Image by Orin Zebest used with permission.

Need to drop some hints for what your family can get you this Mother’s Day?

While a special brunch, flowers, or cards are lovely, wouldn’t it be even better if we could get a gift that keeps giving all year? (You may want to share this post with your family.)

This Mother’s Day, ask not for spa treatments, handmade lumps of clay, or breakfast in bed (though one should never turn those down); instead, ask for a two-week motherhood vacation allowance.

Did you know that Canadian moms spend about 7 hours a day with their families (source), spend double the amount of time on childcare as men, and one and a half times more time on housework than men (source)? Most people work 40 hours a week at their jobs and get a minimum of two weeks’ holidays. Turns out moms pull a 50-hour week with their families! You deserve to get at least that, but since motherhood is a seven-day-a-week thing, you deserve a 14-day holiday.

Your two-week motherhood vacation allowance

Here are a couple of scenarios for how this could work:

  • For one day every month, everyone else makes all of the meals, washes up, gets the groceries, does the laundry, cleans and tidies the house, fetches fruity drinks, and massages your feet. This is your day. To ensure you receive your full 14-days vacation, they also give you the day off on your birthday and next Mother’s Day. If you have lower standards like me, you’ll never have to clean the house again.
  • For one hour every night for 336 nights, everyone else does the meal planning, cooking, table setting, and washing up. You can take a mini one-hour holiday. Go out to dinner on the nights when it’s your turn to cook—it works out to about twice a month—and you’ll never need to make another meal again.
  • Get the family to be creative. If you really love to cook but detest doing something else, have them work out a way to help you take a vacation from that.

Everybody wins: your family is a hero for giving you this gift and you get more work-life balance and precious time to love and appreciate your family.

Enjoy your vacation. You’ve earned it!

Share this post with other deserving moms who could use a fabulous two-week vacation.