1. For you to finally meet someone who will love and appreciate you, just the way you are, but also agree with her about how you could use a haircut.
2. For you to call her just to say hi, and not because you feel obligated or guilty. In other words, she wants you to lie. Is that so hard?
3. She would like you to explain, once and for all, what she did to you while you were growing up that was so terrible.
4. While she insists that she hates Mother’s Day, and that the whole thing is just an excuse to sell cards and flowers, if you don’t buy her something that cost a decent amount of money and shows some thought and caring, she will tell everyone that she has no children.
5. She would like you to think of her, for once in your selfish life, as a person and not just a Mom. And she doesn’t want you to reply to this request by insisting, “I didn’t ask to be born.”
6. She would like you to send her so many flowers that when her friends see them, she can tell them, “It’s embarrassing, I don’t need flowers, but what do you think these cost? Just guess. I don’t need to know, I’m just interested. Just an estimate.”
7. If your family is Jewish, she would like you to stop referring to her as a Jewish mother, because it’s an insulting stereotype. And she doesn’t care that you dropped out of medical school, even if she’s told all of your relatives that you’re just “taking a break.”
8. All she really wants is for all of her children, whom she loves more than her own life, to be happy. And thin. And to own a decent sports jacket. And to keep the hair out of their eyes. And to stand up straight. Would it kill you? And if you just said, or even thought, “It might”, then you should be ashamed of yourself. And you should buy your Mom that new coffeemaker she keeps emailing you photos of.
