Sunday 12 May 2013

What day is it today?

Since I woke up today, I've been bombarded- through newspapers, Twitter, Facebook. Everything is so completely focused on Mother's Day today. As a child, I used to always make an effort to celebrate each and every one of these so-called special occasions and 'days'. As I grew, I've become much more lax about them. Call it the jadedness of teenage, call it laziness, call it whatever, but now whenever I think of doing something special for one of these days, a hundred different questions creep up into my head. 

Whoever decided that a specific Sunday of a month should be dedicated to one section of the human population? I mean, no calender naturally came marked with a day made only for mothers or siblings or fathers. So then who are we to decide? Again, many believe that these are nothing but consumerist scams promoted by greeting card, flower and gift companies to boost their sales. I can see the sense in that. Imagine, its the 2nd week of May, you are walking past a Feelings or an Archies, blissfully oblivious of the date. Then you suddenly see the showcase of the shop overflowing with sentimental Mother's Day greeting cards and counters filled with people buying gifts that no one really uses. Feel the guilt trip coming already? You do, so you rush into the store, pick up a large-ish looking card, and a photo frame, filtering through all your photographs in your head hoping to find one with your mum that you can put into the frame, and buy it. Then you take the sparkle pens at the shop counter and write something nice for your mother on the card. Does this really do anything to show exactly how much your mother matters to you?

One Sunday morning we spend wishing our mother a happy Mother's day, and then proceed to spend the rest of the day on various websites, BBM, Whatsapp, Instragram telling strangers how much we love our mother. The hours we spend doing that are hours that we're spending away from our mum. Does that hurt her? Not really, no because every mother herself knows that no matter how special her family makes her feel on Sunday, she will still have to wake up earlier than everyone else the following Monday and make sure everyone's day runs smoothly. It is what she is expected to do. So, on one Sunday in the year, we do what we are expected to do. Some of you may think that I'm being very cynical, but I genuinely think that when we play out each one of these days, we do so more out of social expectation than out of genuine feeling. Otherwise, our behaviour towards our mothers, our fathers, our friends, siblings would not suddenly show a spike in goodwill on just one day in the year.

If I may say so, this means that we are actually faking a little bit of the love and enthusiasm for our loved ones, because not many of us usually go ahead and do something special for said person on any random day just because you actually feel like it. How about we take a moment and think about that, before we upload our next status for our mother?

9 comments:

  1. To be honest, I haven't wished my mother today..I just didn't feel like.
    *Sulks*

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    1. That doesn't mean you love your mother any less, does it? That's precisely what I'm trying to say.

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  2. Same here, even I did not. I completely agree with you. I see no sense in celebrating this one day for my mum. There are a million ways of making your mother feel special. None of them require a date or day.

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    1. Haina? Good, I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so. Whenever I tell people about my views, they just think I'm an ungrateful freak. :/

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  3. Well, you ARE a freak, but what your saying actually mirrors my thoughts as you very well know my views on the "Birthday" issue as well. And I didn't wish my mother either - What's the point?

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  4. No matter what I do there will be someone who will criticize therefore I do what I think and know is right...
    But the questions are really valid are we wishing just by lips but not following by actions the rest of year then we are nothing but hypocrites....

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