Why You Should Get Your Mother Nothing for Mother’s Day

Whatever you’re thinking of, she doesn’t deserve it

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My mother hated Mother’s Day

Worst day of the year

Not because she’d lost a child

Or was estranged

Or because she never wanted children

Or for any of the usual reasons

My mother hated Mother’s Day because…

She was a florist

Even after she retired, I didn’t get my mother flowers for Mother’s Day. Why? Because to her, Mother’s Day meant back-breaking, soul-crunching, and stress-laden hours ending in exhaustion. And it was all because, in our society, flowers are the default Mother’s Day tribute for the multitudes who fail to properly honor their mothers in the ways that really matter on the 364 other days of the year.

You may think a florist would love the holiday as it’s the most profitable day of the year. It’s also the busiest. She undoubtedly reveled in the compensation when she did the books at the end of the month. My mother had no aversion to money. The day itself, however, not a fan.

Every year, we heard about how many hours she’d gone without eating or going to the bathroom. It was a weekend of hard labor, and since our shop was open on Sunday mornings, she never got the day off. Not once.

She wasn’t alone; our father toiled beside her, as did her three employees and five daughters. But nobody worked harder than Mom because, while Dad was the designer and the muscle, Mom was the face of the business. She was in charge of public relations, accounting, logistics, and smoothing the ruffled feathers of the entitled.

She was the one who had to explain that Saturday at five p.m. was too late to order a lily of the valley bouquet or a dozen American Beauty roses for a highly irate customer who had to have it (but not badly enough to have planned ahead). I’m sure those in the restaurant business can relate. Holidays are hell for them, too.

For most people, Mother’s Day is an attempt to compensate for the 364 other days of neglect and ingratitude to which we subject the person who gave us life. The amount of money and ostentation that go into a Mother’s Day gift seems to be in direct proportion to the burden of guilt of the giver. Those hell-bent on retiring at 40 or trotting the globe living their best life have a tendency to forget dear old Ma until a national holiday reminds them of the social obligation to give the old gal a nod. Usually, it’s too late to think much about what one’s mother really wants or needs so flowers it is.

Florists deal in highly perishable goods, just like restauranteurs, yet folks have a hard time understanding why there’s not an unlimited supply of a specific flower available when they realize Mother’s Day is upon them. At least most people understand the concept of a limited number of tables and seats available for Sunday brunch.

Here’s the truth about what mothers want for Mother’s Day. We want nothing, as in “no thing.” We only want a small measure of what we give our children: time, attention, consideration, and care. We want more calls and fewer texts. Maybe even (gasp) an actual letter in an envelope with a stamp on the outside, and for the genuinely bereft, a return address.

We want to know what you think, how you feel, and if there’s any wisdom we can impart. Ask us about our hopes and dreams, why we made the choices we did, and what we would have done with our lives if we’d never been mothers. What do we regret? What are our proudest accomplishments? What else do we want to do before the clock runs down? You’ll wonder about those things when we’re dead. I promise. Ask us anything on Mother’s Day except for money or childcare.

More than anything, we mothers want to hear what we did right. Most of us are aware of our errors. Social media adequately fills that information void. We compulsively read adult parenting articles like tea leaves and fervently hope you don’t feel like those people on Quora who blame their parents for everything. We know we were not perfect. We don’t expect you to pretend we were, but we weren’t terrible, at least not at everything. If we were, you’d have left us on the island of your misfit toys years ago.

So this Mother’s Day, forget the forget-me-nots and consider giving of yourself. It may cost you, but it’s worth it.

Public service announcement: Do not be a jerk to people who work on Mother’s Day weekend. I’m not saying someone else will get the last dozen roses or that a brow-beaten chef will spit in your Eggs Benedict, but I’m not saying it’s never happened either.