Alternative Mother's Day

Mother’s day, in my family, runs a little something like this:

The Great Raymondo turns up on her Mother and Dear Father’s doorstep with a card bought the day before, a bunch of flowers from Tesco and a half-hearted offer to hoover.

What Mothers Do: Especially When it Looks Like Nothing

My sister Catherine 'The Deserter' Edwards will follow and ram a 4th car onto Mother’s two-vehicle drive, with a bigger bunch of flowers, a husband, a rabbit called Rufus on a lead and a half-hearted offer to dust the living room. We will drink tea prepared by Mother. Someone will ironically sing two lines of Mama by the Spice Girls.

This will be followed by church, where the vicar will inevitably talk about Mary as the epitome of Motherhood – self sacrifice, endurance of trials, unfailing love. We will all patronisingly applaud our Mothers. Mum will smile at the sentiment but her eyes will tell another story.

We will return home where mum will prepare a Sunday roast, listen to arguments about unresolved childhood mysteries (Was it Catherine or me who scraped that rude message about our neighbour onto the bonnet of Mum’s red Micra?) and she will ask me, again, if I would ever like to become a Mother. The Great Raymondo will repeat, for the 20th year in a row, that ‘reproduction is self annihilation’ and take another bite of her roast beef. Pregnant sister will cackle.
We will play Scrabble. I will win.

The cards and flowers will stay up for exactly one week, after which they will be shoved in a sock drawer inside cards from previous years.

This routine, as you may imagine, is getting a little old. Perhaps mother feels the same, but is keeping schtum in a spirit of Mary-esque Motherly endurance.


Here’s how I’m hoping 3rd April will go down this year:

Morning: Sister and I will arrive at family home. She will park car on road, sensibly.

We will go to church. Vicar will tell congregation that Mary should have stood up for herself and not taken any rubbish her from unruly children, Mother will raise her hands and shout ‘testify.’

There will be zero attempts at allaying guilt for a lifetime of demands with offers of housework. Instead, the Raymonds and Edwards’ will go out for a pleasant round of paintballing.





The question of who scraped the rude message about our neighbour into the bonnet of Mum’s car will be decided once and for all by paintballs-at-dawn. I will win. Sister will tearfully confess.


Mum will enjoy the experience so much she will start a paintballing group within the University of the Third Age.


In the evening, Dad will cook his famous steak, chips and Colman’s peppercorn sauce. He will remember to flip the chips over halfway through.

When asked if I ever want children I will answer ‘hmm, yes, maybe,’ to avoid Mother utterly despairing of more Grandchildren.

We will play Scrabble. I will win.

Here’s hoping. Happy Mother’s day.