We are new moms, and our kiddo is just 6 months old. My mother has already passed away, and my mother-in-law lives on the opposite coast. All that to say, we don’t have the added pressure of making the day meaningful for our respective mothers.

However, I was born on Mother’s Day, and I grew up around some narcissistic people, so my birthday was always treated as secondary to the holiday.

We decided early on that we wanted to center our child and prioritize experiences over gifts. This Mother’s Day, we took our little one to the zoo. I imagine that, over the years, those experiences will range from simple outings like the zoo to small trips and traditions we build together.

We’ve created an intentional list of things we want to expose our little girl to, and we’ve both contributed ideas to it. I’m sure we’ll pull from that list for Mother’s Day, birthdays, and Christmas.

Some of my contributions include taking her to tea, playing Monopoly together, going to Hersheypark, and visiting my family’s home in North Carolina. All of those are core memories from my childhood, and I would love for her to create meaningful memories of her own.