Mother’s day is almost upon us! Are you buying a special mother in your life a gift? Regardless of your relationship with your parents, Mother’s Day is a great opportunity to show your most important ladies just how much you care about them. The co-mother of your children, your best friend’s mother or, yes, even your own supportive parent can be the mother you celebrate this May 13th.
If Your Mother Lives Far Away
giving flowers in person: also cute
If you live far away from your mom, sending flowers is your best bet. You can call a flower shop local to your mother, or you can use a service like FTD. Generally speaking, I suggest cut flowers simply because sending someone a potted plant is like sending them a responsibility. However, if your mother loves to garden or just pour water on things occasionally, a potted plant is great too. Yellow or pink roses are classic, but orchids and hydrangeas are also totally funky and great. If you really want to go all out, get your mom some crazy rainbow flowers.
If Your Mother is Super Supportive
Do you have one of those moms who marches in the Pride parade every year? If so, Mother’s Day is the perfect opportunity to get her some swag. Does she have an “I Love My Lesbian Daughter” shirt yet? Maybe it’s time to buy her that PFLAG tote bag. You can even go for the understated but ever popular rainbow flag car decal. Whatever you choose, getting your mom pride gear lets her know you appreciate all her support.
If You’re Totally Broke
VIA COUNTRYLIVING.COM
Being totally broke is the worst around gift giving holidays. This Mother’s Day, why not save your money and celebrate by spending time with your mother. Take the opportunity to do something your mother loves with her. If she loves to garden, spend the day planting May seeds. If she loves to cook, have her show you some of her favorite recipes. Whatever you decide to do, as long as you make the day about spending time together, both of you will be happy. Well, actually, if you don’t get along with your mom too well this might be a mistake. Then, perhaps, you should write her a long, thoughtful letter about what she means to you. Mothers love long thoughtful letters. Handmade cards didn’t go out of style when you turned eight.
If Your Mother(s) is/are Queer
Maybe you’re lucky enough to have one or more queer moms! You must be the luckiest kid in the world. Of course, just like any mom, your mom(s) will appreciate any nice gift you get her/them. If you have moms who are still together (or your mom has a current partner) you can really wow her with a trip for two to a spa or a gift certificate to a fancy restaurant. Alternatively you can get a double picture frame and frame a picture of the two of you (or three, or four, or whatever) together when you were a baby, side by side with a current family picture. Do you know that kind of stuff does to moms? Tears. Everywhere. And of course, you can always go with a copy of the classic coffee table book Love Makes a Family.
If The Mother You’re Celebrating is Your Partner
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If your partner is a mom, she certainly deserves all your love on Mother’s Day. Does she wear jewelry? Can we talk about how this is a great opportunity for giving jewelry? Or a classic watch? Or new whiskey stones. Whatever the hell it is that your lady friend most wants! Maybe what she really wants is a relaxing night in with some Jeopardy, wine and sex. I bet you can supply that.
Whatever it is, moms work hard, so show your mom/best-friend/aunt/neighbor/lover just how much you appreciate all she does!
So this year, I got my first tattoo but didn’t realize that mother’s day was coming up. So it’s healing and I’m avoiding going home because I know someone’s going to hug me and it’s going to hurt and also I want to experiment with possible coverup. So I feel terrible but ya know, it happens.
I realize that I was just dying to tell somebody that. This Mexican mother guilt, it’s powerful stuff.
I totally understand that, except it’s Italian mother guilt for me. Fortunately I live over 24 hours away, so she’ll hopefully be cool with a phone call or a skype session.
I totally get the Italian mother guilt thing. The only thing that could possibly more guilt-inducing to me than mama-guilt is nonna-guilt. Fortunately for me my nonna goes easy on the guilt, though.
Would your family react badly if they found out you’d gotten a tattoo, e?
Also, congrats on the first tattoo! What did you get?
In short: yes. We’re Catholic and so there’s that whole “YOUR BODY IS A TEMPLE” crap that my parents have like stuck to. So I’d rather stop hiding it (I’m never going to be like, “hey guys, look!”) until after I graduate college which will be next May.
Thank you so much! It’s a woman in 50’s garb (my friend describes her as a “Mexican Lucille Ball” holding a chainsaw with a banner that reads “Why should I be quiet if I was born screaming?” in Spanish. There’s sunflowers in the background. It’s a beauty. The inspiration came from the painting “Purple” by Kelly Reemsten.
http://blog.indiesart.com/2010/12/20/new-gallery-for-kelly-reemtsen/
OMG YOU ARE MY HERO OMG BEST TATTOO EVER OMG.
Um, if it isn’t already clear, I love love love your tattoo.
I wear a lot of 50s gear myself, but I also have a tough side, so that art is incredible to me. If she does prints I might grab one when I next get paid.
My dad is a Lutheran but he’s also signed on to the whole “your body = your purity” crapola. When my little sister got a nose stud, he actually refused to talk to her or acknowledge her presence because it was “nauseating to look at her”. I can’t even imagine what he’d do if I got a tatt.
Hahaha, thanks! You’re my hero, dizzy. The tattoo artist did an awesome fucking job and I can’t stop staring at my arm, it’s so good. When I got my nose pierced, my mom was all “chinga-…” it was hilariously terrifying. She then made me swear up and down that I wouldn’t get a tattoo hence the avoiding home thing. Also, I tried finding more info on the artist but it’s pretty limited/I’m bad at the internet. BUUUUT if you do find anything, tell me.
