Mother's Day with DW or with Mom

[Anonymous]

Married with two small kids. My parents, DW's parents and I live in a triangle where we are each about 1.5 hours from each other.

My mom asked me this week if I planned on coming over on Sunday and I said no. I thought that once you have kids you spend Mother's day with your spouse and just a phone call to mom (keeping in mind the distance that a quick drop in would be difficult). Am I incorrect?

[Anonymous]

Wife

[Anonymous]

When my MIL was local, we spent most of the day as a family but my husband left to have a visit with his mom. It was absolutely fine with me because there was plenty of downtime in our day and I knew one day I’d be in her shoes. It’s a little tougher if your mom is 90 minutes away. Can you meet her halfway for breakfast or lunch with the kids? It would give your wife a break.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When my MIL was local, we spent most of the day as a family but my husband left to have a visit with his mom. It was absolutely fine with me because there was plenty of downtime in our day and I knew one day I’d be in her shoes. It’s a little tougher if your mom is 90 minutes away. Can you meet her halfway for breakfast or lunch with the kids? It would give your wife a break.

That's a good idea. I can see if that works for DW, particularly breakfast since DW likes to sleep in. Otherwise I think she'd be sad to lose some of a weekend day (not MD particularly, just weekend time in general) with the kiddos since we don't get a ton of time with them during the week due to working.

[Anonymous]

We spend mother’s day with extended family - MIL, SIL, and two nieces who are also mothers. You don’t stop being a mom when you have grandkids. We decided to make it work so we celebrated everyone. We are the ones who moved away so we travel to them. My mother has passed so we don’t celebrate with my side of the family.

[Anonymous]

I'm a mom of young kids and I honestly don't understand why so many DCUM moms get riled up at the idea of everyone not feting them on MD since you still have a mom. If I were you, I'd ask my DW how she would feel about my taking the kids to visit my mother and also suggest that she do a day of pampering for herself as a gift to her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We spend mother’s day with extended family - MIL, SIL, and two nieces who are also mothers. You don’t stop being a mom when you have grandkids. We decided to make it work so we celebrated everyone. We are the ones who moved away so we travel to them. My mother has passed so we don’t celebrate with my side of the family.

I hear you but note that we all live 1.5 hours from each other so someone is going to get the short end of the stick (i.e. my parents or DW's parents). It doesn't seem particularly fair to choose although I suppose everyone could come up here.

[Anonymous]

Wife. It’s not really fair of your mom to ask you to come.

[Anonymous]

You should celebrate both--why does it have to be one or the other? It seems a lot of wives don't like sharing MD with their MILs which doesn't make sense. Doesn't DH need to share this day with his mom too?

[Anonymous]

I don't understand why you have to choose. Unless you have an all-day event planned, you can split your time between them, or you could plan a different day to see your mom. She's still your mom, so yes, I think it's reasonable for her to want to see you at least some time around Mother's Day because you're in driving distance.

[Anonymous]

Both.

I am a mom who is hosting DH's side of the family for brunch, because this is a family occasion. Every person has a mom - living or deceased - so lets celebrate everyone!. After the brunch, people can go on with more celebration but I will take a nap. My kids and DH will give me something nice - a card, some kisses, a plant. DH and I will cook the brunch together.

[Anonymous]

We never did MD with grandparents when I was growing up, and both sides lived 1.5 hours away in different directions, so my instinct is "of course wife," especially if you think she'd be sad to miss weekend time with the kids. Not all women want or appreciate "pampering" time more than family time on weekends. But just as different women are different, so are different families; I'd be fine going to visit my MIL together, I would have loved it if our weekend wasn't so packed already, so maybe you can cover both.

[Anonymous]

Depends who you want to piss off more. IMO, you made a wise choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why you have to choose. Unless you have an all-day event planned, you can split your time between them, or you could plan a different day to see your mom. She's still your mom, so yes, I think it's reasonable for her to want to see you at least some time around Mother's Day because you're in driving distance.

OP here and see my post above about everyone being 1.5 hours away. I mean, I'm sure DW would like to spend time with her mom too so it's basically slicing the day up into thirds unless everyone came up here. I like the idea of planning a different day though to see my mom and maybe just shifting the celebration a bit or like someone else said doing breakfast w/ my mom.

[Anonymous]

I’m schlepping my kids off to MIL with DH. MIL wants to be Queen Bee on MD, and I don’t really care about MD. So she gets HER day with all of her “kids”, and I get a day of solitude, peace and quiet. I think that’s a win.

Seeing my mom on Saturday, because she isn’t one to let the calendar dictate how people show their love.