What do we want for Mother's Day?

Hint: It's not candles. Or a clean sink.

Around this time every year, I get a bit fussy and grumpy, but aside from the normal angst about the impending end of civilization, I can’t figure out what’s bothering me.

Until I remember that Mother’s Day weekend is upon us.

Mother’s Day is hard enough for a lot of people, and then, the entire week before, there are streams of posts that say for Mother’s Day, moms want a “beautifully loaded dishwasher,” or “a clean house,” or “a chance to take a bath by themselves.”

It’s supposed to be a day where “mothers” are celebrated, and instead, we’re treated as if we’re a cross between a long-dedicated servant and a vain teenager.

Grown-ass women who run businesses, own homes — the people who make 91 percent of new home purchases and 70 percent of travel purchases are told they should be celebrated with baked goods and a day off from the assumed “drudgery” that’s associated with being a mom.

Now flip the script: Imagine saying this for Father’s Day: “Dad deserves a hot shower—by himself, no interruptions! And put a scented candle on the sink!”
That’s what Dad has earned?

Or perhaps dad wants a clean kitchen sink, because that’s what he thinks about and desires?

For gawd’s sake, people: We all want a clean kitchen and a hot shower without a toddler busting in, but that’s not something we deserve for being a good parent.
A clean kitchen sink is not a once-a-year gift. That’s something you should be striving to make sure everyone gets as a bare minimum in your household, because you’re a human who lives there, and everyone needs that.

And to be taken out for dinner? Why? The underlying assumptions here are gross: It means that “Mom needs a day off from cooking,” because she’s the primary provider of food in the family, and worse — that you have to go out to eat instead, because no one else in the household can cook a decent meal or clean up? Yuck.

What do mothers want for Mother's Day? If people are going to celebrate mothers not as birth-givers, but as the ones who raise children and who have a stake in what’s going to happen to our kids, let’s talk about what we want.

We want to know that our children will have a future: We want grandchildren.
And too many young adults aren’t having children, because there’s no safe future for them. And climate change threatens all of it. We want a government committed to radical, urgent, transformative change, committed leaders who will help find solutions, and an end to the nonsense about how it's not happening.

We want our children to stay safe. We want them to go to school, the movies, or a concert without being shot. We want to know that the police won't shoot our children because they're black, or that another student won't shoot our children because he's mad and has access to a gun.

We want to be able to afford to raise our children. We want to be able to put a decent roof over our heads, food, and clothing, with one adult working a full-time job. Two adults would mean some vacations, a newer car, and some money in savings. That’s not too much to ask. It’s doable in many countries around the world. Just not here.

We want to eliminate computer-generated schedules that make it impossible to plan childcare, we want reliable public transportation everywhere, a livable minimum wage, and affordable college without student loans that prey on people.

We want healthy children. We want to be able to afford an EpiPen or an inhaler. We want more than a ten-minute telehealth checkup. We want prescriptions that don’t cost $75 one month, $300 the next, and that are out of stock the next. We want doctors who take the time to explain things to our kids. We want Black women to stop dying in pregnancy at four times the rate of white women because of bad medical care.

We want access to clean, healthy food in every part of the country, at reasonable costs, and to stop the ridiculousness of subsidizing sugar, corn, and soy while fresh vegetables and fruit are too expensive for many families. And while you’re at it: Fill the food banks. Throw money at them. Let anyone hungry have access to free vegetables, fruit, and stables. Empty shelves in food banks hurt everyone.

We want politicians to stop regulating women’s bodies and reproduction to score cheap political points. And we want society to stop treating “moms” as if they were petulant children for wanting a basic standard of living, and to recognize that women control 85 percent of the spending in the United States.

We want a planet that’s not going to make my kids go to war with other people’s kids over access to water and food.

We want little girls to not face a world where their kids are going to be refugees from drought and war.

We want every child to be wanted, loved, and brought into this world with joy, to parents who can feed them, clothe them, and give them a good education.

We want girls who are worth more than their wombs, who are celebrated for their thoughts and acts and contributions, who are taught that they’re brave and beautiful, strong and smart, who can mow lawns, cook lovely dinners and build fires — whether the fires are under the feet of politicians or in a forest camp site.

We want boys who can hold babies, argue about politics, pick flowers, clean houses, race fast cars, watch musical theater, and rewire a light without a second thought.

And sure, I’ll take a nice plant and a great candle, or some chocolate, as long as it’s not picked by enslaved people and strips the rain forest or whatever hidden horror comes with everything.

And a clean sink is great.

But that’s not what I’ve earned for being a mom.

How condescending is that, to be told that for 25 years of committing my life to other people’s needs, my worth and importance come down to whether I have a clean sink, and to imagine that it’s my domain because I gave birth?

It’s your house, too, bucko. Go clean it.

And then, sure, bring on the macaroni necklace, or a card with a handprint, too, because really, those are some of the best perks of being a mom.