Mother's Day: Lifelong love

Mother's Day Sunday is one of those things. It's the day for coffee, cakes, cut flowers and homemade crafts. There is no escaping it, as it is an institutionalised day of thanks.

What child, no matter how grown up they may be today, doesn't remember this with a sinking stomach. Because mum is an institution. There is so much to do on this day because of her: To be especially kind and good and obliging and prove your love with deeds. But what if the child suddenly has something more clever to do and runs off? Oh, it's pure horror what there would be to do if you didn't get away in time.

Back in the role of a child

Later, as a young adult and programmatic holiday-phobe - because they are finally over, the hours when daffodils, roses and tulips had to be painted around poems! - you feel even less comfortable on this day, with flower shops and wholesalers relentlessly reminding you weeks in advance how grateful you should be to your mum. You're forced back into the role of a child, you don't like yourself for it, you berate yourself for the social pressure and your mum's expectations. And yet by the afternoon at the latest, you pick up the phone, get hold of a few cut flowers somewhere and invite them round for coffee and cake.

But, as always, it is their own children who successfully torpedo their own programme. Declare Mother's Day to be Prohibition Day? Impossible! The charm of homemade gifts is too great and imperative. Even in the playgroup, the Mother's Day gift is an integral part of creative planning, at school it is a creative element of the summer term. Just in time for the beginning of May, the children are put into the brightest gift stress: Now we make a present for mum and tell her how much we love her in a poem.

Mum, I love you because you buy me presents, cook delicious food and do what I want.

Handwritten placemat by Claudia Landolt's second eldest son

These declarations of love can sometimes be an excellent way of undermining our own parenting skills. Four years ago, my second eldest son surprised me with a self-made placemat on which he neatly wrote in his most beautiful handwriting: «Mum, I love you because you buy me presents, cook delicious food and do what I want».

Ha! What a relief when his older brother held a woven paper basket and a crocodile, which can also be a magnet, as well as a soap dispenser painted with hearts under my nose. No, there were no crocheted egg cosies or potholders (yet). This year, however, there was an assertion that he wanted to show off his cooking skills. Number one has inherited my pragmatism and might buy me my favourite chocolate with his pocket money.

I'm sure I'll get maudlin again

This Sunday it's one more child who can now write and has therefore reached creative crafting age and wants to give me his present very urgently. And because he's not quite that big yet, the date hasn't quite worked out yet - he wanted to give me his present on Ascension Day. Well, now it's seriously ticking off the days and telling me a little more every day what it might be.

So on Sunday, it will be like always on this day of lifelong love. By seven o'clock at the latest, they'll climb into bed with me and, with an enchanting twinkle in their eyes, hand me slightly glued gifts with heartfelt declarations. And despite my firm pretence of not being maudlin, no, not at all, I will still shed a few tears, my love for these children is so deep despite everything.

And all day, I swear, I can't get away from my paper tissues again. Because I know the day will come when I'll miss the slightly crumpled handicrafts and declarations of love, because when I ask them to at least set the table on the second Sunday in May, they'll say: «Mum, slavery has been abolished.»