My Mothers' Day
It was really a quite lovely Mothers’ Day.
My mother lives three thousand miles away, so we do the obligatory early morning phone call to catch up and then we’re done with it. And, my wife took a trip in early April with girlfriends that was expensive enough to free me from the responsibility of getting her any substantial gift. Instead, I just helped Liv pick out hers.
“So, what do you want to get Mama for Mothers’ Day?”
“Shoes, because all of Mama’s shoes make her feet hurt.”
Which is true, and some fine thinking on Liv’s part, but no-how no-way am I trying to pick out shoes for my wife, especially not with the “assistance” of my three-year-old.
“Uh, I think Mama likes to pick out her own shoes. Do you have any other ideas?”
“How about a bra? She only has two good ones.”
I assume she know all of this because of girl talk. But, the bra is a good idea and Tricia agreed when I ran it past her, so a bra it was. I believe the most fun part, at least in retrospect, was taking Liv bra-shopping at Macy’s, where she ran around saying “this cup is too small” and “this one doesn’t have a wire” and “ohh, this is lacy,” leaving scattered intimate apparel in her wake.
(And I say in retrospect because, while it is fun to write about, she was actually being a little punk that day.)
Tricia loved her bra, and wore it to our big event of the day: the Mariners-Yankees game. Not only did I marry myself a girl who likes sports, but one who comes from a long line of sports fans – this is the third Mothers’ Day we’ve spent at the ballpark with Tricia’s parents, her grandmother, her sister and brother-in-law, and their kids. And everyone, including grandma but not the kids (obviously) or me (a little hungover), enjoyed a couple beers we watched the M’s topple the Evil Empire 2-1 to take the weekend series.
I mean, really, I should have nothing, and I mean nothing, to complain about in the Mothers’ Day department. Minimal shopping? Baseball? Beer? How can I possibly have a problem with Mothers’ Day?
Because I’m a crank, and I’ve got a problem with everything, that’s why.
Men who spent the last week in jewelry stores and yesterday complimenting their mothers and wives on the dry ham and watery mashed potatoes will undoubtedly roll their eyes when I say this, but I’m just irritated by the iconography of Mothers’ Day and it’s upcoming paternal counterpart.
Because all those things Mom does, that we’re supposed to remember and reward on this special day, I do. I stay at home with our daughter, work in her co-op preschool, cook 90% of the meals, do most of the baking from scratch (except Christmas cookies, which are all Tricia) and the majority of the household chores. I’m a housewife without the breasts (actually debatable, given that I have yet to drop my winter padding).
And there’s something about Mothers’ Day that goes beyond celebrating the one who bore you. The imagery, the narratives, the sales pitches are all geared toward the Mom-job as much if not more than the Mom-person. Common Mothers’ Day tropes like making Mom breakfast in bed don’t have the same resonance in our family, because I make her breakfast every weekend, and rarely is it cold cereal.
Similarly, Fathers’ Day is rarely satisfying for me because it focuses on the father that works outside of the house. You know what I most want for Fathers’ Day? Usually to get the hell out of the house and away from my wife and kid. Which would sound terrible if I worked 40 hrs/week. Instead, most daylight hours are spent at home and/or in the presence of my kid. They don’t write Fathers’ Day commercial with daddies like me in mind.
We aren’t particularly traditional; when Liv first started playing at family life with her dolls, invariably the mother went to work and the father stayed home to take care of the babies. Non-traditional families aren’t particularly well-served by the firmly entrenched traditions of Mothers’ and Fathers’ Days.
As a result, every year I’m surly around Mothers’ Day because its messages seem more geared toward my reality than Tricia’s, and surly around Fathers’ Day because it is supposed to be about me and yet doesn’t feel like it at all.
I don’t know if there’s any kind of answer to this. As gender identity politics continue to evolve, maybe there will be subtle shifts in the way we talk about the holidays, relying less on outdated-stereotypes. Maybe Fathers’ Day rhetoric will become more inclusive of dads like me, and Mothers’ Day ads will start sounding less like my life.
Of course, then we’ll have the Right claiming liberals like me are trying to ruin the traditions of the holidays. “Next, on The O’Reilly Factor: The War on Mothers’ Day. Should we allow feminists and femmy men undermine or celebration of Mom? What’s next for these sickos? Apple pie?”
Damn, that would be the best Mothers’ Day gift ever.
