An Indiana mother is making headlines after admitting that she doesn’t celebrate her mother or stepmother on Mother’s Day, instead celebrating on a different day to enjoy her own holiday.
“This may be confusing,” Emily Wenner said on her TikTok, which has garnered 2.1 million views. “But I’m the one who’s obsessed with parenting right now.” he said.
“Today is Mother’s Day, not Grandmother’s Day,” Wenner said.
In her post, Wenner said she spent her first Mother’s Day “coordinating visits with grandparents” and that she set “Mother’s Day rules” because she couldn’t do anything on her own.
“I was like, ‘I’m not going to do this again,'” she said.
So now her family celebrates her mother and mother-in-law on separate days, and they set Father’s Day the same way.
“I’m going to spend my day the way I want,” she concluded the video.
Mother ‘completely understands’
Wehner told USA TODAY on Tuesday that she is very supportive of the changes her mother made over the holidays.
“As a mother of three daughters, she remembers what it was like to have really young children and often feel stretched thin,” Wenner said. “She completely understands my desire, for now, to spend the day with my little family and shift my focus to doing something for myself. “You may feel like you don’t have any energy,” she said.
This Mother’s Day, Wenner’s husband has booked brunch for their family of four, and as she said on TikTok, she plans to spend time alone in the garden planting.
“My garden is one of my happy places and I look forward to planting it all winter long,” she said.
Ms. Wenner is encouraging other women to take a day for themselves.
“It can be difficult and uncomfortable to change something that has been ‘normal’ for a long time,” she says. “I’ve found that it’s best to be honest.”
And if you ultimately decide it’s better to share Mother’s Day, she suggested that you could set aside a separate day for mothers.
Is Mother’s Day reserved for “mothers in the trenches”?
The debate about which mothers should be celebrated on Mother’s Day is not new. Last year, TikTok user @bmcpher posed a question about how to deal with the “weird” holidays that seem to make every mom want a day off.
“So now, as a mother living near my mother, when do I celebrate myself?” she asked.
Another TikToker weighed in on the “Mother’s Day for mothers in the trenches” discussion, writing that mothers with young children should do whatever they want on Mother’s Day “without obligation or guilt.” , he said, is the important thing.
Moms go back and forth in the comments section
Wehner’s mother supports splitting up Mother’s Day celebrations, but not everyone agrees.
“Since when did the younger generation completely throw us to the wolves?” one woman on TikTok said in a video response. “Is Mother’s Day really only supposed to be celebrated by mothers with small children? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Another wrote: “Selfish women want their husbands to forget about their mothers. They can’t wait until their children are grown and you will do the same.”
One person suggested that there was “enough love to go to everyone.”
“I’m honestly shocked that more and more people are celebrating Mother’s Day and Father’s Day not just with the extended family, but with all the moms and dads together,” one user wrote.
Still, many commenters are siding with Wehner and other mothers of young children. “I think the problem is that all the plans, gifts, and children still fall on the young mother. So today is just going to be another work-filled day. The mother and the MIL will be happy to help if they can. You should come to us!” one answered.
Another user said, “When my kids were little, I was focused on spending all day at my ex-in-law’s house. I had to pack them up and drive them. It wasn’t fun or relaxing for me. At 52 years old, he wants his son to focus on his wife. ”
“When they talk about being ‘in the trenches,’ I think they mean not having to go to other people all day, or not wanting to go celebrate with just one mother that day,” said another mother. Told.