Will do. Also, there is one more thing I need to say.
Grrrl, you mark my words, that tattoo is gonna get you laid.
That’s all :D
Wow, that tattoo sounds awesome…
That sounds amazing!
Thank yoou. :)
Something wonderful about my mother is that I could make her a hot mess of glitter, cardboard and popiscle sticks as a gift and she would probably be just as pleased as when I did it as a five year old.
Yay for mothers, mothers make the world go round :)
Mom is getting a pretty necklace from Stylish Girl by Laila Korn and a homemade button that says, “M is for MILF” since she likes that some of my friends call her a MILF. (My big brother was horrified when I told Mom what MILF means.)
Is it wrong that I aim for tears every year? Usually though doing something ridiculously cheesy yet heartfelt. For example: making an A-Z book of ‘Why My Mom Rocks’; a scrapbook of mother’s day photos (Dad used to help my sisters and I make her breakfast in bed every year and then we’d take a photo); giving her a gift basket of all those cheesy gifts you used to make in grade school (flower planted in cut-off milk carton, homemade bath salts, doily-glued-to-colored paper card, macaroni art that says ‘I Love You’); a terrible yet formal Shakespearean sonnet about Mom (she teaches high school English lit), or conning my sisters into recording a group reading of “Love You Forever”. This year I am far, far away, so I am making a powerpoint tentatively entitled ‘Why June Cleaver has nothing on you,” in which I compare some of the most famous fictional mothers to her and explain why she is better than all of them.
Also, ‘Jeopardy, wine, and sex’ sounds like my dream future Mothers’ Day.
aww
I just sent my mom a bright yellow piece of cardboard with “this is sunshine.I love you Mom!” scribbled in one corner.
I am broke,I live far away,it’s sunny and nice where I am and rainy and cold where my mom’s at and she gets quite jealous of my weather situation. so you know,it makes sense.I hope.
That’s the cutest thing ever, omg.
awww, the picture of the women and the baby. my uterus just swooned. man, one day…
Is 24 too young for the biological clock to tick, cause my uterus did the same thing. Oh god.
I have like 5 moms and also my sister just had a baby so. I really love mothers day cause I get to buy millions of flowers. I used to live near a big park and could pick wild flowers, which is cheap and also special at the same time!
I got my mom a certificate to a fancy spa that entitles her to a haircut and scalp massage, mani/pedi, a back massage and a fancy lunch. I’m excited to give it to her.
I took my mom to the symphony {cheap student tickets ftw, and you can take a non-student guest} A. because I thought she would like the programme {and she really, really did – music from sci-fi movies/TV shows} and B. because, when I was little, she had a subscription to the symphony and would take me roughly every month.
This happened last week and I was all ‘aw yeah, successful mother’s day is complete’ but she’s now trying to guilt-trip me into hanging out with her on Sunday too.
Symphony FTW! I sing in a symphony chorus. It’s pretty fun.
So my parents and I are estranged cause of the gay thing and the Catholic thing so last year for Mother’s Day my sister made a donation to an organization that provides scholarships to LGBT youth.
I love my seester.
You and your sister are a distillation of awesome.
I’m in a similar situation (minus the sister); my mother doesn’t speak to me anymore, and no one else wants to piss her off so they don’t talk to me either.
So I love your idea. It’s like filling an empty box with fresh roasted hazelnuts and poetry. Wild applause for you and your sister!
And hugs to you, m’dear. I like to think my siblings and I have enough love to make up for the shitty parents, and hopefully a lot of other people’s shitty parents as well.
those whiskey stones changed my life last year. give them as a gift to literally everyone you see. I’m quite sure they can bring world peace.
Jeopardy, wine, and sex FTW. my gf isn’t a mother….yet, but hopefully someday we will both be and that present will still apply!
I could never imagine my mother wearing a “I <3 my lesbian daughter" t-shirt unfortunately. and if I did get it for her it would have to be plural- she's got 2 of us! One day maybe I'll convince her to march in the parade and skip church JUSTONCE but until then, I'll stick with flowers.
This just made me think about how awesome all autostraddler’s kids probably are/will be. And maybe the reason why the world isn’t perfect is cause there haven’t been enough queers having babies yet. A gay baby army would clearly change this.
hear hear
This article inspired me to get my mom an “I <3 my transgender daughter" shirt, since she has been very supportive.
My wife found this cool print of a raven from an Etsy artist that we got for my mom. So that’s all set. And for her mom, we always get her flowers for her Mary garden (my mother-in-law is super-religious and totally cool with teh gay and the fact that I’m some kind of pagan, so she rocks).
However, I am totally sick of the fact that all the mother-in-law cards out there are so clearly written for women to give to a mother-in-law they basically dislike but feel they must give a card. Last year for my m-i-l’s birthday, I searched the whole card store and could not find a single birthday card that actually said mother-in-law on it but didn’t totally suck. Evidently we’re not supposed to like our mothers in law. Oops.
I just bought my mom a set of “The Big Bang Theory” themed glasses. She can now drink her gas station chocolate wine from a glass printed with the lyrics to “soft kitty.” My mom is a really classy lady…..and I am the best daughter ever.
“Maybe what she really wants is a relaxing night in with some Jeopardy, wine and sex.”
Do I have to be a mother to ask for this?
I got my mom a mug that says “There’s a cat in my lap and I can’t get up” since our cat does that to her all the time.