Mother’s Day – More Than a Token Effort

By Emma Thomas

It’s Mother’s Day this Sunday! It feels like we’ve only just finished with Easter, the school holidays, Anzac Day and a whole run of public holidays. The shops are awash with gifts and promotions which claim to celebrate mothers but can we stop for a moment and consider? Mother’s Day should be a day where we acknowledge and celebrate those in our lives who have cared for us, loved us and shown support and kindness. It doesn’t have to be about pyjamas, supermarket flowers and buying more stuff! 

When you’re stuck it can be easy to default to grabbing a quick and easy gift from the supermarket shelf, but here are some other ideas you can consider. 

Interview your child

Young children say the funniest things and having these written down or filmed is a great gift. Even simple questions about their mother/special person will provide interesting responses. You can ask things like: 

• What does she do during the day?
• What makes mummy happy?
• How old is your mum?
• What does she smell like?
• What is something mummy always says?
• Why do you love your mummy?

You may need to work with young children to help them verbalise their thoughts. 

Work from your child’s interests

We will get the most authentic responses when children are sharing from something they love. If your child loves dinosaurs maybe they would like to paint a picture of a dinosaur as a gift. Maybe they are all about outdoor games and they’d like to invite the person they are celebrating to play soccer with them. If they love the outdoors maybe you could go on a nature walk and collect flowers, leaves and sticks as a gift!

Consider the interest of others

It can come as a surprise to young children that other people have different interests to them! Take some time to brainstorm together what they know about their mother/special person and what their interests might be. Then see if you can work from these interests to make a gift or an experience. If mum loves coffee you could set up a coffee shop! Maybe she’s into baking and you could get the ingredients to bake her favourite cake together. If she’s looking to try something new you could purchase a voucher for a pottery or painting class. 

Ask!

We don’t always know what will make other people feel celebrated so this can be a great opportunity to teach your child about asking people what they want. Help your child to really listen to what their mum/special person is telling them and then work together to create a celebration. Maybe mum loves gifts, or maybe she’d prefer a lunch with the family. It’s OK to do whatever works for you. This year I asked for the very practical present of a raincoat!