Let There Be No Brunch!

Children? What children?

Don’t dare bring flowers this Mother’s Day—what mothers really want is recognition for all they give up

By Jennifer Noyes

Mother’s Day is the hardest holiday to pin down. It arrives in a haze of soft-focus gratitude with the implication that motherhood is a sacred calling or a naturally radiant condition. Either way, we are told, the correct celebration is brunch.

The lived version of motherhood is less photogenic. It deals in hard logistics. From the beginning there is an immediate and non-negotiable re-distribution of everything you once held dear: sleep, silence, the concept of a thought completed in one sitting.

Your day begins with the arrival of a small person. Loudly, in my experience. Frequently damp. Impossibly adhesive. READ ON