Ah, here we are. Nearing the second weekend in May, which means we are nearing the second bullshit Hallmark holiday of the year: Mother’s Day. (The first, clearly, is Valentine’s Day, which is The Worst, without question.) (And, obviously, the third is Father’s Day.) Here, on this day, we are to honor our mothers by “letting” her take a break and giving her some flowers that are going to wilt within days and bring her breakfast in bed and maybe some chocolate, too. The OTHER 364 days in the year (or 365, if we’re celebrating Leap Year), your mom can suck it.
Before you start thinking that I’m some party-pooping-holiday-hater, let me assure that I am not. Real holidays are my fucking JAM. Halloween? DRESS UP AND CANDY! Thanksgiving? CAN I PLEASE MAKE THE PUMPKIN CHEESECAKE? Christmas? FOOD AND PRESENTS OMG. New Years? DRESS UP AND CHAMPAGNE! 4th of July? LET ME STAY INSIDE BECAUSE AIR CONDITIONING AND AMERICA. Is it my birthday? GIMME ALL DAT CAKE. So what’s my deal? Let me explain.

1.) Hallmark is full of shit all the time. They have their own channel and air movies on said channel starring Melissa Gilbert and Naomi Judd. They also make you believe in things that are not real. Like a fucking holiday to honor St. Valentine who, really, no one knows anything about and might actually be two people. He might have married Christian couples in a time of persecution, but I still don’t get why I need to expect my boyfriend to buy me ugly jewelery and a nice meal. Why don’t you just buy me a nice meal anyway? I don’t give a shit about jewelery, just give me some goddamn creme brulee. Sexist tropes abound thanks to ol’ Hallmark, which leads me to…

2.) Fuck the presents that are “acceptable” for moms vs. the presents that are “acceptable” for dads. Seriously. What a giant crock of shit. As a woman, I’m SUPPOSED to be stoked on a brown diamond in some ugly ass pendant with some flowers and some egg whites made into an omelet because LADEEZ BE WATCHIN’ THEIR FIGURES, YO!, right?? (But it’s cool because the diamond is a CHOCOLATE DIAMOND!) NO. FUCK YOU. You know how during Father’s Day, the Home Depot ads light up like Christmas, saying, “Give dad what he really wants for Father’s Day…A POWER DRILL.” I could use some goddamn power tools! Or a grill! (Probably not a new tie, though.) Stop telling me that flowers and chocolate one fucking day a year make up for the fact that I’m doing the job of BOTH parents when you could be telling ladies that their frustrations are probably better put to use on some fucking electric hedgeclippers or a nice charcoal grill that grills up to 16 burgers at a time. Mmm, burgers…

3.) Come the fuck on. Let’s be real. Kids don’t really understand or care about holidays for their parents. (I’m sure some of you will be like “My little Shmoopy Poop ALWAYS tells me he loves me on Mother’s Day!” Good for you. He’d be actually stoked if there were presents for him involved.) People don’t REALLY understand what their parents did for them until they get older. Kids are selfish little bastards who cannot comprehend fully that the world does not revolve around them. They’re certainly not going to understand why their mother “gets to” (says the TV!) stay in bed for one morning per year while they bring her a goddamn croissant. Instead, the kids are going to be kids. They’re going to whine about whatever you make them for breakfast, or that they have to wear pants and shoes outside, or that their mom is laying around watching The Wire while they should be watching Adventuretime because they WANNNNNNA and it’s NOT FAIR and blah blah blah.

4.) I don’t need Mother’s Day. I don’t need a special day where I’m supposed to be honored for doing something that I chose to do. Is it hard? Fucking DUH, it’s hard. Have you ever tried to reason with your drunk friend who is, for some reason, fixated on going home with that person who thinks that Nickelback is a good band? That is raising children. THERE IS NO TALKING SENSE. Sure, you can try to guide them into making the right decisions, but they’re going to fight you tooth and nail, and finally wind up just cutting their hair at the goddamn kitchen table. (Are we talking about your kid or your drunk friend now? SEE??? GAME, SET, MATCH.) But you know what else? It’s not rocket science. Being a mom is just a thing that I do. I don’t reward my kid for doing things he should already be doing. I don’t feel like I need a reward for keeping my kid clothed, fed, in school, reading, and relatively happy. I mean, I do because it’s hard work, but not just this stupid, patronizing pink flower holiday.

When my kid does something, like tie his own shoes, or tells me that “It isn’t fair that kids sometimes have to work a lot” while explaining to him about the garment factory explosion in Bangladesh, or has something nice to say about Mitch McConnell, even though Mitch McConnell doesn’t have nice things to say about kids of single parents AND wears a bowtie, THAT is when I feel like I’m having my own goddamn Mother’s Day. I don’t need Hallmark to make everyone around me feel obligated to tell me I’m doing a good job. I’ll take the breakfast though.