Maternal Urges

Mother's Day always gives me feel mixed feelings as it approaches every year.
I get somewhat annoyed by the fact that people are force fed jewelry, chocolate, flowers, and sappy cards to purchase for their mothers when they should be buying them for these women without prompting. I also feel like we all shouldn't need reminders to love the person who birthed us- or the person who raised us, helped shape us, or just means a lot to us, if that's how we define mother. Some call it a Hallmark Holiday, and while I can see their point of view, it's not quite on the same level as Boss' Day or Administrative Assistants' Day, since those people didn't actually have their figures ruined and their drinking nixed for nine months while trying to provide us with life.
At the same time, I know that if the day passed without so much as a by your leave from my family, I would feel slighted to say the least. I certainly would never let the day go by without seeing my own mother, giving her some sort of gift, and making an effort to show her how much I appreciate her. It has much less to do with the gifts and cards than the guilt only a mother can heap on her children, and I swear, a mother gets better at it as her children get older.
The sticky area for me is the people that aren't our mothers- for instance, for men- the mothers of their children. Are they expected to show some appreciation for bearing children? My father tends to get my mother, his wife, a token gift. Is that expected of all men? I don't expect a gift or even card from the Man, but it is nice to be acknowledged, even though the children used to build some sort of clay figure that I generally classified as an ashtray at school. I suppose smoking has gone out of fashion and now I am surprised every year with flowers they've started from seed, which is very nice and thoughtful, and takes the heat off everyone who might be expected to help them shop, and gives them something to do at school.
Do all women expect their husbands to fall in line and buy something for them simply because their womb bears fruit? Wanting to be appreciated for your mothering skills and the fact that you take on a lot of the burden is one thing, expecting or demanding a gift is quite another, isn't it? Or is it? Maybe I'm due a mink stole by now.