How to Guarantee Your Mother’s Day Doesn’t Suck This Year

April 25, 2022 By Anissa Leave a Comment

25 Apr

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Mother’s Day disappointment affects lots of us. It doesn’t have to! Check out these tips to ensure that your next Mothers’ Day doesn’t suck.

On the best Mother’s Day ever, I spent the morning sipping champagne with a few of my best mom friends.

We sat around the table in a kid-free house, laughing, sharing stories, and eating all the brunch-y foods our husbands and kids always balk at when we try to serve them at home.

Our husbands and kids? They were a few doors down destroying my house. It was perfect.

Now, before you get jealous and assume our families are more thoughtful than yours, I’ll let you in on a little secret.

You, too, can have an awesome Mother’s Day (or 40th birthday, or next Wednesday, for that matter).

Disappointed on Mother’s Day

The stakes can feel super-high on Mother’s Day.

After all, this is the chance for our partners and children to show us how much they love and appreciate us. It’s our chance to escape some of the routine and drudgery that’s often synonymous with motherhood. Heck, if we’re lucky, we might even get a macaroni necklace from our kids.

What is Mother’s Day? It’s a chance for us to be seen by the people we love.

And let’s face it—everyone else is looking, too. I know I’m not the only one who has scrolled through Facebook hate-liking Jennifer’s gourmet breakfast-in-bed that her perfect hubby and robot children made.

Even worse is when that mom at the playground asks what your husband and kids did for you, and your answer is something along the lines of,

We just had a quiet day…well, my husband did…you know, we don’t really tend to celebrate those Hallmark holidays anyway…I know my family loves me…we show our love in other ways…”

Who wants to admit that her motherhood didn’t inspire some grand gesture? (Especially when we make grand gestures all the time.)

Moms are the makers of magic

I might not know you, but I’d be willing to bet the farm that YOU are typically the one who brings the magic to your household.

You make sure the cupcakes have sprinkles, the birthdays have party hats, and the Tooth Fairy leaves a little glitter behind. On this one day of the year, we moms feel like it’s someone else’s chance to make the magic. And if no magic is made, we can go down the rabbit hole into full-on existential crisis mode—

Maybe I’m a terrible wife and mom whose family thinks she’s not worth celebrating.
Are my kids are completely self-absorbed?
Maybe I’m raising sociopaths…or maybe I married one.

Bulletproofing Mother’s Day

Mama, statistically, the chances are good that you’re not the matriarch of a family full of sociopaths. And the good news is, that you can get exactly the celebration you want this May.

You just need to keep the following truths in mind.

Truth #1: Your family loves you and wants you to be happy

I’ll repeat that: Your family loves you and wants you to be happy.

This should be your default assumption as you go through life. If it isn’t, then you need either a mindset shift or a major change to your family situation.

Our family members are trying their best. But just like us, they’re imperfect. Sometimes they screw up.

I yelled at my kids so loud yesterday, I wished I’d shut the windows first. Of course, this mistake doesn’t mean that I don’t love them.

Don’t mistake your family’s lack of a grand gesture on a holiday for a lack of love.

Truth #2 You need to ask for what you want if you hope to get it

OK, if we assume that our families love us, then we can assume that our husbands and kids will be happy to give us what we need. We just have to tell them what that is.

Now I know what you’re thinking, “gee, Anissa, I was hoping for some sort of lovely surprise.” Or maybe, “but the people in my family know me better than anyone…they should just KNOW what I want.”

It’s tough love time here, Mama.

That mentality is for teenage girls—not for grown women. It’s time to grow up. Maybe in a romance novel, the dark, brooding-but-sensitive hero knows exactly what the heroine needs and he gives it to her along with some flowers and a lovemaking session on a hillside.

Bet he’s thinking about the perfect Mother’s Day gift…

In real life, though, your partner has a wholly different set of expectations, collection of priorities in life, and list of ideas for what would make a day special.

And I don’t know about your kids, but if mine were trying to give me the best day ever, it would likely involve having candy for breakfast, collecting some interesting rocks together, and then talking about Pokémon for about 7 hours.

Expecting our families to guess what we need sets us up for disappointment, and it sets our families up for failure.

It’s far better to clearly ASK for what you need and trust that these people who love you will deliver. This doesn’t make your Mother’s Day gift less special. It just improves the chances that your celebration is something you actually want.

