Sunday is Mother’s Day, and I am very excited. Mostly because I get to take a nap and will be getting things off my Amazon wish list. I am SUPER picky about my gifts and this makes everyone happy (also the girls can pick out my presents without seven hours of wandering around Target and having to be reminded that mommy probably does not want the monkey-farting board game they have picked out). Look, I like what I like and I come by that honestly. My mother is super picky and I have her asethetic. My sisters and my father clear their presents through me. I know what mom likes, cause mostly we like the same things.

And y’all, very very rarely do I like what my kids have made me. Cards are great, Priscilla made me one that says “I am so glad that you can eat!” It went on the fridge. I am not saying my kids NEVER make me anything that I don’t want to hang up. I have some of those frames that open and close so I can constantly rotate their constant flow of art work coming into the dining room. But I will not paper the walls with their art work (they have decided to paper their own room with it, which works for both of us until their is a piece of art I want to display but they want it in their room).

But mostly, I don’t like the crafts that my kids bring home and I will not treasure them for a week, let alone forever. Look, maybe I am shallow, and if so fine, I am shallow, but I don’t want to wear jewelry made of food you are supposed to cook. I don’t want to wear broaches made of puzzle pieces, necklaces made of macaroni, or earrings made of salt dough. I just don’t. I am a grown ass professional woman and I get to decide what I wear, and I don’t want what I wear to yell MOMMY. I like being Juliet and Priscilla’s mommy, I have zero interest in being the mommy to the world. That job doesn’t pay anything no matter how many people you parent.

And I don’t want to put something in my living room that doesn’t match my decor. I grew up and chose my stuff on purpose and I like what I like. My kids like pink and purple respectfully. Those are not my favorite decorating colors. I will not dust something that I do not even want in my home. I mean, I don’t dust, but if I did, I would not want to have to dust something that doesn’t match my other things and is not even recognizable as the thing it is. I want all the art in my home to be PURPOSELY abstract.

I also do not want to wear anything that has my child’s handprint on it. I spent the first three years of my kids life wearing my kids handprints on accident. Peanut butter hand print on my butt, dirt hand print on my knees and hand print of some unknown sticky substance on my boob every single time I was supposed to speak in public. Y’all, we JUST got out of the accidental hand prints stage, I am not wearing a shirt with hot pink hand prints on it. I am just not. I am not even wearing it to bed. The hands I want on me in bed are not my children’s. They just aren’t.

I think there is some idea that mommy is supposed to take over my whole life, my whole identity. It is supposed to be my job to let my kids be in every single part of my life, my wardrobe, my house. But I don’t want to raise girls who think that mommy is the crowning achievement in their life, and I don’t want to raise girls who think that moms aren’t allowed to have boundaries, or opinions, or their own aesthetic tastes. If they bring me a masterpiece I probably am not going to put it in my house, but I will raise girls who can be their whole selves and be unapologetic in their wants and needs. I have to model that, and trust that will do more for their self esteem than me wearing ugly jewelry for mothers day.