Grandma Doesn't Get Pissed — She's "Disappointed"

I can tell you right now that I'm not gonna be getting Grandma anything for Mother's Day... besides a card, that is. She shouldn't complain though since this is going to be the first year I even remembered that there is a Mother's Day. I have a horrible track record with this sort of thing — even worse than Mom's record of remembering how every day is children's day. Even the years that I do remember about Mother's Day tend to be pretty disastrous — sophomore year of college, for instance, I bought Grandma a Mother's Day card but forgot to give it to her until July.

There's other issues involved too: namely, my pretty-much 24/7 taking Mom for granted and Mom's co-dependent emasculating and infantalizing behavior towards me. They don't really make a Hallmark card that succinctly encapsulates the complicated dynamic that might exist between two people and how it's easier to just become frustrated with our relationship than improve our relationship.

Either way, I bought Mom a gift today: a set of glasses from the Museum of Modern Art Design Store. I was all set to piss Mom off this Sunday by giving her only a card, but I was in the store anyway to buy Anne a graduation gift... and even though Mom's never been big on spending her hard-earned money on whimsical non-essentials for me, she expects me to spend my money on her. (Note the resentment simmering.) I mean, all she ever did was give birth to me and it's not like I even asked her to do that. You'd never see me bitching if I were never born.

Worse yet, Mom wants me to get a Mother's Day gift for Grandma, who, just in case you were wondering, is not even my mother. Look, I'll never have much sympathy for Mother's Day (or Father's Day), but if you are gonna celebrate the holiday, how about we just restrict it to an appreciation of howour own mothers affected us. I can see stepmothers or foster mothers or even some sort of symbolic mother figure, but let's let someone else handle the grandmothers and godmothers and the rest of the matrilineage that just had to eject their genetic material into the world.