That champagne-fueled celebration I described above? 100% planned by the moms in attendance, and 100% perfect.

Tip: If you’re really against planning your own party, consider at least putting a few parameters in place for the day. You might tell your family that you want to get out of the house by yourself on Mother’s Day for a couple of hours, that you want everyone to have a technology-free day, or that you’re not washing a single dish for at least 24 hours.

Creating a framework like this gives you a chance to be specific about what you need while leaving your family a little room to surprise you.

Truth #3: Rigid expectations lead to major disappointment

I’ve got some bad news for you.

There is a chance that you could share your wishes and they might still fall flat. You still might not get what you want.

-On Mother’s Day, you might tell everybody that you really want to sleep in, but at 5:30 a.m., your toddler will creep in on those wobbly legs to climb in bed with you.

-You might be dreaming of mimosas and eggs benedict for breakfast and your family might instead take you to IHOP to wait for ages for subpar pancakes.

-On Mother’s Day, you might take a day off from chores and responsibilities and wake up with twice as many things on your to-do list for tomorrow because the whole family took a vacation day, too.

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I’ve written a whole post about how your expectations for your life can be damaging. Nowhere are those expectations more emotionally charged than during the times we want to feel supported, loved, and cherished.

Whenever possible, it’s helpful to let life surprise and delight you rather than try to guess how things will be.

This is soooooo challenging. We daydream about breakfast in bed, beautiful handmade cards from the kids, and getting some expensive sparkly thing from our husbands. When we actually get a hurried “Happy Mother’s Day, Mom” in the middle of a ho-hum day we’re disappointed instead of grateful.

How might your day change if you opened your eyes (on Mother’s Day and every day) saying,

I’m going to have a wonderful day, no matter what surprises should pop up, how my plans change, or how different life looks from what I’d imagined.”

Truth #4: You can choose

This one is really important because it has the potential to change EVERYTHING regarding the way you walk through and experience life.

No matter how your Mother’s Day unfolds, you can choose what your impression of the day will be.

You can choose for your experience to be one of joy and gratitude or one of irritation and disappointment. You can decide to accept your family as they are with all their imperfections. When the baby comes into your bed at 5:30 a.m. you can enjoy the snuggles. If your Mother’s Day is just like any other day, you can decide to smile anyway.

We can’t control how our families will act or what they will do.

Full disclosure, I have occasionally fantasized about cyborg kids. Especially the ‘off’ switch.

We also can’t control our circumstances, but we can absolutely determine how we think about the things that occur and how we react to events in our lives. Once we realize and embrace this fact, we get all our power back.

The best part of these strategies is that they don’t just work on Mother’s Day. They work every day.

-Assume the people that love you want you to be happy.

-Ask them for what you need.

-Manage your expectations.

-Choose to practice thoughts that bring you feelings of peace, joy, and gratitude, regardless of your situation.

This year, I won’t be enjoying champagne with those lovely girlfriends on Mother’s Day. Our group of friends no longer lives close together, and I’ll be solo parenting while my hubby’s away on business. You can bet I’ll be reminding my little ones that the day’s coming up, though (they make the sweetest cards!) And I’ll make sure that I’ve crafted a day I’ll enjoy.

Most importantly, I’ll remember that no matter what grand gestures they do or don’t make, my family loves me, appreciates me, and wants me to be happy. Whether or not I get to sip champagne with my buddies.

Try this now to avoid Mother’s Day disappointment:

1. Sit for a minute and envision exactly what would make you happiest this Mother’s Day. Do you want a day off from this mom gig? Would you like your spouse to tell you how much he appreciates you? Do you want your kids to make you a gift? Get specific.

2. Communicate your wishes to your family. (If you don’t have a partner and your kids are still small, think outside the box. Would you like to hire a sitter? Swap childcare duties with a friend? Meet a friend and her kiddos at the park so you can chat while they play?)

3. Make a plan for some way to show yourself a little care and love on Mother’s Day that is completely independent of what your family may or may not do. Because the only way to be certain that you get the loving attention you deserve this Mother’s Day (or any day of the year) is to give it to yourself. Need some ideas? Check out my FREE No Time, No Money, No Problem Self-Care Challenge.

4. Remember that this process isn’t just for holidays. Ideally, you’ll regularly be asking yourself “what do I need right now?” and “how will I make sure I get it?”