I don’t think Mother’s Day existed in my childhood, or certainly not in the Barber household. My parents didn’t believe in sentiment, or celebrations. I only encountered the full horror when I had children myself and they would come home from nursery with some hideous heart-shaped card saying they’d spent all week making it. Whereupon I would snort: “Don’t they give you anything better to do? Can’t they teach you multiplication or something?” And then they’d go crying to Daddy and I’d have to say, “Sorry, sorry, only joking,” and put the beastly cards on the mantelpiece to gather dust for a few weeks.
But worse, far worse, was that my mother-in-law really believed in celebrating Mother’s Day, which led to tears and tantrums all