Every year around this time, I get an influx of emails with the subject line "Mother's Day: Best Brunch EVER!" or "MOMosas & Brunch!" touting annual restaurant specials meant for moms and moms alone. Every year, they make me a little bit madder. The idea that taking your mom out to brunch on a certain day of the year is the most special thing you can do for her is wild. That's what we've come up with for celebrating the most important women in our lives?
Our mothers are more dimensional than an up-charged, mediocre breakfast. They may very well enjoy doing that with you every year (...oh god, please don't take this as a shitting-on-any-mom-who-loves-Mother's-Day-brunch thing, because that's not what this is), but it's not what they want to do.
Speaking of which: The Father's Day-equivalent emails I get are "Get Your Dad What He Really Wants: A New Grill!". All things oriented around dropping a lot of money and/or time for The Big Guy in your life. We could get into the sexism of all that nonsense, too, but for now, let's focus on mom and the idea that restaurants, PR people, and, yeah, sometimes you assume that's all she wants each year: a meal.
Chances are, it was your mother who tended to most of your mental, physical, emotional, and just straight-up everyday needs as you were growing up, regardless of whether or not she worked. (Because, yes, while women are about half of the workforce, we are still implicitly expected to take care of whatever needs to be taken care of at home). That means chances also are that your father (or her significant other or maybe no one!) was cut a lot more slack when it came to raising you.
And while every mom is different, chances also are she wants to spend time with you on Mother's Day. Taking advantage of that by simply making a reservation to eat the same boring thing as every other mom in the vicinity is lazy and allowing for further commoditization of the holiday—which, sure, is the point of Mother's Day to begin with. But it could be really nice if you approach it as an actual time to say thank you to your mother for everything she's done for you. If you do more than just take your mom out for a meal once a year, this brunch becomes irrelevant. It's an email we can all ignore because we're out doing funner, less sexist things. Like mid-week mother-offspring trivia night. Or bi-weekly mother-offspring drinking. I don't know. Anything!
Circling back to what mom wants, we shouldn't assume it's food. The association of women and food is gendered enough—I'm sorry, but I have to tell you I needed to pause because I just got this email:
Where were we? Oh yes, the idea that moms want cute and pretty food for their special time with you rather than an extravagant thing or a cool experience they'll associate with you forever. There's a reason each one of these Mother's Day-centric menus are some of the least creative eats you've ever seen. Moms are responsible for breakfast and lunch, so isn't it nice of these places to host them for a subpar version of those meals instead?
Anyway. Did you ask your mom what she wanted before you went ahead and made that prix fixe res? She may very well have wanted, oh, IDK, a luxury cigar or an unhealthy-as-all-hell steak dinner. But those aren't things we peg to moms, are they?
Again, not a knock at #MomsWhoBrunch (seriously, don't @ me), it's just the assumption that a mother would prefer or be content with the minimal effort that is brunch above anything you'd immediately assume a father-figure wants. If nothing else, why wouldn't you gift your mother an orange juice-forward mimosa when you could get her a bottle of her favorite liquor, a few hours on a golf course (yeah, I said golf), or even a weekend away? Don't have the means to secure those things? Then do the thing you know will make her happy: go home for the weekend. Chill out and spend time together.
At the end of the day, your mom is likely going to be cool with whatever you/I/we all come up with for Mother's Day this year, whether it be $16 pancakes she didn't ask for or a once-in-a-lifetime customized experience. But the difference between "cool" and "happy" lies in the effort we'll end up making. Just some guilt-making food for thought ahead of this holiday weekend. :) Happy Mother's Day, all!
