In my kitchen on Mother's Day
Marketing shame, grief, and my best cookies yet
I have something I must admit.
I don’t love Mother’s Day.
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For years, the marketing machine has made me feel like shit whenever Mother’s Day approached. All the promo emails, ads on YouTube, even old-fashioned billboards, reminding me of my shame and then pushing me things to buy as a painkiller for those feelings of shame.
Sunday Brunch.
Shame of not calling often enough.
Beauty and self-care products.
Shame of not remembering.
Books and tea.
Shame of forgetting, after I’ve remembered. Shame of Googling for the 5th time “mothers day when 2026”,
Jewelry.
Shame of growing up and growing apart.
Flowers and plants, of all shapes and sizes. This year I opened an email selling me “a flowering hedge” because clearly that’s what every mom is missing in their life. Something else to take care of.
Shame of having a life. Or not even having a life, but whatever it is that I have, I’m sure as hell reminded that l didn’t include my mom.
I have to point out that I don’t feel much of the same shame about Father’s Day, both because of my relationship with my dad, but also, well, you must admit that the marketing machine doesn’t seem to use the shame angle as much for dads.
Anyways, at some point I caved to the feelings of shame. Some time during the middle of my uWaterloo years—I wanna say third year—I started sending flowers to my mom every May.
Side note: I’m not a cut flowers person. Whenever I see bouquets, I picture flowers growing peacefully in a garden, and then suddenly getting mutilated by garden shears and packed into wrapping paper, their dying bodies arranged to appease our eyes for no more than two weeks. It doesn’t bother me too much. I don’t judge anyone for getting or wanting cut flowers, but for the most part, I choose not to (I didn’t even get real flowers for my wedding). Except for Mother’s Day.
That’s what shame does to me, it makes me do things that I otherwise wouldn’t.
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And maybe we ought to feel this shame.
Maybe we really are fucking entitled and ungrateful kids, neglecting to show up for our mothers who have given us—well, life, and therefore—everything.
Maybe we need a reminder—once a year apparently enough—to show some appreciation towards the women whose wombs we materialized from.
I’m not cranky because I don’t think mothers deserve the love and respect demanded of us on Mother’s Day. In fact I think most mothers deserve so much more.
I’m cranky because Mother’s Day is mostly just a seasonal marketing campaign to capitalize on our shame. And I hate that we buy into that shit. Because actions from shame are not actions of love. And my mom—and most moms, but let’s be real, not all moms—deserves love.
I’m cranky because I’m sick of being told by the marketing machine when to have certain feelings about the people in our lives.
Mothers. Fathers. Family. Queen Victoria. George Lucas. Some British guy who clearly developed some sort of Stockholm syndrome with Ireland.
Okay, I’m about to go on a tangent. Let’s come back to mothers.
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In the last year or two, I’ve started getting asked more and more whether I have children. (People are so nosy!) I’ve also noticed that I almost always feel like I have to explain myself when I tell them that I don’t. As if to make my existence equally valid to whoever is asking.
Some mothers have said to me that motherhood is like nothing else. That I must want it. That whatever love I experience in life will always be smaller, less important, somehow, than the love they have for their children. That I’ll never get it unless I become a mother.
Ouch.
Maybe they’re right. I don’t know. But it is a particular kind of loneliness, being a childless adult as I get older. It’s a loneliness I’ve chosen and therefore accepted, but it still sits heavy sometimes.
My twin sister and I arrived at Mother’s Day 2026 in completely different places. This was her first year celebrating being a mother, and I’m so proud of her and love my niece with all my heart. I love that for once, our family is growing. But I’m also sad. Our lives have diverged in ways that feel exponential, and honestly, I’m terrified.
I used to wonder how either of us could ever become a mother without our own mother here to show us how. But my sister just did it. She’s doing it.
It’s crazy scary to do anything for the first time. I’m sure first time motherhood is high up there on the list of the most scary things one can do.
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Of course, I’m also cranky because I don’t have a mother to send flowers to on Mother’s Day anymore.
For a few years after my mom passed away, I continued the habit. I’d make sure bouquets would arrive at my dad’s house, and I’d visit the beautiful tiffany blue side table where my mom’s picture and a few candles sat atop of.
But sending flowers to a ghost didn’t have the same effect of numbing my shame, even temporarily. So two or maybe three years ago, I stopped.
Some years, it can feel good to perform certain acts of tradition. Like getting together for a picnic, or going to the tulip festival, or lighting an incense or a candle.
I spent today doing none of the above.
I slept in.
Did some apartment hunting research on my laptop, since we’re helping my dad with an upcoming move.
Went on a walk with my partner and our dog.
Listened to my dad’s verbal essay on why my low expectations of him during this upcoming move was still too much to ask for.
Cried.
Decided to stop crying. Told my partner that I wanted to bake cookies.
Ate a gyro sandwich at the Greek food truck that recently opened up near us. The one with the umbrellas in blue and white stripes. The one that had been preparing to open since last fall. I had a skip in my step when I left the food truck.
Loaded a shopping cart at No Frills with chicken thighs, veggies, eggs, chocolate chips, and brown sugar.
Got a chicken soup going in the slow cooker.
Made some chocolate chip cookies with a twist.
Went for a run while the soup simmered and the cookies cooled.
Walked the dog again.
Took a shower. Added orzo and couscous to the chicken soup.
Watched a movie, curled up with my partner and a bowl of chicken orzo soup.
Ate four cookies. I can eat whatever I want. I run.
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When I came back from my run in the afternoon, the house smelled like a warm hug, like something that wanted to take care of me, like my mother whispering “sleep tight.”
No, neither the soup nor the cookies are heirloom recipes.
I hadn’t used my stand mixer in over half a year. It took a few minutes to clean all the parts, and another minute to remember which attachment I was supposed to use.
I liked using my hands. I liked the weighing and measuring, the slow math and intuition of it. I liked the rhythm of my stand mixer. A drum beat with a familiar hum.
Gotta say, best batch of cookies I’ve ever made. DM me for recipe.
Baking is one of those things that I’d forgotten brings me something I can’t quite name. I was going to say joy, but it’s not always positivity that I’m working through when I roll pieces of cookie dough into ball shapes.
In another life, I’d have a little bakery with a cafe. Somewhere with good natural light and plants and mismatched chairs and the smell of something always in the oven.
Or maybe I can do that in this life.
I suppose what I felt today when I was baking was a sense of groundedness.
Like gravity.
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Happy Mother’s Day.
