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What is the best gift you can give your mother on Mother’s Day?

I can only answer from my point of view and the comments by five other adults whose children are also adults and have families of their own.

So what do we want?  TIME!  We want the gift of our children’s and grandchildren’s time.

Visit us often.  Call us often.  Invite us to lunch or dinner?  In other words: spend time with us.

Some of my favorite gifts in recent years are: 

One Mother’s Day, my son Michael gave me a note inviting me for lunch once a month.  I loved it because rarely does a mother have the opportunity to spend one-on-one time with a son.

Another great idea from my kids was a certificate which said that during the summer months they would provide Sunday lunch once or twice a month.  Making this extra special was that they often hung around after lunch and we talked and enjoyed a summer day together.

My son Jeff  helps me with all of my tech-related stuff. Maybe he doesn’t even see it as a “gift,” but it is! Also when my mother was in a nursing home two hours away, Jeff went to visit her once a month.  That visit was a gift to my mom and to me.

Perhaps you could offer to help your parent with a project or a job which needs to be done. During the doing of the project we will talk and catch-up with each other’s lives, and hopefully share some laughs.

Joyce, a mother of two daughters and four grandchildren says, “The most meaningful gift to me is something that lets me know they know my likes and dislikes. To me that means they know me, and that what I like is important to them. My greatest gift is all of them sitting around my dining room table, enjoying a meal and talking about life.”

PS: this list makes sense for fathers, too!