Mother’s Day when Mom is a grandma? Yes. But first, let’s go back to the beginning. Where my dad said Mother’s Day was a conspiracy started by Hallmark to sell greeting cards. Perhaps this was the beginning of my dicey relationship with Mother’s Day. Not to mention my mother’s feelings about it. 

Mother’s Day is different when you’re a young mom than from when you’re a grandma. And when you’re dealing with great grandma, all bets are off.

First Let’s Go Back In Time

When I was a young mother all I wanted on mother’s day was some rest. The predominant plan was to get my husband take the kids somewhere for a couple hours, have them make handmade cards with folded copy paper and markers, and then have dinner together with a cake. But mother’s day for grandma, for my mom, wasn’t like that.

My Mother, Not Myself

My mother has always felt mother’s day was very important. Perhaps this started when we were all very young, back when my dad said Mother’s Day was a conspiracy started by Hallmark to sell greeting cards. This caused tension, and my two parents reached a compromise. While everyone else celebrated Mother’s Day, we were allowed to celebrate something called Family Day. We all went out to eat together and the children got gifts.

We’ve Had Some Issues in this Family with Honoring Women

Later on when my mother told me the story I reflected. How could Dad have gotten such an idea? I think it came from his reading of Marx, but I’m not sure. Dad also described buying engagement rings as “bourgeois.”

Family Day was phased out in favor of a more normal Mother’s Day by the time I was ten or twelve. The pressures brought on by school teachers, friends, and the grandparents finally overran Dad’s created holiday.

Our wonky way of celebrating Mother’s Day when I was a kid may have underwritten my own very casual view of Mother’s Day.

My Laissez-Faire Mothers Day Practices

When my kids grew up and left home, Mother’s Day became even more understated for my kids. They called me. I wouldn’t dream of asking them to do more. Likewise, my daughter told me last week that she wants to keep Mother’s Day simple, and if son in law would just take the kids to Chick Fil A for an hour that would do.

But Not Everyone in Our Family Takes the Casual View

My mother is over 80, but to this day, her children know not to ignore mother’s day.  Even back in the 70’s, when Mother’s Day was Family Day, we all had to wear our fanciest clothes and go to a fancy restaurant and Be Good. If you were bad on Family Day, you would get punished. Later, as a grandma, Mom kept high expectations. One day I sent flowers and FTD did a lousy job and I got the blame. You can’t be too careful with Mother’s Day.

My relationship with mom was tough. We even got to the non-speaking stage on more than one occasion. With that type of history now, I have to be careful. 

I knew this year I’d better take some steps to do at least a “good enough” job on Mother’s Day if I didn’t want the whole “not good enough mother’s day” thing to happen. I set up a special lunch for me, my daughter and Mom, arranged gifts, arranged clothing… I told myself it was an evasive maneuver, a way of staying out of trouble. 

Or is it?

The truth is, I don’t know if it’s all pragmatic. I do feel like this is my duty. The whole thing gives me a chance to reflect on what Mother’s Day means.

Part of what I’m doing is trying to satisfy my mother’s expectation because it’s just easier. She feels that her kids owe her proper attention on Mother’s Day. We’re honoring her for being our mom in addition to making up for the Family Day debacle or the 70’s. But there’s more to it than that.

Mother’s Day when Mom is a Grandma is a Bigger Question Than it Might Seem

What do we mature adults owe to our moms in terms of Mother’s Day? What does Mother’s Day with grandma look like?

How do we deal with it when we feel like our mothers weren’t perfect? Do we still have to “do” Mother’s Day to their satisfaction?

At times I feel like the aged parent rhetoric goes something like, “Look I kept you alive isn’t that enough? Keeping a kid alive is a lot of work! Now it’s time for payback!” And it is.

My friend Aging Hippy Chick said one day that she and I were possibly “under-mothered.” This also connects to what I heard at a support group a couple months ago: “What’s up with our parents … They give you food for a few years and they think they own you forever.”

Perhaps the problem is that a child’s vision of ideal motherhood is so at odds with the reality of what motherhood actually is. Is there any point when a child is allowed to say to an erring parent,  “Yeah Mom you didn’t do the stuff you should have done. Now you don’t get Mother’s Day?

Basically No.

Basically, there is no such point. If you want to be a good person with siblings and everyone else you have to honor your mother on Mother’s Day. Beyond the basic customary decency of the act, you’ve got to look at what it means to your mom. The annual honor is, for many moms, what we might call if it were school children, a basic need based in their human dignity. 

Mother’s Day when Mom is a Grandma Involves a Role Reversal

One thing that helps with this is remembering the how in some ways at advanced ages your parent becomes the child and you become the parent. A mom’s fragile view of the world can be tipped by ungrateful children. And that could be physically dangerous to elders with fragile health. 

One could extend to a mom the kindness that we extended to our children when they did bad bratty things. Or that I do with students who are “making poor choices.” You take evasive action, and then you affirm that even, so you do still have the relationship.

When Your Parent Becomes Like Your Child

I have come to believe that it is my duty to take my mother out on Mother’s Day. So be it if Mother’s Day with grandma turns into being something to get done, like Mother’s Day when you have young children.

I got fed as a child whether I deserved it or not. The truth is I was not a particularly well-behaved kid and I don’t think I was an easy one.

Okay: Truth. I Wasn’t a Model Child.

Yet I received a home, food, and clothing. Perhaps that was only because my mother would have proudly said “We are a certain type of people and we do not dump our children off at the orphanage or put them in foster care.” The neighbors were watching and so we had good clothes and a good house.

Whatever her motive and rationale the fact is is that she did do the things we needed to have done. (Or in many cases she told my father to do them.) She gave her effort to raising a child, and now I will give the effort to take my mom out to lunch.

I find some peace in writing this out. I would be curious to know the thoughts of any readers who also have difficult moms and also feel conflicted when they go about honoring them on mother’s Day.