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One Simple Way to Have a Great Mother’s Day
A Personal Perspective: This Mother's Day, celebrate yourself.
Posted May 1, 2023 Reviewed by Devon Frye
Key points
- Mothers often wish to be honored on Mother's Day, but feel disappointed by their family's efforts.
- Unmet needs from childhood can fuel unrealistic fantasies, as can the expectation that family members can read our minds.
- Taking agency and practicing self-care help you plan a nice Mother’s Day.
I can’t say for sure how I developed such high expectations for being happy and fulfilled on Mother’s Day. But I did—even though those expectations never served me. They set me up for disappointment.
My kids did nice things for me, and my husband acknowledged the day each year, but my expectations and (unrealistic) fantasies didn’t match what I got back from the people I loved. I somehow always wished for something more or different than what I got. My expectations left me feeling empty and sometimes I secretly had bad feelings towards my family and myself. It wasn’t good.
Many of us harbor fantasies that we will be served breakfast in bed or be treated to a day when we don’t have to cook or clean. We may want special or extravagant gifts and expect cards with heartfelt messages of love and appreciation. Don't we deserve that? We work so hard!
I know those sentiments don't just apply to me. Many mothers feel underappreciated and unacknowledged on Mother's Day and every day. On Mother’s Day, we dream of finally getting the recognition we deserve.
In addition, some of us have unmet needs that stem from childhood. Even though these wounds may have been consciously forgotten, they remain encoded in our body and unconscious mind, playing out in our adult lives on sentimental occasions like Mother's Day.
Completely unaware, these unmet needs set us up for feeling disappointed and angry. When others in our life don’t fill our childhood and adult unmet needs for attention, appreciation, celebration, and love, we naturally experience emotions that tell us "something needs to change."
Initially, I coped by withdrawing into a shell of self-pity, suffering in silence. As I got older, I expressed my disappointment by picking fights with my husband. At that time in my life, I still wasn’t able to name and validate my emotions. Instead, my emotions leaked out in the form of bad moods and controlling behavior.
The truth I have arrived at, now in my middle age, is that it is unfair to ask our loved ones to read our minds or figure out what will make us happy on Mother’s Day (and we ourselves might not even know). And we definitely can't expect our loved ones to fulfill our deep or unmet needs—that's what therapy helps us work through. At some point, we must admit that our standards are either unrealistic or that our children and spouses don’t have the capacity, creativity, or energy to give us what we want.
So, my one simple guide to having a great Mother’s Day is to have low expectations from others.
Is this cynical? Maybe. But I have found that having low expectations led me to discover what makes me happy so I could create something for myself that felt good and right.
No doubt it is hard to move on and give up the dream of having someone else give us what we want. At first, it feels bad to give it to ourselves.
In order to shift our expectations, we have to name and validate our emotions. We have to acknowledge our sadness that we can’t have the kind of Mother’s Day we had expected or wanted. We have to mourn that we don’t feel the way we hoped we would feel on Mother’s Day—special and loved. The hardest part may be to accept our loved ones for their limits and flaws (and still love them). Our growth and healing come with taking care of ourselves.
Taking care of ourselves can take many forms. It can be as simple as asking your family for what would make you happy. For example: "Tomorrow morning, is anyone up to bringing me breakfast in bed as my Mother's Day gift?" Or: "For Mother's Day, I'd love it if we could all eat together at a restaurant that I choose. Would that work for you all?"
Perhaps the best Mother's Day is one where you get a break from your family. Taking care of yourself might involve planning a lunch with a friend or getting a mani/pedi or a massage. Let your family know you are taking yourself out for Mother's Day—but be sure to ask them if they want to also plan time with you.
If your teen responds with something like, "Nah, you do you," let that be ok. Children always change and your effort to accept their lack of interest as developmental and not personal (even though that's very hard) will go a long way for later years when they have mature brains that can consider other's feelings in a real way.
When we can take matters into our own hands, something transformational happens. Our agency and self-care breeds newfound satisfaction and confidence that we can make ourselves happy. If we are a mother, then Mother’s Day is a day of celebration of us. And, who better knows what we want than ourselves?