My mother lives three thousand miles away, so we do the obligatory early morning phone call to catch up and then we’re done with it. And, my wife took a trip in early April with girlfriends that was expensive enough to free me from the responsibility of getting her any substantial gift. Instead, I just helped Liv pick out hers.
“So, what do you want to get Mama for Mothers’ Day?”
“Shoes, because all of Mama’s shoes make her feet hurt.”
Which is true, and some fine thinking on Liv’s part, but no-how no-way am I trying to pick out shoes for my wife, especially not with the “assistance” of my three-year-old.
“Uh, I think Mama likes to pick out her own shoes. Do you have any other ideas?”
“How about a bra? She only has two good ones.”
I assume she know all of this because of girl talk. But, the bra is a good idea and Tricia agreed when I ran it past her, so a bra it was. I believe the most fun part, at least in retrospect, was taking Liv bra-shopping at Macy’s, where she ran around saying “this cup is too small” and “this one doesn’t have a wire” and “ohh, this is lacy,” leaving scattered intimate apparel in her wake.
(And I say in retrospect because, while it is fun to write about, she was actually being a little punk that day.)
Tricia loved her bra, and wore it to our big event of the day: the Mariners-Yankees game. Not only did I marry myself a girl who likes sports, but one who comes from a long line of sports fans – this is the third Mothers’ Day we’ve spent at the ballpark with Tricia’s parents, her grandmother, her sister and brother-in-law, and their kids. And everyone, including grandma but not the kids (obviously) or me (a little hungover), enjoyed a couple beers we watched the M’s topple the Evil Empire 2-1 to take the weekend series.
I mean, really, I should have nothing, and I mean nothing, to complain about in the Mothers’ Day department. Minimal shopping? Baseball? Beer? How can I possibly have a problem with Mothers’ Day?
Because I’m a crank, and I’ve got a problem with everything, that’s why.
Men who spent the last week in jewelry stores and yesterday complimenting their mothers and wives on the dry ham and watery mashed potatoes will undoubtedly roll their eyes when I say this, but I’m just irritated by the iconography of Mothers’ Day and it’s upcoming paternal counterpart.
Because all those things Mom does, that we’re supposed to remember and reward on this special day, I do. I stay at home with our daughter, work in her co-op preschool, cook 90% of the meals, do most of the baking from scratch (except Christmas cookies, which are all Tricia) and the majority of the household chores. I’m a housewife without the breasts (actually debatable, given that I have yet to drop my winter padding).
And there’s something about Mothers’ Day that goes beyond celebrating the one who bore you. The imagery, the narratives, the sales pitches are all geared toward the Mom-job as much if not more than the Mom-person. Common Mothers’ Day tropes like making Mom breakfast in bed don’t have the same resonance in our family, because I make her breakfast every weekend, and rarely is it cold cereal.
Similarly, Fathers’ Day is rarely satisfying for me because it focuses on the father that works outside of the house. You know what I most want for Fathers’ Day? Usually to get the hell out of the house and away from my wife and kid. Which would sound terrible if I worked 40 hrs/week. Instead, most daylight hours are spent at home and/or in the presence of my kid. They don’t write Fathers’ Day commercial with daddies like me in mind.
We aren’t particularly traditional; when Liv first started playing at family life with her dolls, invariably the mother went to work and the father stayed home to take care of the babies. Non-traditional families aren’t particularly well-served by the firmly entrenched traditions of Mothers’ and Fathers’ Days.
As a result, every year I’m surly around Mothers’ Day because its messages seem more geared toward my reality than Tricia’s, and surly around Fathers’ Day because it is supposed to be about me and yet doesn’t feel like it at all.
I don’t know if there’s any kind of answer to this. As gender identity politics continue to evolve, maybe there will be subtle shifts in the way we talk about the holidays, relying less on outdated-stereotypes. Maybe Fathers’ Day rhetoric will become more inclusive of dads like me, and Mothers’ Day ads will start sounding less like my life.
Of course, then we’ll have the Right claiming liberals like me are trying to ruin the traditions of the holidays. “Next, on The O’Reilly Factor: The War on Mothers’ Day. Should we allow feminists and femmy men undermine or celebration of Mom? What’s next for these sickos? Apple pie?”
Damn, that would be the best Mothers’ Day gift ever.
posted by JJisafool at 11:33 AM
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