The Cautionary Tale of Two Mother’s Days

Note: This post is also available in audio format on the Abraham’s Wallet podcast (on iTunes, Google and Spotify).

Can I take a moment to address the dads among us? (Shout out Pirate dads!) Today, I’m out to tell you a cautionary tale of a series of events that, individually, lie somewhere in the zone of thoughtless oversight, but collectively form a perfect storm of marital horror. Read up gents, and don’t do what I did.

As a husband, I think pretty hard about the things that I’m responsible for at home. Because both my wife and I work, I usually shoulder about half of the load when it comes to the cooking, shopping, cleaning (my wife just laughed, most likely) and childcare duties. I try to be done with work by the time evening rolls around, and though I’ve not arrived entirely yet, I’m getting better at leading our family in things like Sabbath and the thoughtful limitation of technology. All things considered I feel like I’ve got things rightly ordered for the most part, and if anything I can be guilty of patting my own back just a bit too hard on the husbanding front.

This spring, I’ve been working hard to launch a new business, and it has been going quite well. Predictably, the early success has bred… a lot more work. So, going into the Mother’s Day season, I was quite focused on my day job. That’s not to say I forgot Mother’s Day (I didn’t), but let’s just say  that there wasn’t too much planning going into the event. And that is the stage setting for the play-by-play I’m about to give you. Buckle up, Homers.

MOTHER’S DAY 2019, A Running Diary

6:07am, Mother’s Day, 2019

My wife finishes up a long night of work at the hospital in which she didn’t sleep more than an hour or so at a time, and gets ready to head home, likely wondering what sorts of delightful plans her family has in store for the day designated to her honor as a mother.

8:14am, Mother’s Day, 2019

After welcoming her home and sharing a cup of coffee, the Mrs. is ready for some sleep and is just futzing on the phone noticing all the kind words being shared on social media about mothers.

I COULD have said: “yes love, many mothers have done well, but you excel them all”

I DID say: “I’m really glad you don’t expect me to put some cheese-whiz post on social media about you on days like this.”

Now, in my mind, I was thinking, “you know how much I value you, and posting on Facebook seems like it’s more about showing everyone else how good I am at husbanding than it is about you” (a position I still maintain, strongly.  Grandstanding on social media is lame, and nothing is lamer that writing something in the second person “I love you, Jenny!” then posting it for the masses… as opposed to just saying it to her face). This mental gymnastic was, in a word, misplaced. What she (entirely understandably) received was, “I’m not about to look like a goober just to honor you publicly. I’m a stud and when I do nothing, that’s awesome. You and I, we get it: Mother’s Day. Nuff said. Who needs to ARTICULATE some kind of GRATITUDE, amirite!?” And off to bed she goes.

11:26am, Mother’s Day, 2019

In order to provide a restful and quiet sleeping situation for my wife (“Yes! I’m really creating a magical Mother’s Day for her!  Again, addition by subtraction!”, I think), I squire the kids away from home to church. This will enable my wife to have an unencumbered sleeping experience. She can wake on her on schedule, and get up in her own fashion  On the way home I’m feeling a bit magnanimous, so I stop at the store to pick up a Mother’s Day card. It was somewhat shocking to notice that they had one single card left (“Huh, that’s odd: most human-type people must have come earlier than the actual morning of Mother’s Day to get their cards… Curious…”) but I snagged it like a champ and even got a treat for dessert (clutch!). I did not check my phone to see that she was at home, having woken up earlier than usual in order to create a superlative brunch for HER mother (as one of the aforementioned humans who better apprehends the opportunity for celebrating that MD affords us), and that she needed a few things from the store… which she would end up picking up on her own since I, you know… was ignoring my phone (and her by extension). I also forgot to check my mental registry from the past 14 years of marriage, which would have reminded me that she does not like strawberry cheesecake, which happened to be the dessert I picked up for her.

Can you guys see what kind of awesome MD this is shaping up to be?  I hope you can. Keep reading.

2:12pm, Mother’s Day, 2019

My wife single-handedly pulled off a great MD meal for her mom, which ended with the presentation of gifts. At this point I’m starting to feel an undefined sense that something isn’t right, but I cannot put my finger on it exactly. (“Clever put down of the social media masses this morning?  Check… Last minute card and dessert she may or may not loathe, check… Nothing else… check…) So, I gave her the card I had purchased on the way home from church, and our kids gave her cards they had made at school and/or church. Nobody had gifts. Between my wife and I, we had agreed that a jewelry purchase from the month prior would be her big ‘Mother’s Day gift’, so I had checked that box too, right? That didn’t stop me from wondering why the kids wouldn’t have bothered to get their mother a little something.  (How they were supposed to purchase or transport this imaginary gift, I don’t know. Maybe they were supposed to knock me over when I was buying hated dessert food and force me to buy their gifts for them.) Kind of rude of them to neglect Mom in this way, if you ask me.

3:00pm, Mother’s Day, 2019

After the meal, that unease inside of me is starting to really take shape. In fact, I suspected that hmmm… maybe… am I blowing Mother’s Day? So… I did all the dishes! Phew! I feel much better now. So, after offering her a chance to get out and exercise her entirely unslept body a bit (she declined), I head out for a quick 9-mile run (I see the way you’re looking at me – it was ladies first, though! She had the chance! She declined!).  On my way out, I think to myself, “Mother’s Day is great! I got to eat an amazing brunch and now get to go on a nice long run! Hooray for us ALL on Mother’s Day, even non-moms!”.

