I have a friend who refuses to go out on 4th of July or New Year’s Eve. She says there is just too much pressure to have fun and have “the perfect holiday” and that it inevitably leads to disappointment and frustration.

I have struggled with the notion of holiday pressure with Christmas in the past but this year it was Mother’s Day that gave me the biggest pause.

I usually enjoy purchasing just the right card for the mothers and grandmothers in my life (including my husband’s since you know how men are about remembering to send cards). I saw most of my family right before the event this year so I didn’t send cards. I did call and remind Aaron to do so. (He remembered to get me a card too.)

What really blew me away was the clearly competitive way everyone asked about my Mother’s Day at work today!!! It was a one-up-man-ship of how one loved their mother or the mother of their children best. It was a feast of bragging by mother’s themselves.

When asked, I told them that I got to sleep in and that we working on cleaning the house. People were appalled and said that I needed to train my “boys” right on what was expected of mother’s day celebrations.

I don’t understand - when did it cease to be about loving your mom and become an image event. It’s too much pressure. I guess I’m lucky that I’m my mom’s only child so I have no one to compete with on loving her the best.

Perhaps I’ll take the path of my holiday homebody friend and avoid Mother’s and Father’s Day altogether…..

But I don’t want my family to think that I don’t love them…..

Family | RSS 2.0 | Comment it , or trackback this post.