wouldn’t know that now. Two people (and an unruly infant) really can start out at zero and work their way up, as long as they work together – and their kid manages to stay out of the hospital. My childhood was very different than theirs and I am so so thankful for them making sure it stayed that way. So, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are pretty big in my family.
That sounds like a really beautiful way to spend the day! And talk about a great gift idea: all expenses paid trip to a Farmer’s Market. I. Would. Buy. EVERYTHING.
Your mom keeps her own chickens, too? I admire that. I used to have “real” eggs growing up and I miss them!
I got to enjoy the day with both my mother and my mother-in-law. Mr Truly neglected to acknowledge the day with me but my amazing son made sure to bring his handmade gift with us on the trip. So melted my heart.
A handmade gift! Your son deserves a medal of some sort, or at least some candy. :)
We didn’t do much actual celebrating (my graduation kind of overshadowed it), but we got my mom a set of nesting owl dolls and a blown glass ornament. And went out drinking to celebrate all the events of the day :-)
Happy graduation!
Wait, did you go out drinking with your mom? Because…that would be kind of awesome.
My two younger sisters and I threw a brunch for all the moms in our family. Considering I don’t cook really at all, feeding 30 people was an exhausting challenge, but it went awesome. We decorated the shit out of the place and had a bunch of  delicious stuff. I am so exhausted that I almost considered having a child so I would be included in the mom bunch instead of the hostess bunch, but then I remembered that that is a really stupid reason to procreate.
Feeding three people can be tough, let alone 30. And I don’t care what anyone says: a brunch is just as tough as a full-size breakfast or lunch.
What’d you serve? Casseroles? Eggs? Fruit? All of the above?
My mom came over and had a pre-Avengers movie marathon with the kids yesterday, while I went out and did some bike shopping with the Mister. I got a super fancy purple bike that is combination mother’s day/10th anniversary present. Then we rode bikes in the rain until I was pretty sure I was breathing fire.
PURPLE BIKES FOREVAH.
Where are you going to ride that thing? I hope you have really good streets for it and you can just truck around the neighborhood with it all the time, because that would be AWESOME!
Right now we’re riding around the neighborhood, though there are a lot of great places to go riding around here. Our neighborhood is great for training, though. It is laid out in an oval, like a track, and the oval is almost exactly  mile around, with hills of varying steepness throughout. I figure when I have the neighborhood down, I will be ready for anything.
Oh bugger I’ve forgotten to get her flowers! I was with my bf and just send her a text. I was going to do a great entrance today and now it’s already now-more-open-shop time. Tomorrow it is.
Better late than never!
Besides, if your mom is like my mom, she doesn’t really want a huge fuss made over her. Just some sort of acknowledgement is nice.
That’s definitely her. I just think I could have eh ..remembered.
Since it was wedding weekend, I didn’t have much time to do anything. I did make sure that I got both our moms and grandmas, and my stepmom nice picture frames, so that when we get our pictures back, they’ll get a nice print. And since my mom helped us out with the costs, I’m paying for her massage this weekend coming up once she’s back and settled in Florida.
Wedding!!!
I’m pretty sure your mother was just tickled that YOU were happy on that momentous of days!
I got some flowers from Fresh Market and made an arrangement to take over to my mom and made a chocolate with white chocolate cream cheese frosting cake for the dinner we all had last night. I always like making an arrangement myself when possible… it’s cheaper and more personal.
Self-arranging flowers: blowing my mind.
This cake talk is really making me hungry. I should go have babbies so I can have children bring me cakes. D:
It’s super easy… just get a few cheap bunches, cut them down to fit nicely in a vase, voila. Stick a ribbon around the vase if you’re feeling fancy.
I sent my mother an article from BuzzFeed that was an homage to Mom Fashion.
Yeah, I’m not a very good daughter.
Lololol
MOM FASHION
Pleated, high-waisted jeans were present in this article, I hope.