If you’re wondering how long I would be able to maintain this level of self-concerned insensitivity, please just wait…

4:32pm, Mother’s Day, 2019

When I got home, there was my wife… cooking again! This time it was dinner for my sister, who had just had a baby. Again, my wife was communicating that Mother’s Day is an important time to honor mothers.  Curious! That weird feeling was starting to come back. Am I maybe failing the hardest at Mother’s Day of anyone who has ever attempted the feat? Nah… must be the blisters on my feet from that long run. I’ll rehydrate and that nausea will soon be eased away.

6:13pm, Mother’s Day, 2019

After zipping over to deliver the goods to my sister and her family, I return wondering what we’re going to eat. (PRO TIP: don’t ever, under any circumstances, put yourself or your family in a position to have to wonder this on Mother’s Day.) Thankfully, the wife made a double portion of everything, so we got to eat well-again! My Lady, I hasten to add, picked the wine out, because… isn’t that the… kind of her-first… uh… (me: –nervously looks around– is it getting hotter in here…?)

6:58pm, Mother’s Day, 2019

Somewhere in the commotion of dishes and cleanup, the anticipation and disappointment, the excitement and humiliation, all the frustration of the day finally breaks loose. She cried, told me that I hadn’t done a damn thing to make her feel special, and she was right about it all (of course). And the fact of the matter is, I felt REALLY torn up – I apologized with all the sincerity I had to offer. It was all for real and I did indeed feel like a loser of a husband for fooling myself into thinking that any one of the above debacles would fly, much less each of them in succession. Being the wonderful, forgiving, restoring wife that she is, she forgave me and even seemed to understand how tore up I was about the whole deal. “He understands and this was just a big snowball of mistakes, chalk it up… onward.” That’s the kind of wife I’m blessed to have…

And that right there is a story of how to NOT conduct yourself on a Mother’s Day, broze.

Before we close, however, I need to keep writing. You see, I wish I could end this cautionary tale right there and call it a valuable lesson in the care and tending of my wife’s heart through a full day of mistakes.  But our tale, unfortunately, continues…

7:34pm, Mother’s Day, 2019

I’m feeling MUCH better about how my wife now sees and knows that I do, in fact, care that her feelings were hurt. I’m so convinced that she understands my heart for her that I think to myself, “I’m going to go catch the fourth quarter of this amazing Toronto vs. Philly playoff game!”. (Do you think there’s a bit of hubris in my makeup?  There is.) Now, my wife does not like basketball. She would truly rather watch paint dry than watch two teams with which we have no emotional or geographical connection playing a second round playoff game. As I’m watching, I don’t really consider this (natch), but I do notice that she’s being REALLY LOUD as she does things like shut doors, fold laundry and finish straightening up after dinner. “Is she exhaling really loudly every time she walks past me? …feels like maybe she is. I hope she’s ok… best not to say anything at all and simply hope for the best…”

I’ll stop the narration right about there. But there was a second confrontation, and it didn’t end in hugs and happy tears. She is still full of grace and forgiveness, but I’ve now had more than a week to reflect on that vortex of selfishness and I’m still not entirely sure how it got to spinning. I wanted to put the story up here so that you could see not only the great pinnacle moments that we at Abraham’s Wallet get to experience, whether relaxing in our Sukkahs or as we lead our families through a Passover meal, but also the low moments. Maybe you have had an epic failure that makes my Mother’s Day look like a stroll through Candyland. I’m almost certain that you and I both are going to look back at some of our whiffs in the family leadership game and wonder what we could have possibly been thinking. I wrote this one to say – “that’s ok” and also “please, my friends …go fix those things”.

And fix them, in the Parrett home, we shall. In order to provide myself some guardrails against my own lazy nature, I stuck a calendar reminder 2 weeks out of the major celebration days for the next couple of years. “Prep for her Birthday” is now a scheduled event in my life. I guess I need that for the moment.

The truth is that we all, in my home, have a deep desire to honor my wife in her role as a mother. And that big failure of a day will probably leave a mark, so I wanted to leave another mark in the opposite direction. My best idea was to make Saturday, May 18 a Mother’s Day Do-Over. MDDO involved everything that the first Mother’s Day should have involved: It started with her favorite breakfast served first thing- right when she woke up!. We headed to a soccer game together then spent time strolling around downtown and trying the hot new fried chicken (it’s her favorite food guys! That seems like a smart thing to eat on Her Day!) joint where they charge $18 for a sandwich. (So what: money is for something more important than money: relationships are #2 on our list.)

After lunch she had a massage while I took the kids to pick out steaks for dinner. We tend to love each other with foodstuffs in my family… what can I say? I left her an hour to get some yoga in the afternoon, thinking she could benefit from those manually loosened muscles, and then we dined at home (I picked the wine this time). The day finished with a musical that she had been looking forward to for a few weeks. Wins all around.

At the end of the day I grew as a husband through this experience and I also suppose I needed a little wake-up to remind me that my overtures need to be getting LOUDER, and not less embellished, with every passing year. The bottom line learnings:

1. Things that really matter (like celebrating your spouse) take some forethought
2. Giving to others is about what THEY want
3. Few things are worth more money and effort in the home than giving mom some well-deserved ATTABOYS… especially when the calendar tees it up for you
4. Having a spouse that forgives you and moves on is worth its weight in hot fried chicken sandwiches
5. Don’t go on 9-mile runs alone on Mother’s Day

Thanks for listening, amigos, and don’t learn this lesson the hard way, just take the cautionary tale of Mother’s Day 2019 and abscond with the wisdom, free and clear.

*Mark Parrett is one of the founders of Abraham’s Wallet. When not blogging for you here, he’s raising a family in Salt Lake City, UT and working as a financial planner at Outpost Advisors.