So - did you get anything? Did you give anything?

If you are a married guy, did you get your wife anything?

Cause I didn't get anything from my husband and I was really expecting to. The card and drawing from my 6-year-old was beautiful, and the 7-month-old took along nap which let me take one too..... but the 38-year-old for whom I cook and clean said he couldn't find anything and besides, I'm "not his mom anyway"...

- t

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Answers

Well, I got nothing, but I don't have any kids. Jeremy and I have discussed giving each other presents for Mother's Day and Father's Day, though, not because we think of each other as parents, but because we like presents. And we both could use some of those traditional parental gifts ... I need some garden stuff, and he always needs tools of some kind.

Maybe I should call our anniversary dinner -- for which he paid -- my Mother's Day gift, since I didn't give him anything for the anniversary. Yeah. I'll do that. So there's my gift: a really nice meal and a pitcher of sangria.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

Mother's Day and Father's Day come in the middle of Birthday Hell around here (it starts in early May and doesn't stop until late July), so we don't exchange presents except by whim - but spoiling is mandatory!

This year, they were all trying to feed me til I exploded - a large Sunday breakfast, then my oldest daughter took me out to lunch, and then a big dinner that I mostly just looked at in dread.

I don't even recall the last time I tried eating three full meals in one day.

The younger girls brought home various handmade thingies from school, including a potted petunia that now qualifies as my 'garden' if I don't kill it. (hah!)

The 15 year old forgot, and was mid-rant until one of the other ones interrupted her to tell me Happy Mother's Day - I think the look on her face as she tried to stuff her words back in her mouth may have been the funniest part of the day!

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

But Beth, what about Doc and Mochi and Benny and Rudy and Sally (and Crash, who's *just visiting*). Aren't they your children? Or are they just little monsters who dig up your garden and chew up your sofa covers?

I called my mom yesterday but got the machine. I forgot to call back. I felt really bad that I didn't even remember to send her a card. However, I'm going home for a secret surprise visit next weekend so I think that might help.

I don't like to do too much gift-exchanging because it comes off as phony and people seem to really get each other things that the recipient wants or needs. If I happen to see something that someone I know might want, I'll get it for them because I dig them and I want to make them happy. But this whole compulsary gift thing that so many holidays are turning into is ridiculous (and speaks to the power of Hallmark). Mothers' Day was started as an internationalist anti-war holiday, honoring mothers around the world and calling on them to unite and make sure no mother would ever have to send her son off to kill or die for some leader's ambitions. If I really wanted to honor mothers day, I'd donate a sum of money to the War Resister's League in my mom's name.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

I did give my wife a pair of earrings that caught my eye -- one earring is a crescent moon and the other is a similarly shaped sun. As soon as she opened the box she said, "This is appropriate. A mother's job is 24-7." Mother's Day is a minor holiday in our house -- less important than our anniversary, more important than my birthday.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

For two weeks, I tried to put together a Mother's Day gift for Julie. For those two weeks, I tried for hours to teach the still-mum Schuyler to say "mama". It was going to be great.

Yep. You can probably guess how cooperative Schuyler was. "Aaaaaa oooooooo" is pretty close, I thought...

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2001

My husband gave me a box of candy from the cats. this is the first time he's ever done anything like this and it was more a joke than anyone else. We don't ever refer to the cats as our children or anything like that.

Personally, if I were a mother, I'd want gifts from the children but not my husband because I'm not his mother. The idea of him thinking of me as that instead of as his wife gives me the creeps. What's next, calling me "Mommy"? I realize most women don't feel this way and I don't have any kids anyway. But I don't believe my dad gave my mom stuff for mother's day.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2001

I was blessed to get a beautiful bouquet of flowers the hub and a juicer "from the boys" who are 3 and 5 1/2 months. They also bought me cards and took me out to lunch which was really nice.

As far as getting something from the hub, I think it's not so much an issue that I'm not his mom, but it's just nice that he does so out of appreciation of all that I do as his children's mom.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

I had really hoped to get a present this Mother's Day since it was my first one. The baby's too young to pick out a gift, of course, but my husband could have picked one and signed it for the Boy.

I got nothing. My mother-in-law says it's her fault for teaching them as kids that they didn't need to buy her gifts, but he -got- her a gift this year. I'm still grumpy.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

Cameron painted a terracotta pot and planted petunias in it for me, and Ferris made a plastic cup that says I Love You Mom, on a rainbow striped background. They made these themselves, with some help from their teachers, and I'm thrilled. That homemade stuff is priceless.

We sent cards to my mom, and we sent her something from Amazon.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

but not my husband because I'm not his mother. The idea of him thinking of me as that instead of as his wife gives me the creeps.

Not my point at all, and I don't think any husband who gives his wife something for that day thinks of her as his mother - it's more of a "hey, I know you have a tough job, here's something to show I appreciate all that you do, you're a good mom to our kids" sorta thing - which, believe me, mother's need all of that they can get. I don't think there is anything wrong with a husband doing that.

But when having small kids who obviously can't really do much for the day I thought it would have been nice to have gotten some sort of tip- o-the-hat from the husband acknowledging my past 7 months of sleepless nights, childbirth, the fun of pregnancy - you know, just trivial matters like that.

He didn't even get ~his~ mother anything - I sent her flowers. (I always send her flowers.)Of course, he's the one who got thanked for picking out such a beautiful arrangement - I don't think he even knew what I sent her. Doh!

- t

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001