The Oxymoron of Mother's Day
My husband tries every year.
He takes the kids, makes the coffee, tells me to relax. And he means it completely and I love him for it. But here's the thing nobody warns you about Mother's Day.
All I want to do is be with the kids.
Which makes relaxing sound great in theory and slightly impossible in practice because it is Mother's Day and I want to rest AND I want to be with the people who made me a mother and those two things do not always go together peacefully.
So what actually happens is this. A coffee appears, made by my husband and apparently also by my three year old, which I can only imagine was an adventure for everyone involved. Then comes the chorus of mum mum mum from every direction, each one with a story that takes approximately four times longer than necessary to tell. Which, to be fair, is exactly how I tell stories too. So I cannot complain.
The presents are very not-secretly for themselves. I make a little video on my phone of all the sweet moments. And somewhere in the middle of the chaos I feel something that I can only describe as completely full.
Being a mum is the strangest, most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me.
I think I am a better person since becoming one. A better leader too. I am so much more aware of my actions. More aware that busy looks completely different for every single person living it. That assumptions really do make ... well. You know the rest.
Nobody knows what anyone else's day actually looks like. You only ever see half a life.
That feels true on Mother's Day more than almost any other day of the year.
Because here is what I know about this day. It is not a day of pure joy for everyone. It is layered in ways that don't always get said out loud.
There are mums spending it without their kids ... because the kids are with their dad, because of distance, because of circumstances nobody planned. There are stepmums loving children they didn't give birth to, showing up completely, on a day that doesn't always know what to do with them. There are women who have lost their mum and carry that quietly through the whole day.
There are grandmothers who never stopped mothering. The ones still showing up, still cooking, still checking in - thanks MUM! The ones raising grandchildren they didn't plan to raise. The ones whose Mother's Day looks different now, but who carry the role exactly the same.
And there are mums whose child isn't here anymore. Whose child should be here this year, at any age. Who carry a grief that Mother's Day has no card for.
There are women who have miscarried. Who went through IVF. Who are still trying and finding it impossibly hard. Who held something and then didn't. Mother's Day has a way of making those griefs surface whether you invite them or not.
And there are mums who are just tired. Not sad, not grieving - just running on not enough sleep and too many school lunches and the particular exhaustion of being needed by everyone all the time and wondering if anyone sees the effort it actually takes.
I see you. All of you. Wherever you are in it today.
If you get to relax today - fabulous! Take it completely.
If you spend it hearing mum, mum, mum from three directions while drinking a lukewarm coffee - that's good too. That is also the thing.
If today is hard in ways you can't explain to anyone else ... that's allowed too. Emotions don't stay in one lane for 24 hours and they were never supposed to.
I hope there are pieces of joy in it. Moments where you feel content. A coffee that was made with love even if it arrived cold. A story that went on too long. A small person who picked out a present that was very obviously for themselves.
That's Mother's Day. In all its messy, layered, oxymoronic glory.
And the fairies think you're doing brilliantly. For what it's worth - so do I.
Magic Fairy Post was built by a mum, for the children she loves and the parents holding them. Rosie the Little Lightkeeper was made for the ones who just need to feel seen. She is available now.