Hard-working mums throughout the country will be looking forward to a day of being pampered and waited on all day today, after spending the past 364 days organising, budgeting, ferrying, cleaning, shopping, cooking, repairing, cajoling, reassuring, flattering, smiling and generally being taken for granted for the benefit of an idle brood and their father, in addition to holding down a full-time job and running round after parents and in-laws.
“I’m hoping for breakfast in bed, a long soak in the bath, lunch cooked from ingredients I didn’t have to shop for, an afternoon watching telly or rereading Fifty Shades on my own while they all go out and visit the grandparents, then a quiet night in while they get themselves ready for a new week ahead without once asking where anything is,” said Briony Sanders, 39, of Carshalton.
“But I know the reality will be business as usual except they will be spending a good chunk of my household budget on buying an overpriced meal in a crowded noisy pub, where I will still be on peacekeeping duty and doing the ordering. Don’t they teach them irony in schools these days? Then I will have to express gushing gratitude and probably drive the buggers home because father’s drunk too much after a hard week’s pen-pushing.”
However, Briony said she would probably grin and bear it, because at least it showed they had bothered to remember the occasion and book a table. “OK, I suppose I did end up doing the booking myself, so I’m my own worst enemy,” she said, “but otherwise it would be like last year when we drove round a dozen pubs trying to get a table while they all became increasingly bad tempered.”
Asked what she would be doing for her own mother, Briony said, “I sent her a card and some flying flowers. She’s always very grateful for that and says I shouldn’t put myself out.”
