Keep mum sweet this Mother’s Day – but please don’t get me a tea towel

image via notonthehighstreet.com

I’m a bit of a tough cookie to please when it comes to Mother’s Day, but I know that’s probably just me. Growing up, my own mother lived a 100 miles away, and on Mothering Sunday, my sister Katie and I would throw the kitchen into disarray baking  a sponge and uprooting daffodils from the garden for my stepmother Jane’s ‘treat.’

For years, Interflora did good business out of me at this time of year when I dutifully spent out on two overpriced bunches, but now Ma has shipped off to Florida, and Jane has rightly ducked out of the more visceral grandparent duties, this ritual has fallen by the wayside as purse strings tightened and I become the matriarch of my own family.

With my own children, though there have been times, particularly in the early years when I felt I deserved a god damned medal come Mothering Sunday. But these days I feel a bit of a charlatan asking for much more than Marmite on toast and maybe a cup of tea in bed from my two little angels. They are pretty much self sufficient these days, requiring little more than a bedtime story, new clothes every now and again and the odd hot meal. Now I’m juggling two blogs and a full time job, it’s Tom that largely runs the show. Hands up, I’m not the most mumsy of mothers, if that’s what you call being child centric, or even just super hands on, but that’s no bad thing.

So it was with a degree of my usual cynicism that, with Mother’s Day fast approaching (Sunday March 30, in case anyone needs a big hint), I went along to the Bring Your Own Mum event hosted by notonthehighstreet.com last night, for Mumsnet Bloggers Network, for a bubble fuelled introduction to the online retailer’s sweet and sophisticated Mother’s Day range, which I’d taken a squizz at as part of my pre-party research.

The range has a touch more piquancy than the usual Mother’s Day kitch you find in M & S at this time of year,  encompassing personalised nick nacks,  elegant jewellery, a good measure of slogan mugs and tea towels and an array of accessories featuring cupcakes and flowers. It’s pretty, witty stuff, if pricey and slightly predictable – it didn’t stray far from the pigeon-holed image of the modern mother as a tea sipping, wine guzzling, fuzzy domestic goddess. But I suppose even I embody this, at times.

Ma being across the Atlantic, I took along my good friend Natasha to the party for moral support, the closest person to a female relative I have in the capital, but it was touching to see how many mother daughter groups had made the trip to London for a night on the tiles, some noticeably carrying the next generation on board for good measure. It was a swish venue, and we’d been asked to dress to impress. Everyone looked as though they’d made an effort.

It was a feminine, hormone saturated event, with the air of a posh baby shower complete with pink and white balloons, tiered cake stands and fluorescent cupcakes. But if the rosy tinted nature of the occasion felt a bit saccharine – in particular, the decorations, pink and blue 3D baby paraphernalia collages, and what I wryly termed “sexist pebbles” were particularly amusing –  it was also a celebration of women doing what women do: handing on the mantel of mothering to the next generation.

“Sexist pebbles”

The canapés went round, and we sipped on pink cocktails, owner Holly gave a touching tribute to her own mother for encouraging her to embark on “a life less ordinary,” and while we nibbled mushroom risotto, we were treated to much mirth from comedienne Shappi Khorsandi, resulting in sprays of short grain scattering the venue floor. The bubbles had made a fair few rounds by then, served by uniformed waiters. To hell with sophistication: we ladies were on a much needed NIGHT OFF.

As the mothers from around the country and their adult daughters bonded, invariably over their children, I felt my cynicism dissolve and I began to throw off my strident dismissal of the range’s twee assumptions about mothers. The bloggers and journos here were funny, successful, running their own businesses or making a soapbox for themselves online and talking to the world: yes, they were mothers, but also so much more.  The fact that the notonthehighstreet.com range gives a platform to small creative businesses, often run by mothers themselves, is food for thought.  It occurred to me that maybe my disparaging attitude –  encompassing half baked views about the commercialisation of Mothering Sunday, itself a relic of a patriarchal religion –  was misplaced; that mothers do deserve more than a phone call to Interflora and a passive delivery of rather soulless flowers. There’s nothing wrong with kicking off our heels and spoiling the people who love us. They won’t be around for ever.

But it’s not those of us in the mother-trenches of early childhood who deserve the trinkets; it’s the ones who now bear the wrinkles of a lifetime of love and support. Give your old ma that medal, I realised, and your heroic stepmother too. They both deserve it, even if they’re not around these days as much as I would like.

I wouldn’t want my little ones to spend their pocket money on me though. I will get my heart shaped toast again this year and I will love it. Because if I’ve learned anything about being a good mother, setting your expectations nice and low, and not worrying too much about crumbs in the bed are the best gifts you can give to your kids this Mother’s Day.

I am a member of the Mumsnet Bloggers Network Research Panel, a group of parent bloggers who have volunteered to review products, services, events and brands for Mumsnet. I have not paid for the product or to attend an event. I have editorial control and retain full editorial integrity.