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Lessons for Mother’s Day from my daughter and “I, Tonya”
In my small, quietly dysfunctional family, Mother’s Day — like Father’s Day — never registered. Maybe my mother’s underdeveloped maternal instinct played a part but she never considered the day a reason to contact or celebrate her own mother, either. As a surly youth and then a surly young man, this suited me fine.
My created, rather than my inherited, family sees things differently, however. Both my wife and my children — well, the daughters, especially — look to all family-oriented holidays as an excuse to celebrate and to be together, whenever possible.
But my eldest daughter is now living in Malta and my son lives in Manchester — and is, moreover, male and almost by definition in this family, immune to overt expressions of sentiment, especially those mandated in the service of a marketing opportunity — so neither are with us this weekend.
My youngest daughter, Kirstie, though, has come home for the sole purpose of being here on Mother’s Day.
She taught we a wee lesson, too, this morning. As we walked into town for a breakfast, I made some rather predictable aside about the financial reasons behind the overt celebrations. Agreeing — to a point — she then added that, although she was happy to show gratitude to her mother on almost any other day of the year, this special…