“Moms are the original hipsters: pure beings uncorrupted by irony.”
http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/a-tribute-to-mom-fashion
Here in the United Kingdom our Mother’s Day was in March. The fact that I had already celebrated didn’t stop me from feeling bad for not remembering about it, so when I got an e-mail from an American commpany telling me that NOW WAS MY LAST CHANCE EVER TO BUY ANYTHING EVER OR DO ANYTHING NICE EVER for my mother, I panicked and ran upstairs to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day.
She raised an eyebrow and told me that I’m a young fool -_-
Ah well. She knows I care.
My husband’s British, so he always has to buy a card 10 months in advance and then rely on me to remember where he put it the following March. We typically give her a call on US Mother’s Day’s, too, so she gets two Mother’s Days in a way.
That’s so nice!
BACK IN MARCH!
You know, I think March is better for Mother’s Day. I feel like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are too close together in the States.
March was pretty early for us this year, I think. I never remember what date either day is on without a helpful neon sign in my face every year.
My parents recently retired an moved to the middle of nowhere. I sent my mom a care package of her favorite snacks from Trader Joe’s (she misses it so much!). She’s on a road trip right now, so she won’t get it for a week or so.
That is a kindness indeed.
Did you send her a jar of that cocoa almond butter while you were at it? Because omg, that stuff. That stuff is deadly delicious.
My mom lives 2000 miles away, so we didn’t get to celebrate together. But I had flowers delivered for her enjoyment. She loves having fresh flowers in the house. My grandmother sent them for almost every holiday when she was alive, and I’ve been doing my best to keep the tradition up since she died.
My boyfriend’s mom only lives five miles away, so we had her over for dinner and baked a blueberry pie to celebrate.
Mmmmmmm….blueberry pie. I can’t even remember the last time I saw or ate a blueberry pie. I must live in cobbler territory.
I bet the boy’s mom loved it. And I’m sure YOUR mother loved the flowers! That’s one nice thing about having Mother’s Day in May: there are flowers to be had for less than an arm and a leg and the rights to your firstborn.
Did nothing, we had it back in March. And my sister and I were away together, so we just sent our mum a text to say hi and let her know we survived our adventures. Whoops:)
My mom is low-fuss, too. She gets really bashful if people make a big deal out of the day. In fact, she usually ends up planning her own Mother’s Day events as an excuse to get everyone together and see them, then she proceeds to do all the cooking and hosting–unless we force her to stop and sit down, of course.
I made an ice cream layer cake thing (angel food cake with chocolate chips on the bottom, vanilla frozen yogurt in the middle, strawberries with strawberry sauce on top of the yogurt, topped off with another layer of cake to seal it in). Unfortunately, my grandma ended up in the hospital this weekend so our big family dinner for yesterday was cancelled. Which means that we get cake at the staff meeting today, so it’s not totally wasted.
(Grandma is doing ok, by the way.)
I’m glad to hear your grandma is doing okay. D:
As for that cake, please oh Lord, write an article or SOMETHING about that recipe because I am salivating all over my keyboard here. Seriously.
It is a Weight Watchers recipe, but it’s actually delicious. I used regular frozen yogurt instead of the fat free (which I find too watery), and I added dark chocolate chips when I baked the angel food cake. Another wrinkle is that I am completely useless with a knife and ended up cutting the cake a little too thick. So instead of lots and lots of layers, it was just cake | frozen yogurt | strawberries | cake. But it was 100% OM NOM NOM!!!
I live way far away from my mom, so we just had a phone date and made plans for when I come visit her next week. We’re having a bad chinese takeout and movie night. I’m so looking forward to it. :D
Now that is a Mother’s Day (or hell, Tuesday night) I approve of.
Tell me you’re watching a ridiculous or otherwise unserious movie, because that is the best!
You know it! It’s the only way to have a bad movie night. :D
I was a jerk and went camping over the weekend so couldn’t see my mom, but I’m taking her out to dinner this week. My mom really dislikes the commercialism of the holiday, though, so she’s more into the heartfelt.
A good dinner is the way to go, then. Nothing speaks to the heart quite like a good meal!