Ask Ursula: How to get the Mother’s Day you actually want without feeling guilty

Hi, I’m Ursula Reutin, co-host of “The Gee and Ursula Show,” and I’m thrilled to introduce my new advice column, Ask Ursula, where I help people navigate family, friendships, work, and all the messy, beautiful moments in between.

If you need any advice, reach out to me at askursula@bonneville.com or fill out this form here.

Mother’s Day dilemmas

For today’s Ask Ursula, I’m going to give advice on some common Mother’s Day dilemmas.

First question comes from a friend who says every year it’s the same last-minute flowers, Hallmark cards, and crowded brunch. I appreciate the gestures, but if I’m honest, it feels kind of thoughtless. How do I ask for something more meaningful without sounding ungrateful or too demanding?

My advice, as always, is to COMMUNICATE! Say what you mean and mean what you say. Is it fair to be disappointed if you’ve never really made it clear what you want for Mother’s Day?

Right now, your family is planning the same routine every year because it’s worked. It checks the box. But if you want something more personal or more thoughtful, they need to hear that.

Maybe you want to make a fun day trip that includes a restaurant you’ve always been curious about, or you want a gift certificate for a spa day. Or maybe you want a gift certificate to your favorite garden center and a day to be out in the yard. Let them know!

That’s not demanding. That’s giving them a chance to get it right. If you stay quiet, you’re not being low maintenance; you’re just guaranteeing the same disappointing outcome next year!

Another mom is in the thick of the sandwich generation. She says I’m raising kids and still have my own mom to celebrate. Between all the different demands, the travel, and the timing, the whole day feels exhausting. How do I handle this without disappointing everyone?

I’ve lived this experience. It can be tricky. But what made it work for us is that everyone was on the same page.

When my mom and my mother-in-law were alive, we did Mother’s Day together. One celebration. But that only worked because we all wanted that. Nobody felt forced, nobody felt shortchanged.

That’s the key.

If that’s not your situation, then stop trying to split yourself in half. You can’t do two full Mother’s Days in one. You have to adjust the plan. As I like to say on “The Gee and Ursula Show,” “communicate and compromise.” Celebrate on a different day, a different weekend, or have a smaller gathering.

Your mom still matters a lot, but so does the season of life you’re in right now. And if you’re exhausted by the plan, or everyone ends up being stressed and unhappy? It’s time to change it!

And finally, this next dilemma is something very relatable to so many moms — do you hear yourself in this complaint?

Every year, my family asks what I want, and somehow, I end up organizing everything. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I also don’t want to be in charge of my own celebration. What do I do?

If this sounds like you, my advice is for you to stop being the cruise director.

Right now, everyone leans on you because you’re the one who makes things happen! You’ve made it easy for everyone else. But if you keep planning it, they’ll keep expecting you to do it year after year.

So let them know that next time, you don’t want to plan anything. Let them be in charge! It may not be perfect, and that’s fine. But hopefully, they will figure it out and get better over time.

Mother’s Day should feel like something being done to celebrate you, with your happiness in mind, not something you have to orchestrate.

To all the moms, grandmothers, and anyone who’s been a maternal figure in other people’s lives … I hope you have a happy and peaceful Mother’s Day weekend!

With love,

Ursula

Listen to Gee and Ursula on “The Gee and Ursula Show” weekday mornings from 9 am to 12 pm on KIRO Newsradio.

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