Dear schools, your Mother's Day events don't do us a favour

Staff reporters

Published: May 11 2017 - 9:33AM

I'm filled with rage as I hear my colleague tell us how his wife was reduced to tears over her guilt of not being able to attend her child's Mother's Day event at a local primary school because she had to work. Way to make a mum feel special, really.

My first-born has just started school and I have bumbled my way through first term, red faced over forgotten library books and weekend charity events that just dropped off the radar amid the millions of things I have to do and remember as a working mum of two.

So instead of it filling me with joy and pride, it filled me with anxiety when I received a note in my daughter's school bag about a Mother's Day event – during school hours.

Can I just interject here: are schools aware that most of us work when our kids go to school? And even if we don't, we are mums, our lives are BUSY.

So this special Mother's Day 'treat' happened to be in the middle of my shift and required me to send a whole range of stuff beforehand. I can tell you, my phone calendar regular beeps with strange reminders like 'buy lentils' or 'pack and old sock' which in their hieroglyphic nature all relate to school. And quite often, despite the reminders, it doesn't happen.

This event, touted as "a very special day for your child" that we all should try to attend or "send a significant other female" (sorry, no grandmothers/aunties around to oblige in our family) kept me awake at night, because I know what happens if I forget.

Once again a disappointed child, singled out because she can't partake, because her mother is a "massive loser" who forgot to send her with the library book/crafting materials/family photographs/charity money.

And once again me, riddled with mother's guilt of having failed again in the most important job of them all.

Have I got this wrong or is Mother's Day about making mums feel special? Having to remember a raft of things for this and begging my boss once again to be able to leave work early makes me feel anything but. It adds more stress, more guilt and more feelings of inadequacy than I already carry around in my little bag of personal failings.

I tell you, I'm sick of feeling like a failure because school is adding these extracurricular responsibilities to my plate!

And it seems I'm not the only one. Another colleague of mine, a busy, working mum of three, also had to drop all her day's chores to attend a Mother's Day event during school hours. That special day treated her to a house left in chaos and a day chasing the schedule to get her back on track.

At her school's event, she spotted a girl, sobbing and upset because her mum wasn't able to come and she also met a grandmother who had travelled over three hours from WA's South West to Perth to attend the Mother's Day event as the busy single mum could not make it. Doesn't it make us mums feel special and honoured!

So, I've got a suggestion to make: next year, how about you offer to keep the kids in school for another hour and send us off with a bottle of wine and a massage voucher? I'm kidding.

Whatever it is, if it comes without stress and guilt, and maybe gives us the feeling we are doing a good job, it will be the perfect gift.

This story was found at: http://www.watoday.com.au/content/adaptive/watoday/comment/dear-schools-your-mothers-day-events-dont-do-us-a-favour-20170511-gw29r2.html