Mother’s Day is coming. And if you've had a few Mother's Days that end with you getting into bed feeling totally wiped out and resentful, this podcast episode is for you. I’m talking all about how to create your best Mother’s Day plan for a day you actually enjoy!

You’ll Learn:

• Why Mother’s Day can be so hard
• Steps for creating your best Mother’s Day plan
• How to process the “Mother’s Day Hangover” of disappointment, resentment or sadness on Monday morning

This Mother’s Day, I send my love to all the mothers. For the first mothers, the forever mothers, the motherless mothers, the childless mothers, and the not-yet mothers. I love you. I see you.

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Mother's Day has a way of ending up the OPPOSITE of ideal for most moms.

A lot of times, moms spend Mother's Day cleaning up the kitchen after a messy breakfast in bed, followed by a lunch that's focused on their mother or mother-in-law, and then capped off by a rushed take-out dinner with all the regular bedtime routine shenanigans.

Taking Back Mother’s Day

I’m just going to say it - Mother’s Day is FOR moms!

Usually, two things keep moms from creating their ideal day: guilt and not asking for what they want.

I want you to know that it is okay to not want to spend every minute of Mother's Day with your kids. Getting breaks from your kids is actually super important, so if you want a few kid-free hours on Mother's Day, it’s okay.

You might also feel guilty about balancing how to honor your mom, mother-in-law, etc. with getting what you want from the day, too. It can be a lot of people to please, especially if you live in the same town. People-pleasing is not what Mother’s Day is about, and you might not be able to satisfy everybody. Think about what you want from the day and take it from there.

I want Mother’s Day to be amazing for you, so I’m going to help you work through these common obstacles and make a plan and design a Mother’s Day that actually feels good to you. One where you get what you truly want from the day.

Make Your Best Mother’s Day Plan

It is your job to figure out what you want and then ask for it. Here’s how…

Step 1: Decide what you want

What does your ideal Mother’s Day look like? Take a few minutes to really think about this or journal on it. What do you really want? How do you want to spend your Mother’s Day?

Is it a break from kids? Time with your friends? Alone time? A visit with your own mom? A special family activity?

Do you want to sleep in? Shop? Go out to lunch? Spend time outdoors?

Step 2: Communicate your plan

If it's going to be a day where we honor and celebrate our experience as mothers and let the people around us honor and appreciate us, then we need to figure out a way to communicate what we want.

Talk to your partner (if you have one) about your vision for the day. Ask them if they think that plan will work. Are they willing to try something new if that’s what you want? 

If there are other mothers involved, reach out to them and see what they have in mind for the day. If you’re hoping for a more relaxed day, ask if you can have a shorter visit or if they’re open to celebrating together on Saturday or a different weekend. If they aren’t willing to change their plans or expectations, can you take your ideal day a week later? 

Having these conversations in advance is really, really helpful because it helps you get on the same page and make a real plan.

The Mother’s Day Hangover

If Mother’s Day can be hard, the day after can be even harder. Even if you manage to have a wonderful Mother’s Day, you’ll probably still have what I call the Mother’s Day Hangover. 

On Monday morning, when you walk into the kitchen and start packing lunches, getting kids up and off to school and doing your other regular parenting and work tasks, you might feel a little disappointed that life is back to normal. Your special day is over.

Or you might feel resentful that you didn’t get the Mother’s Day you wanted. Maybe your partner wasn’t supportive or your family left a big mess in the kitchen waiting for you. 

This is the time to reset. Acknowledge and recognize those feelings. Sit down with a journal and write them out. Be honest about what happened and how you’re feeling. Let it pass through you. Take care of yourself and give yourself some compassion.

I also know that some of us are sitting with feelings of grief and loss on Mother’s Day (myself included). If this is you, give yourself a little tenderness and consider this when designing your day.

This Mother’s Day, I send my love to all the mothers. For the first mothers, the forever mothers, the motherless mothers, the childless mothers, and the not-yet mothers. I love you. I see you.

And I’m wishing you YOUR most ideal Mother’s Day yet.

Previous Episodes Mentioned:

• Episode 9: Pause and Reset Your Emotions

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Well, hello. This week, I'm doing something I've never done

Become, and I'm replaying an episode that I

published when my podcast first came out, episode

14. And it's about how to have a

great Mother's Day. And I relistened to it a I think it's

such a good episode a I wanted to

really I care so much about Mother's Day, and I

also may recently made this joke. I was like, the rest of

May is payback for Mother's Day Become May is

so insane for a, and it's like there's so much going on.

