Why Not Gift Her An Improved Home This Mother’s Day?

Would we not call to action all our thoughtfulness and find the perfect gift for our mothers this Mother’s Day? Are we not ever obliged to this special woman who is responsible for our origin and would we not like to remind her at every possible opportunity how much she means to us? Naturally, we would!

Now, here is a little problem.

Researchers who have taken it upon themselves to study the whole affair about gifting say thoughtful gifts are the worst gifts.

"Although givers believe that investing more thought or money into a gift will increase recipient appreciation, recipients are generally unaffected by the thought or money invested. Although recipients appreciate solicited gifts more than unsolicited gifts, givers assume that both solicited and unsolicited gifts will be equally appreciated," write authors Mary Steffel and Robyn A Le Boeuf in their research named Over-individuation in Gift Giving, published in the University of Chicago journal.

"More generally, when choosing a gift, givers may show an egocentric bias, in that they focus too much on information that is available to them but not to recipients and fail to sufficiently consider recipients’ perspectives," they write further.

You may have thought she would be crazy happy to get a piece of jewellery or sari, you may have only assumed that to be true. If you thought giving her a voucher to a spa would help her relax because she is always working, you may have thought wrong again.

If you go by what the researchers say, it would be more thoughtful to directly consult your mother about the gift. Since we know it would be hard to extract that kind of intelligence from our ever-considerate mothers, we may be left on our own to do the job. While doing so, we have to use a little more imagination than before.

Happiness begins at home

A relaxing day at the spa is just a day. A sparkling piece of jewellery would often find its place in the safe and will remain there forever. Now, what could we do to make sure our gifts have a larger life and can be of assistance to our mothers, day after day? Since happiness begins at home, let us look for certain changes here.

Even if she does not cook, she would be seen spending a good deal of her active time here. Any addition that would make her time here any less easy is worth the effort. Buy her a bigger fridge if she struggles to fit the daily supplies here on a daily basis. If the knives have gone blunt and you see her complaint about it often, buy her one of those fancy sets the market is full of these days. If her advanced age is restricting her movements, it may be the right time to change your traditional kitchen for a modular one. If her old and noisy blender drives her a little nutty, get a smooth new machine.

Also read: 7 Essential Modular Kitchen Appliances & Their Placement

If you looked closely, there is no way you would not find a way to improve the kitchen in your house for the benefit of your mother.  

Similarly, you could also make improvements in the bedroom to make it more cozy for your mother.  Sharp, penetrating lights are not good for her eyes. These would also adversely impact her sleep.  The lighting system could be changed to give the bedroom a calmer effect. The low-lying bed was all very good earlier. You may get it changed to a higher bed for better comfort. The mattress too could be changed to make it more mother-friendly — the market is full of women-centric products.

At a place that houses your ageing parents, slippery bathrooms are unacceptable. Taps that require a certain physical pressure before they operate are no good either. Old toilet seats that make it hard to be seated for a long time are worse still. It would be best to renovate the bathroom and make it more elderly-friendly if need be. Modern technology allows you to do all that.

Since keeping her healthy is also on top of our list, we want her to regularly monitor through health devices. A weighing machine or a blood pressure monitor would be a good addition to her the first-aid kit she already has.