The Perfect Mother's Day Gift

Along with a hand drawn card

You know what I think is a great mother’s day gift? A novel. It can be in addition to a construction paper card, a brunch, flowers, a new dress, diamonds, a spa day, but the thing so many mother’s need isn’t an expensive luxurious expression of recognizing how much she does—well, okay, you can do that too—but the other thing she needs is—relatively easy ways to escape without really escaping. Hence, the novel.

A mother with young children needs ways to indulge her desires to live somewhere else. To have a break from her own boredom, or drama, or not-enoughness, or too-muchness.

She needs a big girl book to read. She needs characters she can feel intimate with, but characters who don’t need anything from her in return.

A novel can be a mother’s break from constantly striving to keep the peace. A mother needs ways to escape to a fantasy where she has plenty of energy for romance, which might actually arouse some.

What’s probably even better than a novel is a subscription to Audible, or Spotify, or a library card and the Libby App, and new headphones, and maybe a great pair of walking shoes, and some ankle weights, or a rucking vest so she can double-down on her temporary escape route with a hearty walk.

An audiobook is especially great because she can listen to it on her way to pick up. She can listen to it while she’s making dinner. She can pause it when someone has called her name for the fourth time, and then resume listening after she says, “No, but you can go out and play until I call you in for dinner.”

A real book is especially great because maybe if her children see her reading, it will set a good example. Although, in some households, as soon as a mother sits down to read, everyone around her may assume she is in need of something to do. So you may also want to give her a hiding place, or a personalized book of coupons including one for, [A Free Saturday to Read Your New Book].

She can read a book slowly over the course of the summer, or quickly in every spare moment she has. There is no wrong way to read a book. She can enjoy it as alone time, or make a bookclub about it.

A novel is also a great gift for moms with older children—when she has a little more time on her hands—and for stepmoms who are quite possibly the most empathetic of all the moms, and it’s a great gift for people who have moms they need to escape, or need to remember, or need to gain a new perspective on. Memoirs can also do the trick, as long as the story is compelling, and so much creative non-fiction is utilizing the storytelling craft of fiction these days. Poetry won’t provide the same escape, but it could be the quick shot of highly compressed emotional connection your mom or mom-friend needs.

You probably want me to give you a recommendation for what books to gift.

I am currently reading, The Robber Bride, by Margaret Atwood. Holy shit. Her third-person omniscient narrator gets so close to the characters, I know them better than I know myself and my best friends. The book is centered around one of the best villainous characters of all time, a woman named Zenia, and you will not want to put it down or stop listening. It’s sexy, intellectual, dramatic, heart-rending pleasure.

I recently finished The Tell by Amy Griffin, which is one of the most wildly successful books of the year, and understandably so. It was picked by several book clubs including Oprah’s and Drew Barrymore’s. It’s the story of a mother, whose daughter intuits she is hiding something. The mother, Amy Griffin, goes on a journey to understand herself better, and she realizes she’s been carrying a secret around since she was a little girl, a painful secret, which once brought to light could show her how to let her guard down and live more authentically. Disclaimer: it’s a story of sexual abuse, but with one-in-three girls experiencing sexual abuse, it’s a hugely important topic to read more about.

If you’re grieving the loss of your mother, or know someone who is, then I recommend Pink Lady, a book of poems, elegies, by Denise Duhamel to her mother.

Whatever book or audiobook app you choose, I’m sure the mothers in your life will appreciate you.