And, it just made me laugh. And I was like, we really

need to make sure that Mother's Day is amazing

for us. Like, it serves us. It gives us what we need. It gives us

what us what we want because we kinda need to bank

that, like, self care in order to have capacity

to get us through till the end of the school year. So

I just love this episode so much, and I wanted to give it to you

again. And I am wishing you just the best

Mother's Day, and I hope you enjoy yours a ton.

So here is that episode.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the

podcast. I'm your coach, Darlene Childress. And a,

I wanna talk about Mother's Day. So if you're listening to this

in real time, Mother's Day is this coming Sunday.

And I really wanted to help you

design a Mother's Day that actually feels good to you.

One where you get what you want from the day and then you actually enjoy

it. Because if you've had a few Mother's Days

that, you know, you're you've been a mom for a while, you know that

some mother's days don't go that great. Right? There are times

when we end up getting into bed at the end of the night feeling super

wiped out and resentful. And so, if that has ever

happened to you, then this episode is for you.

Because what happens is Mother's Day, it has a way of ending

up like the opposite of ideal for most

moms. A lot of moms, what they do is they spend Mother's Day

cleaning up the kitchen after a very messy breakfast in bed. So, it's

like super cute. Your kids are a bring you breakfast in bed a then it's

not really ever that great a. Maybe for you it is a

it's never really been that great for me and for most of my clients. And

then you finally, kinda, get up and the kitchen is a disaster. And it's like,

well, what's this Mother's Day? Right? And then it's, like, kind

of followed by a lunch or a weird brunch that's

focused on, like, either your mother or your mother-in-law. It's,

like, focused on a different mother that's not you. And then

it's the day is capped off by, like, a rushed takeout dinner, and then

you have to still do all the regular bed time routine shenanigans. Yeah? So,

like, last year after Mother's Day, I was scrolling through, like,

all the mom Facebook groups that I'm in, and someone wrote this

post. They wrote, like, can we start a fuck mother's day

post? Anyone else have a shitty day?

So this mom a started this thread, and

there were a bunch of comments that followed in that post. And here's some of

the things a moms were saying. They're like, I spent my a

day grocery shopping and cleaning and my kid taking my phone

half the morning for his game. So she just worked

all day and then didn't even have her phone for entertainment.

Another mom wrote like, me, my sister let the cat in and

it peed all over my shoes, and then my 9 year old asked me why

I was wearing the same shirt I wore yesterday.

Someone else just wrote a pretty tough day over here. Don't even really a

revisit it or explain it. You know, another one's like grateful

this day is over. Someone else, okay, for real. I need to cancel Mother's Day

next year. And someone else calm, my problem with Mother's Day is that it's like

every other day except I have different expectations.

So, you know, we have she has these ideas like like help with

kids and dishes and no one ever end up ends up doing

that. So and for all of these

posts, there were lots of people, like, liking and hearting and, like, me too

and raising their hands and all of that. So a.

Like, I want you to take back Mother's Day. If it's going to

be a day where we honor and celebrate our experience as

mothers and, like, we let the people around us sort of

honor and appreciate us, then we are gonna need

to figure out a way to communicate what we want. And that's what this

episode is a. Because what moms tell me that they really

a do is they want to sleep late so nobody

really wants breakfast in bed if you're sleeping in because you want to be able

to sleep as late as you want to sleep right They wanna stay

in bed, like, linger in bed. That's like

a mom's dream, really, because so often we have to

get up and get right to kids or they're like in our

bed and we're like, Here we go. And you gotta start the morning routine a

all of that. So moms want to sleep late. They want to stay in

bed. They want to have a long a shower.

Maybe a spend some time getting ready properly. I want to

spend maybe a spend maybe a few hours without

their kids, like either shopping or getting a massage or being with a friend,

and then doing something with their kids, something simple that actually

works with their children, like a picnic dinner at the park. If grandma

wants to come, great. And then be off duty for bedtime.

This is what I'm hearing from moms. This is what they want. They just want

sort of a day that works for them.

