If Father’s Day is a sturdy, brusque grunt of masculinity, a drip of a greasy burger, the blast of the Top Gear theme tune, Mother’s Day is something far less tangible, crafted from all things delicate and flimsy, like a candy floss house. On this day, people across the country celebrate a woman who, more often than not, went through several incredible and life-altering experiences to get you here. There’s conception, pregnancy, childbirth, or a c-section, or a struggle with her fertility, the bureaucracy of adoption, the constant having to explain to people why and how and when and if and should, when really she has a child she just wants to love and take care of. And so we celebrate this woman and her hard work and sacrifices by taking her out for flowers and bubbles and spongecake and perfume, documenting it all on our phones, tapping out with our gentle fingertips a love that should shake us to our very core. And as Facebook is for mums and Twitter is for fighting about Brexit, the one such place we declare our love is Instagram. In-between our own pitch-perfect messages (obviously), we’ll see a bunch of the below:
1. The ‘I’m still a big lad’ post
A big lad can’t, unlike his sister, take his mum to get dead skin scrubbed off of her dry feet at a nail salon. The concern is, any photos of the big lad sitting next to his mum in one of those big comfy chairs as a tiny, underpaid woman crouches over his own calloused trotters, might prompt his other big lad mates to comment that he looks ‘a bit gay’. Instead, he goes for a walk with his mum in some nearby countryside, only slightly annoyed that she walks so slow and that the photo opportunity gets in the way of a trip to the gym. The resultant photo is ok, he guesses, it’s just he knows his jawline looked better in the photo he uploaded of him and his mum for International Women’s Day.
2. The ‘My Mum’s obedient ain’t she?’ post
There are two renditions of this sort of post.
- It’s been three years since that trip to Bermuda, when this photo, taken by a passing waitress after one those guys in vests selling all of the many hats stacked on his head had moved out of frame. On one side of the table there’s the dad, sitting in one of those grey woven plastic chairs, holding up a glass of red wine above his foot-long plate of surf ’n’ turf. Opposite him is the person who’s posted the photo, deeply tanned, arm-hairs gold with sunlight. The mum is at the back of the table, standing up and slightly obscured by the parasol pole, but smiling all the same.
- A roast dinner on a rainy weekend. The uPVC doors to the garden have misted up with the steam of hot, buttery greens, everyone’s bellies are full of chicken and more roast potatoes than is really appropriate. Crumble’s on the table and a gaggle of siblings and grandkids are smiling towards mum, who’s just trying to ladle the right amount of custard onto the right part of the crumble because some people don’t like custard on the fruity bit and some people don’t like it on the crumbly bit. In that moment, she has been asked, begged, even, to look up for the photo and smile for the camera!
3. The ‘I Wouldn’t Be Me Without My Mum’ post
None of us would be here without our mums, it’s a simple fact of life. But this Instagram poster really wouldn’t be here without their mum. She did jobs that she’ll never speak of so her child would never have to do them. She made her child do their homework, telling them, repeatedly, that she knows she’s annoying, but it’s her job to be annoying, and steered them always, to greatness. And the poster got there! So for Mother’s Day they’ve posted a photo of her with them at their graduation, or in their swish car, or at the sort of card-swapping business awards event where everyone’s breathing fish canapés over each other and the mum just wanted to sit down instead of be made to shake hands with all manner of head-tiltingly sympathetic Stephens from the board. She struggled so her children could soar, she grafted so they could grow, she’s not much more than the vessel of their excellence and as a thank you, on this day alone, she’s allowed a space to disrupt the mirror selfie-laden glory of their timeline.
4. The Sketch post
When it comes to projecting femininity, Mother’s Day is way up there with gender reveal parties and Katie Price’s pepto-bismol Barbie-themed 4x4. In a bid to flank the mum with as much pink as possible, this Instagram poster has booked a booth at London’s pinkest tearoom. Swaddled in those lady-finger chairs, the mum surrounded by Chinese Central Saint Martins’ students decked out in The Row and Balenciaga space-sneakers, who are Instagram-storying almost as much as the poster is.
5. The ‘She used to be fit’ post
As the poster nears the age that her mum was when she had her (and what a strange idiom that is, as if giving birth is ‘having’ something rather than not-having things - her comfort, her certainty of health, her sleep, her pelvic floor), she begins to realise something. Not just that her parents used to have regular, pleasurable sex, but that her mum was quite attractive back then. Sure, beauty in older women must be valued if we’re to ever kick back against the oppressive idea that women are somehow tainted by age and experience rather than enriched by it. But look, she used to be so pretty! So the poster puts up a photo of her mum back in the day, in a bikini or swimsuit or even a pair of those Andy-Pandy dungarees women wore in the 1990s. The ideal result, the poster knows full well, is that people will comment #doppelganger!!! underneath.
6. The Groupon event
Does your mum actually like having a hairdresser who is not her own hairdresser blowing hot air on her own hair? Does she get tingles of pleasure just thinking of getting into a swimming costume and sharing hot babbling water with you, your siblings, some random other families whose turn it is to go into the hot tub at the same time as you? This poster will begin to wonder this when the photos of her and her mum in towel-turbans don’t reel in the likes. All the while, her step-dad gets a day off with his feet up, enjoying the cricket/Ant Middleton book/general feeling of peace that settles on the shoulders of anyone who gets a full Sunday on their own.
7. The pre-emptive post
Death, estrangement and family breakdown involve thoughts and feelings that can’t be tucked into a few near words on a bendy card ordered from Moonpig late on Friday night. So you might not be able to get in touch with your mother on Mother’s Day. And for that, I’m truly sorry. But let’s hear it for those bold cynics who are so certain that it is no-one but them and their Instagram clout that truly benefits from the Instagram posts of their living and easily accessible mothers, so decide to post a ‘Love you so much mummy!!!!’ post at 10.30am, a good/bad ten minutes before they actually wish their mother a happy Mother’s Day