An amusing, largely unsupported statistic circulates every year around May: Crime rates, supposedly, drop on Mother’s Day. Quite obviously, mothers are too busy with flowers and gifts to embark on their usual spree of robbery and arson. Alternatively, some suggest it’s because everyone — mothers, children and even hardened criminals — collectively decides to behave for 24 hours out of reverence. Whatever the reason for the widespread circulation of this myth, it’s telling of how we’ve learned to compartmentalize affection into a singular commercialized holiday — and how the performance of love has replaced its practice.
Mother’s Day, in theory, should be one of the purest human celebrations. It’s a day to honor the women who have shaped us, nurtured us, and, in many cases, sacrificed enormous parts of themselves for the sake of others. But in practice, it has been shaped into a competitive and elaborate social ritual, dictated more by consumerism than true gratitude. In early May, department stores burst into coordinated pastels. Bundles of lavender-scented soaps and heart-shaped chocolates are packaged into “Mother’s Day Specials.” Grocery stores transform their entrances into temporary flower markets, selling bouquets that are somehow more expensive under the guise of a “holiday discount.”
Children, often prompted by school projects or social pressure, trudge through aisles searching for the perfect card, the right dessert or the ideal scented candle. The media amplifies this ritual, showcasing aesthetic images of an attractive, stereotypical family: a perfectly plated breakfast in bed with an elaborate bouquet, a teary mother reading prewritten, regurgitated verses. But are these efforts truly an honest expression of gratitude, or merely a performance for the unconcerned, removed individual?
At home, the gestures follow suit: breakfast in bed, a handwritten note, a fleeting attempt to help around the house, to do the laundry, to make the bed, to scrub the floors. We replicate the tasks our mothers do daily, yet for us they feel symbolic — extraordinary, even.
For one day, we pretend we understand the weight of her work. But when the plates are cleared and the flowers begin to wilt, we quietly slip back into old patterns.
It’s worth asking: Are we moved by true appreciation, or by the quiet pressure of the calendar? Mother’s Day functions as both a celebration and a social contract; to ignore it feels like a transgression. It’s easier to just buy a card than to articulate what our mothers, or any parental figure, truly mean to us. The simple words “thank you” become an obligation rather than an offering. Love becomes a public display, measured by how much we spend or how many photos we post.
This is not just about mothers. Fathers, grandparents, guardians and other caregivers all have their appointed days. Each comes with its own set of clichés: ties for Father’s Day, flowers for Mother’s Day, cards for Grandparents’ Day. It’s as if our collective capacity for gratitude needs constant prompting — as if we cannot remember to love without the help of a marketing campaign.
Birthdays, anniversaries and holidays become checkpoints for affection, preapproved opportunities to remember the people who shape our lives.
But love and gratitude were never meant to be seasonal. To confine them to a single day is to dilute their depth. The complexity of a parent-child or caregiver-child relationship — its tenderness, frustrations, and unspoken forgiveness — cannot be captured in a day’s worth of niceties. Parental love is continuous, and so too should be our recognition of it.
If we truly celebrated our parents, or the people who raised us, every day, it would not be through scented candles and chocolates but through the accumulation of small acts. We would listen more attentively. We would help without being asked. We would learn to recognize the invisible labor that sustains our comfort. Gratitude would stop being ceremonial and start being habitual.
Perhaps that’s the problem: Daily appreciation lacks spectacle. It doesn’t sell well. No card can capture the quiet intimacy of understanding; no bouquet can substitute for quality time spent together.
In an economy that thrives on scarcity and occasion, love must be marketed as an event rather than a practice. And so we celebrate once a year, exhaust ourselves with sentiment and call it enough.
Yet the irony is that by commercializing our love, we often distance ourselves from it. The more we rely on ritual, the less we rely on reflection. We celebrate mothers without considering what motherhood actually entails: the exhaustion, the loss of identity, the emotional labor that extends far beyond the home. We praise fathers without confronting the expectations or silences that accompany masculinity and caregiving. We thank our guardians and grandparents but rarely take the time to understand their stories, their sacrifices or their individuality beyond their roles.
What would it look like to appreciate them differently? Maybe it starts with consistency rather than grand gestures. Maybe it’s about calling when there’s no occasion to call, about saying “thank you” not because the calendar says so, but because we suddenly feel it. Maybe it’s about celebrating the fullness of these relationships — the imperfections and frustrations alongside love.
If we reimagined love this way, without occasion, without pressure, we might all be better off. Love, after all, isn’t meant to be performed once a year. It’s meant to be lived.