So what keeps moms from creating their

ideal day? So here's the two things that I see

when it comes to Mother's Day that are the obstacles for moms

in actually creating a Mother's Day that they like. So the first

one is not asking for what they want so I'm a to talk

about that one in a minute the second one is feeling

guilt for wanting what they want

so the first one is not asking for it the second one is feeling bad

for wanting it so I want to clear up the guilt thing

for a in the first place I want you to know

that it is okay to not want to spend every

minute of Mother's Day with your kids. A, you're with

them a lot, and if you get a

chance to have a break from your children

and then miss them a little bit and then come back together, you're gonna

feel a lot more grateful for them. Right? Too much of a good thing

can become not so good of a thing. Right? So

if you want time without your children on Mother's Day,

you do not need to feel guilty about that. You do not need to think,

Oh my God. I'm such a bad mom. I don't even want to see my

kids on Mother's Day. That's okay. You're with them

a lot. So getting breaks from

your kids is super important it's actually one of the things I

teach in my program because it it

is vital that you have time off of

mom duty that's part of becoming a calm

mama is by having time where you

aren't you know parenting so if

that means having a a few kid free hours on Mother's Day

and then you can enjoy the rest of the day with your kids, that's okay.

Maybe you want some time with them in the morning, then you want a

little break in the afternoon a then see them for bedtime, or maybe you don't

want to do anything in the evening. You wanna kind of have that

night off. Whatever it is that you want. If you want to have

a break from your children, I don't want you to feel guilty about wanting

that. The other factor

that comes up a lot when when it comes to guilt is

the guilt about balancing how to honor, like, your mom

or your mother-in-law on the same day that you want to be

honored. It's it's a lot of people to

please. Right? Especially if everyone lives in the same town. You've got

you as the mom who's actively parenting in this

season of your life, the mom who is doing

it right now, you, and then you have

your mother and your mother-in-law who are

ultimately grandparents at that point. Right? And

they yes. We love and honor our mothers, and it

can be confusing about who gets whose a day is

it. So people pleasing

is not what mother's day is about. Trying to figure out

how to satisfy your mother, and your mother-in-law, and your stepmom, and all

of that that it can be really difficult to satisfy

everybody. So, when you think

about Mother's Day, I want you to think about what it

is you want. It's really

important to ask for what you want, but before you can

even ask for it, you have to get clear about what that is. So here's

my question for you. Ready?

How do you want to spend Mother's Day?

What is your ideal mother's day I want you to spend a few

minutes right now listening to this podcast or

coming back to it or pausing it wherever you are and

thinking or journaling about what an ideal a

day would look like for you What do you actually

want? The Mother's Day that I

described earlier in this episode is really what I wanted when my kids were

little. I wanted a big giant break from them

because they were always around. I felt like I was on duty all the

time. I also never had a chance to go shopping, like

clothes shopping, or hang out with a friend. And so

I wanted to do some of those things on Mother's

Day. I wanted to have time to, you

know but, really, I wanted to go clothes shopping a lot lot because I really

didn't have much time to do that when the kids were little. So thinking about

how you want to spend the day. So I wanted a little bit of time

with them, a little bit of time by myself, and then, actually, I really

wanted to spend time with my mom friends. So what we

did when my kids were little is I'd spend time

with them for a little while, and then I would separate from

them. So I'd kinda send in the morning and early afternoon, a I would go

do something by myself for a little bit, like, you know, go to the mall

or something. I sound like I really love shopping, but I just never really had

a chance to do it. And and then I would meet up

with a friend for, like, a like a drinker, like a

like a little mini meal. And we would just sit and

chat on Mother's Day. And it was absolutely delightful to me.

And my husband would be putting the kids to bed a then

I would come home right at tickles and, you know,

a. And I a have to do all the bedtime routine. I would just give

hugs and kisses a then I would be able to have the evening to relax.

That was my ideal Mother's Day for a really long time.

And I want you to think about yours. It's if it's

really important for you to spend time with your mom, then make that happen

think about it if it's really important for your

partner to spend time with their mom

Have your partner think about it. So,

first, your job is to imagine what you want.

And then if you have a partner, go have a conversation with them

and let them know what you would like. Ask them, hey, this is

what I'm thinking. Would it work for you? Like, talk about

past Mother's Day. Lay out what worked for you in the past and what you

want to change a ask if they're willing to try something new this year.

Maybe your partner has it in their mind that you're going to have this

long family day and you're like I

don't want to do a family day. I want to do a family day next

Sunday. I want to just do like my day.

So, having this conversation in advance is really, really helpful.

Now, the other mothers, right? There's lots of other mothers involved. You've

got stepmoms, your mom, mother-in-law, birth moms.

So take a minute. Reach out. See what they had in

mind. Kind of let your mother-in-law know

like, Hey. I, you know, I would

like to have some time by myself. I'd like to have some time with just

my family. So, is it cool if we don't do Mother's Day

on A, but we do it on Saturday or if we

do it next weekend? So you

can offer you can share what your ideal day is a then

ask if you can spread out the celebrations over a few weekends or

shorten the time that usually you usually spend together on Mother's Day

so that everyone can get their desires met.

