Avoiding Mother’s Day displays, cards, etc. is something I’ve become adept at. They don’t surprise me. Emails from organisations, tho, are obtrusive and invade my inbox.

I had two stand-out bad emails this year. The first said, “it’s not too late to buy a voucher for your Mum this Mother’s Day” (spoiler: it really is). The second offered me the opportunity to customise a body butter just for my Mum (spoiler: I don’t care how restorative your product is I doubt it’ll restore her). Neither of these left me feeling brilliant. The fact that I can remember who sent them and what they offered me a month later is a pretty decent indicator of how harsh this felt. The only options I had were unsubscribe from all emails, or delete this one and hope they’re not persistent

Neither company offered me an “unsubscribe me from Mother’s Day” option. If they did, I’d have ticked the “Father’s Day” option while I was at it.

How much better, from my perspective as well as the company’s perspective, if they captured the fact I no longer had parents. They could then rest easy knowing that they hadn’t isolated me and tarnished their brand in my eyes. Additionally, they could show me some kindliness. Maybe a specialised email for those that have unsubscribed from Mother’s Day emails to say “in case you find this time of year tough, here’s our favourite feel-good products for you” or even “treat yourself, here’s a voucher”.

How much better to be remembered as showing compassion. Than being an, at best, example of dark comedy, and at worse losing customers because you’ve inadvertently been thoughtless.