It's that time of the year when newspaper supplements are awash with suggestions on how we must celebrate Mother's Day.
It's that time of the year when newspaper supplements are awash with suggestions on how we must celebrate Mother's Day. 'Buy jewellery that will add sparkle to your mom's eyes' exhorts the maker of an exotic and exorbitantly priced collection, while another encourages you to gift her an iPod that will speak to her.
Thanks, but no thanks, says one mother I know. She prefers to share music with real people, not programmed voices. Come to think of it, she would certainly appreciate an occasional concert and coffee with any one of her children, who are separated from her by hectic work schedules and long distances. As for that promised sparkle in her eyes, it's been there for years and no solitaire can match its genuineness.
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I suspect the sparkle came from being sensitive to her children's emerging selves, and from the understanding that her advice will be ignored at least 50 per cent of the time, no matter how well the relationship is going!
My excuse is that I am busy; too busy to worry about cobwebs that are threatening to cover the ceiling, and old newspapers that are turned into tottering towers. Do I sound disgustingly superior to her ears? I'm sure.
When we have friends over for dinner, you will usually find them balancing disposable plates and cups on their laps, and using plastic cutlery. In contrast, mom had grown up in a family with impossibly high housekeeping standards, where every meal was an elaborate sit-down affair. Though she was conditioned to cook, clean, wash, iron, sew, and hold down a regular job with a tremendous sense of responsibility, she never ever tried to inflict that conditioning on anyone else, least of all on her daughter. Having lived in a time when moms and daughters didn't share 'Buddy' T shirts and yoga mats, she didn't take the 'we're best pals' route, but contrary to popular belief, the lack of such 'bonding' didn't damage either individual's psyche or soul.
So when she now browses through the 'sparkle in your mom's eye' ad and asks if it is love alone, or guilt, that holds the key to this devotion to the ritual of Mother's Day, I have to admit she has a point, and a very strong one at that.
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