It's Mother's Day, dammit!

I'm going to take the time today to address the issue of Mother's Day, instead of my usual report on my bowels (apparently, the subject of my gastrointestinal functions just doesn't do it for some readers. Go figure.)

Mother's Day - and Father's Day, though to a lesser extent - has become one of the banes of our existence. Of course I love my mother, and sure, we should recognize and appreciate the efforts they put into raising us, or at least giving us life. But goddamn it, shouldn't we be doing that every single day of our lives?

There's the flowers, and the early-morning breakfasts which, in my house, never get appreciated because mom would always wake up and help with the cooking and cleaning, thus spoiling the whole point of the kids making eggs and bacon for her.

Then there's the obligatory gift hastily bought - what to get mom, what to get mom? I go through this every birthday, Christmas and Mother's Day and inevitably end up with either 1) a shirt/sweater; 2) a scarf; 3) a vase; 4) a book; 5) a plant that will die through negligence, and rotate through the list each year.

Then there's the dinner which my mom always kinda goes "Muh" to. Because there are now three moms to celebrate - my mom, my sister's mom in-law, and my aunt (who for some reason we have to celebrate with as much vigour as our birth mother) we end up going for a big Chinese dinner. Not my mom's first choice, so she gets cranky and we end up taking her out again anyhow to make up for it.

And what does this cost us? A lot of cash, for one, though that's hardly the point. The sheer amount of stress we have to go through trying to please our mothers that little extra bit without earning ourselves an extra dollop of maternal criticism. You know what I mean. "This meal was alright, but you should have made reservations earlier, it's too cramped here, why didn't you call this guy instead blah blah blah." Or some such half-in-jest-half-real comment that makes us cringe inside while smiling plastically on the outside.

Me? Bitter? Hardly. I've taken the laid-back approach to celebrating mom by a) promising to not abandon her in her old age, and b) giving cash gifts.

My proposal, however, is to eliminate Mother's Day and Father's Day entirely. Though with Dad's day in my house, all you have to do is fire up the barbecue or let dad go fishing, so I could stand to leave that one alone. I say that instead of Mother's Day, we give mom a gift for each child's birthday. I mean, hell, why do we bother celebrating being another year older? It was mom who did all the work that day, as far as I'm concerned. She's the one who should be getting all the gifts. And that way, the restaurants won't be crazy-full of people trying to get reservations.

Mother's and Father's Day is just some commercial holiday invented by the card companies to make money, like Valentines Day, or Christmas (I'm so going to hell). I say, throw off those chains of holiday oppression and celebrate everyday as another chance to disappoint yo' mama!