I remember sitting with a mom years a, and it

was it, it wasn't Mother's Day, but we were sitting together

and she said to me that a this

was the first time in her life that she had had Mother's Day and her

kids were, like, 10 a a 12 or something like

that. And they had recently moved to California and

a their home state. And it was the she said, this is the first time

I've had mother's day to myself. And I was like, what do you what do

you mean? And she's like, every year, it's always been about my husband's

mother. She hosts a big brunch, and we're there all day. And the

expectation is that we're there all day a that, you know, I'm being a.

And this was a person who's really introverted. And it took a lot of

energy to be around someone else's family all day long.

And she didn't know how to advocate or ask for herself or ask her partner

for what she wanted. And it was only after they moved that she

realized, oh, wow. I could have a mother's day that's

just focused on, like, what I want. So

we don't wanna hurt the other moms. Right? We don't wanna hurt your mom

or your mother-in-law. We wanna honor them as well or your stepmom or whoever's

in the picture. And, but also by

saying I A you and I'd like to

do things differently this year. Would you be open or willing?

So, they may or may not be, and that's just a great way

for you to get information a then find out if things

are, you know, not gonna go your way. And it's not a, you

know, it's not a I was gonna say a cross you wanna a, but if

it's not, you know, a boundary you wanna hold up,

that's fine. You could decide, like, okay. I planted the seed for in the future

or, hey, a, my to your partner, I'm gonna do my own Mother's

Day the following weekend. Like, I want my Mother's Day. Your mom isn't willing to

give it to me or my mom's not willing to give it up. So I

want Saturday or I want next Sunday. So

you can still get that day of rest if you want it. A,

all it takes to create what you want is getting

clear about what that is and then asking for it.

So it is your job to figure out what it is you want a

then ask. Not feeling guilty for wanting

it, not discounting what you

want, but actually asking for it.

So now here's here's the thing I wanna

tell you. Even with the best plan,

like, the perfect ideal A Day or even, like, a

night a day that doesn't go right, like, whatever happens on mother's day,

you will probably still have what I call the mother's day hangover.

Right? So on Monday morning, you might walk into

the kitchen and start to do all of your regular parenting

tasks, getting lunches, getting kids up,

getting kids shoes and socks on, backpacks packed, getting kids to

school, getting back to work. Right? All your regular

parenting tasks. And you might feel a little disappointed

that life is back to normal. Like, you may be

like, wait. Yesterday was great. I like, like, that version

of my family where everybody helps out a everybody's really

nice and everybody's really, you know, super like, my my

partner's really interested in helping me and all that. And, like, you might just be

like, oh, like, back to the reality of it. So

mother's day hangover. Okay. Another thing could

happen to you where you walk into the kitchen and you feel resentful because

you didn't have a partner who was, like, really supportive and helpful and, like,

got all into it and stuff. And there's dishes in the sink, and yesterday's breakfast

in bed is still all over the counter. And, you know,

you you just kind of feel resentful. You wake up and you're like, well, that

sucked. Or maybe

you woke up you might wake up feeling a little bit sad

because maybe there was a conflict in your family

or you didn't. Your kids weren't willing to take that a

day photo that you wanted or they wouldn't smile or, you

know, there was no sweet, I love you. You're the best mom ever a. Or

you're looking on social media and you're like, I didn't have that.

So I want you to acknowledge and recognize that

sometimes the day after Mother's Day is not fantastic. I call

it the Mother's Day hangover. It's very a, and

it's just how it is. So mother's day can

be hard a the day after can be even harder.

And a

want to and you want to reset that,

you can overcome those big feelings

by just acknowledging them, by recognizing

that they're there and they're true. Because it's really easy

to rationalize your feelings away and trivializing them

or discounting them. I also think women tend to, like,

gratitude themselves out of their emotion. Like,

well, at least my kids gave me a hug

or, you know, oh, I should feel grateful because I have children or I should

feel great. We kind a, like, grateful ourselves out of

our emotions, and that's just

kind of rationalizing your feelings away without being really honest. If

you're really truly grateful, awesome. But if you're not and you're using

gratitude to avoid feeling your feelings, no.

It is really easy to ignore our ignore our feelings by

a ourselves, or eating cake, or binge watching

inventing A. Guilty. But the truth is

that when we avoid our emotions, we actually set ourselves up for more

disconnecting behavior either with ourselves, our partner, or our

children. And I I know you don't want that. Right? Because you a

become a calm mama. So you want to feel connected to

yourself and connected to your kids and connected to your partner.

