Want to Give Mom the Best Mother’s Day Gift? It’s This…

Mother’s Day is coming. It’s a day many moms look forward to. But, to be perfectly honest, some women also dread because they won’t get what they want.

Does that make us sound selfish? Not looking forward to a day to celebrate us because we won’t get what we want?

In all fairness, getting a gift for the woman who does, literally, everything, is no small task.

For a few years my kids would make me breakfast in bed. I would listen to the sounds emanating from the kitchen while laying under my covers. Waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

Little kids take forever to make a breakfast. Mothers around the world know this.

They would bring it upstairs with proud smiles pasted on their faces. My older son holding the tray filled with cold toast, cereal, pancakes, and juice, while my younger son carried a bouquet of fresh flowers. What more could a mother want, right?

Coffee. The answer is coffee.

The thing was, in my day-to-day life I eat the same breakfast every single day, and I eat it early before the whole family wakes up, before the sun is even up most days. This 10:30 a.m. breakfast my kids brought was not the breakfast my body was used to and it threw off my whole day, digestive-wise, if you catch my drift. Also, I hate fresh flowers. They die and I have to clean up the mess.

I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. I also didn’t want to keep having a Mother’s Day where I spent the bulk of my day on the toilet.

Leading up to Mother’s Day we are inundated with articles and commercials, telling us to get her chocolates, jewellery, flowers, or brunch at a ridiculously busy restaurant where we wait in line with hungry kids.

The thing is, there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these things.

If this is what she wants.

And therein lies the crux of the Mother’s Day gifting problem.

What does Mom really want for Mother’s Day?

We’re not listening to the one person we are celebrating. In order to honour the person who impacts our lives in such a profound way, we need to ask her and listen to what she really wants. After three years of eating a carb-heavy, non-caffeinated Mother’s Day breakfast I sat down with my kids and husband to have a family meeting.

I told them what I really wanted was to simply sleep in a bit, eat my usual breakfast, and maybe go for a family hike. Later in the day I’d like to have some time to myself to hang out at the local bookstore. Oh, and I absolutely did not want to cook dinner or have to clean up afterwards.

From that day forward, that’s how we celebrated. Because no matter what the mom in your life asks for—jewellery, flowers, time to herself, lingerie—what she really wants is for someone to hear her.

Isn’t that what we all want?