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Sunday is Mother’s Day. It’s an interesting day when you look at it. It’s not the same in all countries.
For example, in the U.K., Mother’s Day, also known as Mothering Sunday, started as the fourth Sunday of Lent, and was meant as a day when people would return to their “mother church”, or the church where they had been baptized, or the nearest cathedral. That eventually evolved into a day when domestic servants and child labourers in a number of different situations were given the day off some they could attend church and maybe visit their mother. But it was an entirely different sort of day from what it later became.
Mother’s Day as we know it was started by a woman named Anna Jarvis in the United States. She started advocating for a day to honour mothers. There were others who joined in the call for a day for mothers, with some advocating for a return to the practices of Mothering Sunday, which by the early 1900’s had faded from public use. But Mothering Sunday and Mother’s Day became two different things celebrated on different days in different places.
Mother’s Day as we know it was more due to the efforts of Anna Jarvis and her mother. Her mother had pushed for Mother’s Friendship Day to reunite families separated by the U.S. civil war. Anna liked the idea of honouring mothers, and by the early 1900’s a celebration of mothers started being held. There were apparently others involved, but Anna liked taking credit for the day.
But as time went on, Anna wasn’t happy with how her day turned out. As it started to catch on, it also started being promoted by commercial businesses. Anna was not in favour of the commercialization of the day and actively campaigned against Mother’s Day. One thing she particularly didn’t like was the greeting card. She thought it was for people too lazy to write a letter. But for the remainder of her life, until she passed away in 1948, she tried to put an end to the day she had started.
And the strange part is, it is quite likely the commercialization of the day that had helped keep it alive ever since.
But however it came about, it is good to have a day to honour our mothers. None of us would be here without them.
Happy Mother’s Day.
