You’re Missing Out on the Best Mother’s Day Gift
I’ll start with a word of caution. First of all: please, by all means, receive everything that your mother directly asked for (or hinted at) in your life. Whether it’s time alone, a massage, concert tickets, or a new bracelet, commit. Give her something she loves, cherishes, or desires.
However . If she didn’t elaborate or it was her birthday recently and she was loaded with some of her favorite things and now you’re at a loss: consider gifting her a cleaning. Because chances are she needs a break.
Husbands also do housework? Yes. But in a home with scruffy kids, overflowing with toys, backpacks, sports equipment, and 67 sheets of paper in every kid’s Take Home folder, there’s often more clutter each day than two people can reasonably handle. (Besides, it’s not about them.)
According to Moms.com , “According to the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics Time Use Survey, the average working mom spends just over 21 hours a week on housework .”
Of course, no one wants to insult a mom on her special day, and if she’s a woman who prides herself immensely on her ability to provide a clean, organized home for her loved ones, this might not be the way to her heart.
However . For everyone else: For those of us who don’t always have immaculate kitchen tables at bedtime, who can’t meet deadlines for work, extracurricular activities, cooking and eight loads of laundry a week, who leave dishes in the sink overnight because she only has one hour every day and damn she wants to finish Bridgerton. For someone who has been known to yell once (or 4,000) ” Why am I the only one who collects shoes in this house?” That woman? She would love it.
In addition, a clean house will never hurt a relationship. According to the Huffington Post , in a 2016 survey of recently divorced people, 30% of respondents cited “disagreements about housework” as the top reason for their breakup (after infidelity and separation).
The mother in your life may not have enough hours in the day to keep order all the time. She just might not excel at housekeeping or not take care of it too much. Or she may prioritize work, family logistics, cooking dinner, helping with homework, and taking care of herself over a spotless home.
So this Mother’s Day, in addition to brunch, serving her a sausage board in bed, or letting her run off to a hotel for one glorious quiet evening , do her the highest act of service and cleaning. Either spend the day cleaning the house from top to bottom as a token of gratitude for her daily work, sort out those clogged closets and shelves that provoke a lot of cursing, pick up all items of clothing from the floor, or complete this task. a huge basement or garage cleanup that you’ve been putting off for months.
Or gift her cleaning services. Whether it’s a one-time professional deep cleaning of every corner of your home, a bi-monthly service, or a weekly cleaning, laundry, and linen change, it will bring much more peace to her life than any other bracelet has ever been able to.
(Unless she wants a bracelet, in which case give her a bracelet.)