Making Mother’s Day a Day of Rest for Mom

Published May 17, 1984. Susan is often asked what kind of husband I am. She replies, “He’s normal. Not a perfect husband, but he tries hard.” Both the question and her response have finally gotten to me. Yes, as a husband I am “alright,” and I do “try hard.” But that is the problem. When it comes right down to it, I am an average husband. Nothing more, nothing less. And when you are average, you are just as close to being the worst as you are to being the best.

My averageness was brought even more to my attention last week as I roamed around the Orem Mall trying to select a Mother’s Day gift for my wife. There were the usual nightgowns, slippers, bathrobes and perfumes. I thought to myself, “How average,” as I watched other average husbands buy other average gifts.

Gift giving for me on Mother’s Day has become rather routine. And I suspect the same is true for most other husbands on wedding anniversaries and birthdays as well. Husbands give gifts mostly because we are supposed to give them. And we fear the consequences if we do not.

As I was walking around the mall with a bland look on my face looking at bland gifts, I thought to myself, “It’s time to change. I am tired of being an average husband who gives average gifts.” Up until now I have been so predictable, so average. Now I wanted to do something that would set me apart from all other husbands.

Then a biblical verse came to mind. In 1^st John 3:18 it states, “Let us not love in word, neither in tongue; (and he could have added gifts) but in deed and in truth.” Gifts are often a poor excuse for giving of oneself. It occurred to me that I should follow John’s advice and start showing my love with deeds.

There is some irony, I thought, in celebrating Mother’s Day only to have mothers wear themselves out fixing large meals, often for guests. I did purchase the socially required gift and card just to ease my conscience. Then, when Mother’s Day arrived, I told Susan of my additional gift. For the whole day on Sunday, May 13, I would do all the cooking. In addition, I would wash all the dishes. And she could relax.

Susan was overwhelmed, to say the least. She said it was the best gift she had ever received on Mother’s Day. I felt so good about it that I committed to do it for her for the rest of our marriage. Each Mother’s Day will literally become a day of rest for Susan, in that I promise to do all the cooking and dish washing. Now it is in print with 150,000 readers as witness.

Come to think of it, I might even start a new tradition. Two hundred years from now someone might ask, “When did this tradition begin of all husbands doing the cooking and dish washing on Mother’s Day?”

Then they will look in the encyclopedia under Mother’s Day and will read, “Several decades ago, on Mother’s Day, May 13, 1984, Dr. Brent Barlow, an average husband and humble university professor from Harvard-West (historically known as Brigham Young University) did all the cooking and washed all the dishes as a Mother’s Day gift to his wife, Susan. The idea worked out so well that all husbands everywhere adopted it. It is now a universal trend that began in his home state of Utah, spread to other parts of the United States, and then the whole world. This humble, average husband was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize one decade later, in 1994, for his outstanding contribution to peace in the world, particularly between husbands and wives on Mother’s Day.”

If you have a better-than-average husband who does all the cooking and dish washing on Mother’s Day, I’d like to hear about him. I may not be the first husband to make Mother’s Day a day of rest. And I might have to share the Nobel Peace Prize with him.