Mother’s Day expectations and the real gift mums deserve - Glenn Dwight

The gift of pasta art was a rite of passage for many '80s mums. Photo / Pexels, RDNE Stock project

Glenn Dwight is the studio creative director – regional at NZME and an occasional writer for The Country

Back in my day (here’s where I out myself as a Gen Xer) Mother’s Day was sorted with a Popsicle stick ashtray, or a macaroni-encrusted photo frame.

Mum would fake delight, pop it on the windowsill, and use it to hold her sewing pins – or, in Lorna’s case, coins (that slowly went missing over time).

Add in a handmade card, and that was Mother’s Day!

And sure, if you’re a kid under 5, a kindy “Mother’s Day” painting will earn a spot on the fridge.

But for the rest of us? The panic is real.

Buying something for someone who gave birth to you, or raised you like they did, and is still sorting out parts of your life deep into your 40s (including pretending to be surprised when you call her from the supermarket asking what goes in a lasagne) … is a high-stakes mission.

You’re buying a gift for someone who has literally wiped your bum.

How do you say “thanks for that?”

With a scented candle?

Now we’re grown-ups, the bar’s been raised.

These days, Mother’s Day comes with Instagram expectations and gift guides that started stalking you online in February. And now it’s May!

So, before you reach for that last-minute massage voucher, or quote her saying “You said you didn’t want anything,” let’s be clear: that’s a trap.

A beautiful, well-intentioned, emotionally complex trap.

Right up there with “I’m fine!”

So instead of panicking, take a moment.

Not to ask what she wants, but to imagine what life would be like if the roles were reversed.

What if your mum treated you the way you’ve treated her?

She shows up at your house at 2am after a big night out, dumps her washing in the hallway and slams the bedroom door.

Then texts in the morning asking for Panadol and toast.

Quietly. Without that annoying click noise the toaster makes.

Or she sneaks in while you’re at work, hosts a loud midweek gathering with her mates, spills red wine on your new rug, and rearranges your furniture to hide the stain. (Surely no one would be that ridiculous … right?) Then casually asks to borrow $50 on the way out.

Maybe she hands you a “Hug Voucher” – redeemable on weekends, but only if she’s in the mood – and includes Air New Zealand-style terms and conditions.

Still tempted to grab panic chocolates or that generic card with a woman doing yoga on a beach who looks nothing like your actual mother?

Think again.

The truth is, being a mum – biological or chosen – isn’t about gifts.

It’s about showing up, staying up, cleaning up, cheering up, and still loving you even when you’re at your most unlovable (and possibly smelliest – even with the Lynx Africa).

Whether your mum is your birth mum, stepmum, foster mum, dad-mum, nan, aunty or neighbour who raised you like one of their own, she deserves more than a panic gift and a wilted bunch of flowers picked from someone else’s garden on the way over.

She deserves a proper thank you.

Thanks for the time she pretended your teenage poetry was profound.

For not mentioning the dent you put in her car in 1998.

For still having that clay pencil holder you made that looks suspiciously like an anatomical part you didn’t intend. Ooops.

So, Mum: for all that (and more), thanks.