So instead of avoiding your emotions, just name them.

Sit down with a journal and write them out write down I

feel sad that my children didn't give me a card

I feel resentful that I had to do housework on mother's day

I am angry that my mother-in-law got more recognition than I did

So you're a you're doing here is you're you're setting

yourself up for as best a you can have. You're setting up

your ideal Mother's Day and

afterwards you're being honest with your feelings

about what happened. Now this process of kind

of writing out like I'm mad at so and so and I'm hurt and I'm

resentful it might feel really petty a I'm telling you it's not.

It's actually the opposite of petty. It's very deep and

honest work. It's how we unravel some of

our behavior because when we're, you know, showing up like all

resentful towards our kids and it's the day after Mother's Day and we're kind of

like get in the car. I get a little grumpy.

Like, that's not how you want to show up. I know it's not.

And so offering yourself compassion, self a,

is the way to move you through your feelings so that you can

be the mom that you wanna be. So, actually, I have a

complete podcast episode on this topic. It's that

episode 9 pause and reset your emotions a we'll link that in the show notes.

So you can go back and learn

really how to process negative emotion. So

the coolest part about practicing self compassion

a know, towards yourself is that the more you do it with

you, the more you recognize and name your own emotion,

the more you're able to offer compassion towards your children.

The more in touch you are with your emotion, the more in touch you'll be

in, you'll be with them, with their emotion.

And so that practice of self compassion

is really really important for you because it a feels really

great to take good care of yourself and it helps you become the mother

that you you know the parent that you want to be

So the last thing I want to spend a few minutes talking about

so we've talked about you deciding what you

want and and mother's day, giving you permission to ask for that,

giving you some strategies to figure out how to get that get make that

a. Talked about the Mother's Day hangover,

how it feels, kind of, the day after, depending on how

things go, how to move through that emotion. Now, I want

to talk about loss and grief. So

my mom, she passed away in 2020, and this

is my a Mother's Day without her a

a Mother's Day this year falls on her birthday a

so I am approaching this Mother's Day with a

lot of extra tenderness towards myself.

So when I think a, for me, this year, my ideals my

ideal Mother's Day, it involves kind of a lot of

laying in bed, a gentle walk in the woods,

an early dinner with my kids,

and an evening with

our family. Like, that's what I want. But I know that all

morning a early afternoon, I need to be

alone this year and just kind of miss my

mama, and I'm gonna give myself permission to

do that. I may not need to do that every mother's day, but

this year I've tapped in, I've thought about my ideal day, and I a that

that's what I need. Now, this

is also the 1st Mother's Day without my older sister

who passed away in October, and I'm

I'm thinking a lot about her children and how they're missing

their mom and how painful this day will be for them.

So if you've lost your mother or

you know people in your life who've lost their mother,

Mother's Day might be really tender for them, and we

wanna honor and recognize that. There are

also moms who have lost a child,

And this day brings sorrow to them, because

they're missing the people that they that

they love. They're missing their children.

Maybe that child, you know, was

it was a miscarriage, or it was, you know, a child that

died young or in maybe they're a grandmother and they're

missing their adult child. Just honoring

and recognizing that for mothers who've lost a child

a, Mother's Day is very much a day that brings sorrow.

There are also moms who are not parenting the

children that they that were born to them, like first

mothers, birth mothers. So we don't know

everybody's story, but for some moms they're holding that.

That part of them, they're holding that story. And they're grieving.

There's also the stepmoms, and they

don't always get an acknowledgement on this

day, on a day. Especially if

the the mother is still in the picture the other mother

and so stepmoms don't always get a that

they deserve on this day so this

A Day I want you to hold space for you I want you to create

your own ideal day. I want you to feel whatever you're feeling,

and I want all of us to hold space

for all the mama. And I

am sending my love to all the mama, the first moms,

the the first mothers, those who are celebrating their first Mother's Day,

the forever mothers, the motherless mothers, the Childress

mothers, the not yet mothers. I

see you, and I recognize that today may not a,

I keep saying today, that a day may not be the easiest

day for you. And I want you to give yourself permission

to allow for whatever emotion comes up. You

have permission to grieve in your own way if you are grieving.

If you're not grieving, you have permission to make Mother's Day

exactly what you want it to be a to enjoy

your kids and your life, and your partner,

and anything that any part of your life that you love, you get to

enjoy it on this day. So, I am sending you lots of mother's

day love, and I am wishing that this

is your your most ideal mother's day

yet. Alright. I'll see you

next week.