Overturning stereotypes would be well worth celebrating
COLUMNIST
FINDING gifts for Mother’s Day was tough enough when I only had one to buy for. Now, helping my nine-monthold son (OK, doing it totally for him – obviously), I’m browsing website after website searching for gift inspiration.
There was a time when it was more simple than this.
Back in the day, I would pop to the Cardiff City gift shop at Ninian Park the Saturday before Mothering Sunday, pick up a blue-and-white oven glove – speckled with prints of Bluebirds – and be satisfied with my work, before going to watch my team lose to Exeter City (or AN Other Third Division team).
Look, I’m not proud of my giftbuying record – but I’m honest.
Mothering Sunday shopping’s getting harder these days.
Especially when there are two mums to buy for.
So as I search, something piques my interest – but it almost certainly won’t be on the shopping list for my mum, or my son’s.
It’s the Marks & Spencer Mother’s Day Mixed Beer Case – which on examining its contents I realise I’d quite like someone to buy me, despite my obvious disadvantage of not being a mother.
The £27 case is being sold exclusively online by Marksies and includes Cambridgeshire Golden Ale, Yorkshire Gold, Amarillo Golden Ale, Cornish Pale Ale, Cascade Pale Ale, Organic Scottish Heather Honey, Cornish Red Ale, Greenwich Black IPA, Cheshire Chocolate Porter, Citra IPA, Belgian Wheat Beer and Cornish IPA. Things are changing. “Beer is booming,” says M&S “And mums love it as much as dads.”
Yay for mums! Who’d have thought they could like ale as much as blokes?
“I can’t imagine a better Mother’s Day gift than a beer case,” says Madeleine Lovett, M&S product developer for beer.
“So we’ve decided to introduce one for all the beer-loving mums out there.”
I’m tempted to order the case of beer, if nothing else but to help my own inspiration as I search for presents.
The Mum’s Day gift odyssey is a handy test of where we are a society.
For example, although she obviously loves Cardiff City-themed oven gloves, my mother’s never been one for soap and candles, so I avoid buying those at all costs – no matter how much the shops tell me she’d love a bath time gift set that smells of lavender. The stereotypes remain. We try not to surround our little Joseph with those stereotypes as much as possible – do things like avoid dressing him in baby boy blue, although he still gets called “such a boy” as well as being regularly mistaken for being a girl as he wears so much yellow and green.
Searching for Mother’s Day online comes up with returns suggesting pastel-coloured flower bouquets and chocolate boxes with pink-bows, heart-shaped trinkets and floral-patterned purses.
Our local Co-op is pushing sons and daughters to buy their mums “flowers and her favourite rom com” for March 26.
Things might be changing – beer cases for mums, which could actually be for anyone – but they’re also still very much the same.
With time and inspiration running out, there’s a home game tomorrow... though I’m not yet tempted to pop into the club shop beforehand to check what their stock of oven gloves is like this season, or if they’re doing two-for-one offers on them.