This Sunday, May 26, France celebrates the traditional Mother’s Day. Flowers, chocolates, small handmade objects or big spoils… Mothers tell BFMTV.com about the best and worst gifts they received from their offspring during this celebration on the last weekend of May.
More than 10 years later, Cécile can’t help but laugh when she sees her 4-year-old daughter leaving nursery school with her large misshapen painting under her arm. That year, little Lynaïs’ mother received a rather unusual Mother’s Day gift: a large A3 sheet painted red on which simple white plastic cutlery was glued.
“With the other mothers of the students, we laughed about it for months! Absolutely no one understood the concept of this work of art… and even trying to get our children to talk, we never got the end of the story”, hilariously recounts this mother of three children from Val d’Oise.
“My present crushed at the bottom of his schoolbag”
Cécile still kept the sad work of art for several years at the back of an office, out of conscience… until it was forgotten enough to mysteriously disappear during a moving. Today, she almost regrets not having kept it so she could laugh about it with her teenage daughter, almost 16 years old.
Pasta necklaces, cardboard pockets and other salt dough sculptures… Mother’s Day rhymes with traditional little handmade gifts, chocolates or even a bouquet of flowers. But with younger children, things don’t always go as planned. One year, Cécile was surprised to discover her Mother’s Day gift – or what was left of it – crushed at the bottom of her daughter’s schoolbag.
Last year, Tamar Pogue saw her husband and 3-year-old son arrive with a bouquet of completely wilted red roses. “My husband looked sorry,” says this English teacher in Saint-Cyr-sur-Mer (Var). And for good reason, the toddler did not want to give up: he wanted to offer this specific bouquet to his mother, and not another.
“Luckily I have a sense of humor!”, jokes this 33-year-old British mother today, who specifies that her son still had the right to “a big kiss”.
The sentimental value of junk gifts
If jewelry, clothing and other beauty products are popular every year, sociologist Ronan Chastellier, a specialist in consumer trends, notes that in the family, “‘junk gifts’ have very powerful effects in terms of tenderness “. Every year, Malika Braconnier is delighted with the little creations she can receive from her 6 and 12 year old children, no matter how crazy they may be.
In recent years, this 37-year-old mother remembers receiving a small suncatcher to hang on the door or window, a tissue box decorated on the theme of the sea or even a small vase made and painted with hand with a glass jar (see photos). Small decorations that she places in the four corners of her house: a way for this divorced mother to think of her children when they are at their father’s house.
“There is an ambivalent side to the thing: on the one hand, it is sometimes more touching to see that your child has spent time making something personalized and unique,” explains the specialist. “On the other hand, it is true that some of these trinkets can tend to accumulate and gather dust in the back of a cupboard.”
This is why in the spring of 2022, Elisa Joseph gave her mother what she considers to be the best gift she has ever given her: she arrived that day with a puppy in her arms. Two years later, Christine, a 60-year-old retiree, still regularly talks about this surprise. “It was a total surprise for her, she absolutely didn’t expect it,” says her daughter, who will never forget the stars in her mother’s eyes when she discovered the little Brittany Spaniel.
The worst gift is undoubtedly oblivion
“It has inestimable value: it’s unconditional love, it’s not material and even today little Django follows her everywhere. I had hit the nail on the head because my mother is quite a solitary person and she had just lost her dog”, continues Elisa, a 24-year-old restaurant hostess in Narbonne (Aude).
The mothers interviewed are in any case unanimous: the worst gift remains the one that does not exist. Two years ago, for example, Cécile Driutti’s husband and four children completely skipped wishing her a happy Mother’s Day. “Not a word, not a gift. Nothing. It ruined my day a little,” admits this 42-year-old self-employed woman who lives near Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine).
“It’s a little hurtful and depressing to think that we carry all the mental load of the household all year round, and that we are forgotten on the only day when they are supposed to have a little attention for me,” says this housewife.
Looking back, Cécile remembers resenting her husband more than her children, who were all under the age of 11 at the time. “It had added water to the gas between us, yes… Especially since these are the type of reproaches that we bring up again and again during arguments.” Fortunately, his tribe has had many opportunities to catch up since: notably last year with an incredible meticulous choreography, rehearsed for days under the watchful eye of their dad. What did they have in store for him this Sunday?
Jeanne Bulant Journalist BFMTV
