In a viral TikTok video, a mom makes a surprisingly good point about Mother’s Day and the ways many families celebrate it
Celebrating Mother’s Day seems pretty straightforward. Moms can usually expect some flowers and a card (bonus points for homemade), maybe a toddler-assisted breakfast in bed. But what about the rest of the day? Should you spend it with your kids or get the day to have some much-needed mommy-alone time? Should you set aside celebrating yourself to celebrate your own mom or mother-in-law? These are the questions one mom is asking in a viral TikTok video that has a lot of people thinking.
In her video, Bailey McPherson poses the question to her followers: who is Mother’s Day really about?
@bmcpher Lmk #momsoftiktok #fyp #mothersday
♬ original sound – Bailey
“Mother’s Day as an adult is weird because it’s like am I expected to celebrate it with my mother-in-law?” she asks. “Am I expected to celebrate it with my own mother because my own mother certainly thinks so, but I am also a mother.”
She continues, “So, when do I, as a mother who now lives near her mother, when do I celebrate myself?”
From McPherson’s tone in the video, you can tell the question is a bit tongue-in-cheek. But it still got people talking in the comments.
“When that title GRANDmother hits, you PASS THE TORCH. It’s our turn,” one commenter wrote. Another had this hot take: “The mother who is actively mothering gets the day. My mom gets Saturday or the next weekend. My MIL is my husbands problem.”
And there was this mom who is 100% correct, no notes: “I never understood not making it all about the moms who are CURRENTLY fighting for their lives with little goblins.”
The question gets a bit more context in McPherson’s follow-up video, where she describes her perfect Mother’s Day.
“The thing is, I don’t like to spend my alone time mommy breaks … with other people. I definitely don’t like to sit in other people’s houses and watch my kid. I don’t want to be with my kid on Mother’s Day,” she explains. “I want to go out, get my toes done, someone scrub my feet … I want to drink something bubbly, even a Shirley Temple, bottomless Shirley temples, some food, maybe some shopping. That’s my idea of Mother’s Day.”
And while many people have always thought of Mother’s Day as a day moms should spend with their kids, their wanting to celebrate themselves by taking a break is also totally valid. Let’s normalize letting moms choose what they want for Mother’s Day—it’s their day, after all.
