More Than a Card and Flowers
Q Radio’s Jordan Arnold reflects on how Mother’s Day once felt like a straightforward celebration but now carries deeper meaning.
A Day That Once Felt Simple
March is here and with it, Mother’s Day, which I used to see as a simple sort of holiday. A card grabbed slightly last minute, a bunch of flowers and a roast dinner that took longer than normal, with my dad at the helm rather than mum.
It was cheerful and uncomplicated, one of those dates in the calendar that didn’t require much emotional preparation.
But the older I get, the more I realise Mother’s Day isn’t simple at all.
It’s layered. Joyful for some people, painful for others, complicated for many.
What once felt like a single celebration now feels more like a day that holds hundreds of different stories at once.
Appreciating My Own Mum
I am incredibly lucky to utterly adore my mum. We have the kind of relationship I once assumed was standard until adulthood taught me otherwise.
She is the person I call first with good news, bad news, boring news, and “guess who I just saw in Tesco” news.
If I could have hand-picked a mum, I would have chosen her every time.
But as the years go on, I’ve become more aware that not everyone gets that version of Mother’s Day.
The Different Realities Behind the Day
Some of my friends have lost their mums entirely, navigating the day with a quiet grief that never really goes away.
Some have complicated relationships that can’t be solved with flowers and brunch.
Some are mothers themselves now, loving their children fiercely while also battling permanent exhaustion, no matter how well they hide it.
Others are desperately trying to become mothers.
I have friends going through IVF who live month to month, hope to hope, carrying a longing so huge it’s palpable.
Mother’s Day for them isn’t a celebration; it’s a reminder of something they want with their whole hearts.
Choosing a Different Path
And then there’s me and the childfree-by-choice women like me.
I have never felt the pull toward motherhood. It’s just not part of the life I imagine for myself.
Some people accept that without question; others assume I’ll change my mind, or warn me I’ll never know “true joy”.
For the record, it’s not OK to say this to people, and I can assure you I do experience plenty of joy, particularly when my cavapoo, Bumbles, greets me like I’ve returned from a three-year expedition instead of a trip to take the bins out.
Seeing Motherhood More Clearly
Watching my friends become mothers has reinforced how enormous the role really is.
The love is obvious, but so is the sacrifice.
Sleep, time, freedom, money, spontaneity – sometimes entire parts of their former selves reshuffled overnight in service of this tiny human who now comes first in every possible way.
And it has made me see my own mum differently too.
When you’re young, you don’t fully grasp what’s being given to you.
Meals appear. Clothes get washed. Life runs smoothly in the background, powered by someone else’s energy and worry.
It’s only as an adult, when you’re responsible for your own life and mental load, that you start to understand the scale of it.
The older I get, the more I realise my mum didn’t just raise me.
She built the conditions for my entire life – the stability, encouragement and safety net, the quiet sacrifices I never noticed at the time.
There is no card or gift big enough to say thank you for that properly.
Recognising Every Form of Motherhood
Mother’s Day now feels less like a cute tradition and more like a moment of recognition, not just for my own mum, but for mothers everywhere, in all their different forms.
The ones raising newborns and toddlers.
The ones parenting hormonal teenagers.
The ones supporting adult children who still don’t know how taxes work.
The ones grieving.
The ones hoping.
The ones who step into mother roles without the title.
Motherhood isn’t one experience.
It’s a thousand different realities stitched together by love, effort and an extraordinary capacity to put someone else first.
A Day That Means More Now
So this Mother’s Day, yes, I’ll buy the card and the flowers.
We’ll eat and drink too much. We’ll play silly games.
It will look, on the outside, like a perfectly ordinary day.
But underneath it will be a kind of awe.
A deep, slightly overwhelming gratitude for a woman who gave me everything she could long before I was old enough to understand what any of that really meant.
Mums, you really are extraordinary.
And the older I get, the more miraculous you seem.
Cheers to the mums.
