By INGRID MCCLEARY
Ah, Mother's Day, what a grand reward. I look forward to Mother's Day more than any other holiday. Maybe because, as a mother, all those other holidays entail work before and during the enjoyment. On Mother's Day, I can surf right into the enjoyment.
I don't do a lick of work on Mother's Day. Housecleaning, dishwashing, bill-paying, lunch- and dinner-making? No way, no how. I'll pull a few weeds but only because I want to.
I can't be this selfish on my birthday because then we're celebrating my existence as an individual, not in what I do for others. Mothers are perpetually in a state of "doing." Hence, on Mother's Day, I sit and bask without ANY GUILT.
To me, Mother's Day is one big metaphor for "Thank You"--Thanks for all the grunge work, thanks for putting up with all the petty arguments, thanks for holding me when I'm crying or sick, thanks for loving me unconditionally.
On this day, I can do all the things I'd dreamed of doing with my children before I had children.
Mother's Day wasn't always this free and unburdened, though; I trained my family for years before reaching this level of unmitigated selfishness. I recall one Mother's Day when a lapse in attention fell upon the household and I said (quite pathetically, in retrospect), "I'm hungry. Did you want me to fix my own lunch?"
Maybe it was my pouting lips or my lost-puppy expression, but everyone sprang into action.
If I'd known how much Mother's Day meant to my mother, I'd have tried harder. Her only request then was "no fighting." With five children, this was a monumental request. I find myself echoing the same wish. That, above all, is what I suspect all mothers want: a day without fighting.
In an informal poll, I discovered sibling rivalry topped the list as "things mothers forgot when they considered having more than one child." Indeed, on occasion, I've lamented, "I gave birth to your brother so you wouldn't be lonely, not so you'd have your own personal whipping boy!"
I give my children credit; they honestly try. . . even if that means going in three different directions to keep from arguing.
My husband, Bill, is the Mother's Day commander-in-chief. He's the one who oversees breakfast, or, rather, he's the one stuck cleaning the pancake batter off the walls (kids and high-speed mixers--an interesting combination). He's the one who packs the picnic basket (McDonald's) and herds us off to the park. And he's the one who's cooking dinner while I'm basking.
He does all this without complaint. . . because he knows, come Father's Day, it'll be his day in the sun. In fact, he begins countdown on Mother's Day.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, May 8, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.