Showing posts with label Mothers Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mothers Day. Show all posts

Sunday 3 April 2011

Sunday

.


Today is 'Mothering Sunday' in the UK.  'Mothers Day' is one of those 'Days' that are inventions of the florists and card manufacturers who line their pockets from our guilt. Valentines day is another excuse to keep small, and large, businesses busy during otherwise quiet times. Brave people ignore such money grabbing excuses and are free to inform the world that they do not require special 'Days' to show their care and gratitude to their 'loved ones.'  Most of us obey as we know that 'she' will remember! 

As it is almost two years since my mother died I am spared the need for cards or chocolates, an expense I can do without.  It is strange how often I think about my mother however. Not just the fact that she is not there but when something happens on TV or in the media I can often 'hear; her response. What makes this more intriguing is that yesterday was the sixth anniversary of my sisters untimely death. I often hear her in a similar manner as we used the same expressions (usually complaining about something) and I suspect this is an attitude that goes back many generations in our family!  I have heard from Australia a namesake giving evidence of this. That is frightening if we ever have a family get together! I don't wish to be there!    

One thing needles me about Mothers Day is that I can only regret not doing anything for her. Since she died I have come to a much better realisation of just what she gave up for us, how she endured the difficulties of raising a family of four on a tight budget, dad struggled to get good work, and yet at her funeral a large number of people turned up, people who genuinely missed her.  Mothers Day gives me that 'if only' feeling, and as I have it often enough I do not wish anyone else to endure it.  If your Mother, or even your sister, is still around then I urge you to make the most of them.  The 'if only' emotion is one of the worst to endure.

   

Sunday 14 March 2010

Mums Day



Another Mum's Day, or 'Mothering Sunday' if you are middle class or American, and another chance for florists and chocolate sellers, as well as many vintners, to make a fat buck on the back of this commercial rip-off! Now the idea of a day in which mothers can be appreciated is a good one of course, however like most things the business mind sees an opportunity and grasps it with both sticky paws. For myself this is the first time in many a few years that I have not paid out for flowers or chocolates, but I am not sitting here full of emotional turmoil because my mother is no more. The turmoil is with me always as I remember the things I failed to do for her when alive, and the many ways I did not truly appreciate the woman who happened to be my mother. Mothers, and fathers who are just as important in spite of feminist lies, ought to be noticed every day, not just on one day a year when sentimental adverts remind us of their existence. Once they are gone it is too late to tell them how good they were, and that is not a good experience.

Sunday 22 March 2009

Mothering Sunday


Do you have a mother? Most of us do I find. I will make so bold as to say few of us have never had a mother. Oh I know there are orphans and that sort of thing, I realise that disaster, Lottery wins and sheer bad luck can take the woman away from us but in short we have all had one at some time or other.

If you are one of those lucky enough to have kept yours hanging around somewhere you will acknowledge that such beings have a few good uses. You will acknowledge how well they iron clothes, make the dinner, cuddle you when you fall, and bring presents abounding at Christmas. The down side is their unnatural desire to clear all the important useful things in your room and hide them, often in the cupboard but just as likely in the dustbin! They will cheerfully chastise you for little things like bringing great lumps of mud into the house and hiding them under the bed, breaking the odd window or two, and worst of all refusing to get up for school! Slight sickness may well bring sympathy but it also brings 'Syrup of Figs,' 'Calamine Lotion,' and that horrid red stuff the doctor insisted on, he probably had a mother, but I doubt it! The bad things however all to often appear to have brought a strange gleam of delight into her eye, as if this was a pleasurable activity, just like the time you fell in the pond and got soaked through. She was really laughing quite hard under that frown wasn't she?Lovable as they are I am convinced there was a streak of criminality in them all.

Mothers are indeed one of the most important people in your life. A good mother can only leave a strong impression with a child, even if it does not create a good human being. Adolf Hitler for instance was beaten somewhat by his father and his mother was the one who protected him. He carried her picture with him everywhere, and it was on the shelf beside him when he died. Mothers however tend not to produce quite so many infamous people but I reckon they all had one at some time in the past. Attila the Hun, Mao Tse-Tung, Stalin were all influenced by Mummy. Alexander the Great, some say, received the Kingdom of Greece after his father Phillip was assassinated by a man employed by his mother. Unfortunately the chap was accidentally struck down by a stray sword himself before he could reveal this. Tsk! These mums eh?

Hopefully you will have a better memory of the mother than some of these folk, although a few did 'do well' for themselves. During your teenage years in spite of selfish indulgence she is all that keeps you from bankruptcy. The mere fact that she charges a minimal rent along with cooking, washing and generally running after you, deserves your attention and adulation. As a teenager this will not happen of course, but it does later on when your brats are playing up and she is constantly encouraging them, in your opinion, to misbehave! Then there comes an appreciation of what the woman went through when putting herself aside your wishes were first in her life. As you suffer the same for others an admiration for the lass who resisted the powerful temptation to strangle you on several occasions rises within.

The rip-off day known as 'Mothering Sunday,' or usually now called 'Mothers Day' goes back a long way. I don't recall it from my childhood, times were harder then, however by the 70's it had become quite common. Anything that creates an opportunity for the card manufacturers and flower sellers has to be taken I suppose. The day originates in the English (possibly Catholic) Church in days of yore. People would return to their 'Mother Church' for reasons not obvious to me, and for several hundred years this was found in the nations consciousness. Some say young servants were allowed home one day a year, Mothering Day, and often a gift was given by the employer flowers or cake etc. (Jolly good employer this!) Whether any of this is true I do not know but it certainly is not a Scots idea. There bosses would never give you a gift!

Today this has become a day to celebrate mothers and women in general if you are a feminist, to send Mum a big tin of sweets (and eat them yourself) or bottle of 'Magners' ( and share it) or flowers if you can afford the things these days. It is also a day Mum knows just what you think of her. The one card out of three leaves her wondering what she has done to two of her offspring. The boy she tended so lovingly in sickness and cared for in health who forgets her ought to be filled with guilt and shame. I suspect deep down he is, and will show it just as soon as the football is finished!

The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world they used to say.

This is so true!


Wednesday 4 March 2009

Another Rip-Off!



This ad has just fallen into my 'in box' from Thornton's. "Mothers Day gifts! Mothers Day? Another chance to show how much you care, just a few weeks after throwing cash away n your loved one (bet she didn't!) and not long before Easter! Great! Just what I need, another excuse to obtain another letter from the bank for being overdrawn! Woopeedo!

Was it always like this? I am sure we used to just boil eggs and paint them and roll them down hills when young. maybe a thin chocolate egg to go with it. Mum's day was unheard of when I was young I'm sure of it, and later we did not spend that much. Now it's a card and a box of chocs or flowers. (Chocs are cheaper and I use Thornton's for this, and a better idea if you are actually with mum!) This after your woman has emptied your wallet on Valentines night (no wonder Valentine got killed I say!) .

Add to this birthdays and other personal and family drains on your wealth (wealth? Ha!) and one is left wondering what it all means. I know what it means, it means someone (Hallmark, various chocolate sellers and Interflora) are making money even in a recession. Anything can be celebrated this way. Especially where women are concerned. Blackmail comes in here. The lass will say she does not mind, but woe behold whoever forgets her birthday, Valentines card or worse, chocolate egg! Something should be done, I will write to my MP!