By Karen Johnson 
Unfortunately, the word my kids hear the most out of my mouth is NO. There are various forms of “NO”—“not right now”, “maybe later”, “we’ll see”, and my favorite—“absolutely not.” My mom-guilt, however, sometimes causes me to consider crazy ideas like having a “yes day.” You know the drill—you say yes to your kids to any and all requests (that are are safe and affordable) for an entire day. You get fun mom points and they get a day of happy yeses. Our favorite Hollywood mom Jennifer Garner did it recently, and according to her Instagram post… well her face says it all.
Attached to an image of a very tired mommy, Garner’s post reads “You’ll never need coffee more than the day after “Yes Day!” followed by hashtags such as #fiveyearsrunning #wesleptinatent #inthebackyard #coffeeismyyesday #yesday #nationalcoffeeday #imgettingthehangofhashtags
The mom of three also mentions the popular children’s book “Yes Day!” by the late Amy Krouse Rosenthal in which the little boy’s day of yeses includes pizza for breakfast, a food fight, and staying up late. Garner’s hashtag alludes to the fact that she’s made this an annual tradition for five years, slept in a tent in the backyard, and needs all the coffee the day after.
But I bet her kids (Violet, 11, Seraphina, 8 and Samuel, 5) think it’s the most amazing day of the year. And her commenters love her for it. “Thanks for sharing beautiful you in a real life moment!” one person wrote. “Love this! Such a good mama,” commented another. Because there’s nothing we regular moms like more than a fancy millionaire mom getting down in the trenches with us. Motherhood is still motherhood, right?
I’ll be honest. I’ve never done a “Yes Day.” The concept does terrify me, because I’m a control freak and I know my four-year-old would ask for soda, candy, candy mixed with soda, and to not have to wash his hands all day. Um… how do I roll all that into a “Yes Day?!” but this post does inspire me to bend a little here and there. We’ve had a particularly stressful few days around here and the poor little guy has been left to his own devices (=hours of TV) while big brother and sister are at school and Mommy works on some things. So this morning, when he asked for ice cream at 10 a.m., I said yes. And it made us both happy.
Thanks, Jennifer Garner, for the reminder that saying “Yes” is good for our kids (and us) and that tomorrow, there’s always coffee. I’ll try to say yes more often and work myself up to… a “yes” afternoon?
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