What Do I Really Want for Mother’s Day?
By Julie Chavez
I’ve been a mother for sixteen years, and I still can’t say what I’d really like for Mother’s Day.
I’ve received plenty of thoughtful gifts over the years. Some were provided by teachers: sloppy finger paintings with declarations of love, blanks filled in on the “About My Mommy” page, a picture of me as a stick person with straw hair and impossibly long arms. Some years, the gifts were provided by the nice people at CVS early Sunday morning when Mando and the boys had to “run out and get a couple of things.” Mando once scheduled a work trip to New York over Mother’s Day weekend, and his guilt propelled him into the Saint Laurent store on E. 57th and Fifth Avenue so he could buy me a very fancy wallet. It was really the least he could do.
The early years were the trickiest. I still clung to the illusion that Mother’s Day could bring what I most wanted: a break. Maybe a leisurely lunch, or a massage, or a nap. I didn’t yet understand that there is no real break from motherhood, even after you’re finished breastfeeding, even after they finish elementary school, even after they drive themselves to the gym to get shredded.
“All I want on Mother’s Day is to get away from the people who made me a mother,” my girlfriends and I will occasionally joke. And to some extent, we mean it. It's difficult to disconnect from these lovely little leeches of ours. My husband doesn’t have this problem. When he tells me in the manner of a friendly little FYI that he’s booked golf for this Friday and Saturday because the number of rounds he’s played this year is just criminally low, I have criminal thoughts. But I merely grip my hand more tightly around the spatula and stir the scrambled eggs like a shorted-out Stepford wife.
I envy his ability to book ten hours of leisure. Imagine if I texted my friends, “Hey, let’s be gone from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and don’t forget to let your family know that you’ll need a nap when you get back after all the glasses of champagne we’ll have at lunch.” Good Lord. They wouldn’t respond to the text—they’d commit me.
If I so chose, I could take up golf and spend my Mother’s Day weekend in a haze of frustration that’s supposed to be enjoyable when chasing around a small white dimpled ball. But I don’t want to do that. The truth is I love to be needed and necessary and to care for my children. I love being a mom. I’m ambivalent about taking breaks because I know that these days will come to a close all too soon. I’m living a season of my life that’s moving as quickly as the second hand on a clock.
So what do I really want on Mother’s Day?
I don’t want a day off; I want the perfect day on. I want a day full of presence. I’d like for everyone to call my scrambled eggs a “revelation in the ecstasy of the simple;” I want them to tell me I’m aging very well, that I’m the Goldilocks of motherly boundaries—not too smothering, not too distant, but just right. I want everyone to marvel at my ability to hold it all in my mind—the list of errands, the work obligations, the fact that the toilet that was supposed to ship still hasn’t shipped.
I want to know that I’m loved for who I am, not just for bringing forgotten items to the high school drop-off table, for signing people up for sports and then having to unsubscribe to the fundraising emails.
I want them to look at me like I looked at them when they were sleeping babies, the way I look at them now when I catch sight of a teenager in his native habitat, smiling or laughing or doing something impossibly brave. In those moments, I marvel. I’m in awe, in wonder. I think that my puny little human heart could burst with the impossible joy that surges through its chambers. In those moments, I think that no one in the history of the world has been luckier than I am. Turns out I have all the gifts I need.
But I wouldn’t say no to a purse for my fancy wallet.
Julie Chavez is an author, elementary school librarian, and podcast host. She lives in Northern California with her husband and two tall teenage sons, where she spends her days overthinking, talking about feelings, and organizing books by color. Her memoir, Everyone But Myself, will be available on January 2, 2024 from Zibby Books.