About That Mom Mug
Hey kids, hey husband. It’s time to talk Mother’s Day. I’ve gone ahead and booked dinner so all you have to do is organize the pageantry. Maximize the majesty of the measly 24 hours allotted to your matriarch. Subtract for sleep and the time my darling husband will devote to his never-to-be-missed Sunday workout at the gym and let’s call it Mother’s Six Hours instead of Mother’s Day. Six hours of absolute adoration. Six sure-to-be-glorious hours to be feted, fawned over, and fan-girled. Six hours. That’s all I get. So for the love of God, please don’t fuck it up.
Did you know that Maria Shriver was raised by her parents to stand up every time one of them entered the room? Boy, I love that and so regret never thinking of it but frankly it took everything out of me just to stop the public fart contests. Now I’d settle for you to stop texting while speaking to me. Let’s make eye contact when you hand me that gift you bought. I hope it’s heavy and made of gold. As a mother who may have been the beneficiary of some less-than-stellar Mother’s Day presents, let me spell it out. There should be no bought-on-the-way home-from-the-gym bodega daisies, no Walgreens candy, and definitely not just a card. The phrase “It’s the thought that counts” was coined by a mom who cried into her pillow after receiving scented soaps.
When I undress and see my C-section scars, I am not awash in the glory of having brought forth life, but rather firm in the thought that “I deserve a Chanel bag.” Hear this, fam: If you buy me a robe and slippers again, I suggest you emancipate. Potpourri signals you wish me dead. Gardening sets are for trad wives, aprons are for Laura Ingalls Wilder, cooking accessories are for someone else and mugs with the word “Mom?” Fuck the fuck off.
You see, kids, you were not easy. And you, my betrothed, didn’t help. So I need you all to stand up for me, if not like Maria Shriver, then for these six hours. Make a speech, gift-wrap that Chanel and write me an ode. Celebrate the shit out of me. Make me forget the prim and horrified headmistress who called me to her office to read aloud the Urban Dictionary definition of a blowjob sent to the entire school by my child. You don’t know the depths of shame until you are forced to listen to a prim woman in St. John’s knits and a brooch say the word “cum,” over and over and over.
Let’s forget that one of you wanted your bar mitzvah to be dedicated to the Dos Equis guy or that one of you locked a babysitter outside in our backyard for three hours. In the winter, without a coat or shoes. Forget all coaches and tutors and nannies and carpools and crises. Forget my pregnancy weight gain, the sleepless years and the constant and still ever-present worry. And while I certainly didn’t do all the things mothers do for their children because I expected to be rewarded somehow…oh wait a second…I actually did expect to be rewarded somehow. And not with scented soaps. So get it together fam. Those six hours are fast approaching.
