Maternal love makes the world go round – and the red carpet

Top performance: Frances Mcdormand’s Oscar win was well deserved

As it’s Mother’s Day on Sunday, I thought I’d point out that this year’s strongest Oscar-nominated actresses – Frances Mcdormand, Allison Janney and Laurie Metcalf – all played mums.

In Lady Bird, Metcalf negotiates a turbulent relationship with a teenage daughter. Janney incarnates the foul-mouthed Lavona, who abused her skater daughter, Tonya, who grows up with a raging hunger that only a mother’s love could satisfy.

Best of all is Mcdormand’s Mildred in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Mildred refused her daughter a lift and they had harsh words. It was the last time she saw her alive. The film is full of comic exaggeration, but what rings true is the mother’s furious determination to make it up to her child, even after she’s been raped and murdered.

Maternal guilt and love. Two of the most powerful engines of life on Earth. Awards for non-hollywood mothers are rare, but the effort you put in to them never goes to waste. Please don’t forget that on Sunday, when your offspring have failed to take the hint about the florist.

I like the Mumsnet survey which found that what mums want for Mother’s Day is a lie-in and breakfast in bed.

Instead, in 2017, 62 per cent said they’d done cooking, 58 per cent did laundry and 11 per cent took out the bins. Sounds about right. If you want breakfast in bed, ladies, sleep in the kitchen.