Carol Fisher-Linn
Mother’s Day 2024 is May 12. Let’s explore why the founder grew to hate it.
It started with this prayer: “I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mother’s day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is entitled to it.”— Ann Reeves Jarvis.
In Ann Reeves Jarvis’ day in West Virginia before the Civil War, she helped start “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” where women learned the proper way to care for their children. Although the country was still quite divided after the Civil War (and still is) these clubs served to unify the women, promoting reconciliation by forming yet another event in 1868 called “Mothers’ Friendship Day.” On this day, mothers got together with former Union and Confederate soldiers working to promote friendship. Imagine!
A Mother’s Day of sorts soon became co-opted by the abolitionist and suffragist movement’s Julia Ward Howe (activist and author of Battle Hymn of the Republic) who, in 1870 wrote a “Mother’s Day Proclamation,” asking mothers to unite in promoting world peace. In 1873 she called for a “Mother’s Peace Day” encouraging a day when women all over the world would gather to discuss ways to achieve world peace. After all, who knows better than mothers how to bring unity and peace in their families? Her experiences from working with the wounded during the civil war and the widows and orphans of both sides inspired her to call all women to “rise up from the ashes and devastation” focusing on public health and child welfare.
Also, in her era, there was a tradition in the UK and Europe known as “Mothering Sunday.” Frankly, it had nothing to do with honoring our mothers, but it eventually morphed into a secular holiday to honor and gift our moms thanks to her daughter, Anna Jarvis who Americanized Mother’s Day in 1908, with it becoming an official holiday in 1914.
By the 1930’s, UK’s Mothering Sunday disappeared, and Mother’s Day found a place on national calendars around the world. And then the spending began! In fact, a hundred plus years later, Mother’s Day spending will exceed $33.5 billion this year, (by contrast Christmas 2022 total spending was about $178 billion) according to the National Retail Foundation. In addition to the more traditional gifts (ranging from cards, flowers and candy to clothing and jewelry), one survey showed that an unprecedented 14.1 percent of gift-givers plan to buy their moms high-tech gadgets like smartphones and tablets.
Poor Anna Jarvis must be turning in her grave. You see, Jarvis’s idea of celebrating mothers meant something very personal to her and had little or nothing to do with lavishing expensive gifts upon all mothers. She looked at it as a day of spending time with and honoring her own mother and of each of us honoring our own in very personal, intimate ways. She apparently was very clear that the title would be the singular, Mother’s Day, rather than the everywoman Mothers’ Day. That distinction led her to eventually try to boycott Mother’s Day as it evolved into a buying frenzy where the gift was some expensive “thing” rather than time, love, effort, and face-to-face companionship with a dearly beloved mother.
In 1925, infuriated with the holiday turning into a cash-cow for commercial or fund-raising interests, Jarvis attacked First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt for using the holiday to try to raise money for charitable causes. She lobbied the government to get it removed from the calendar and spent her entire fortune until her death in 1948 trying to undo the holiday. To no avail Mother’s Day was here to stay, with nary a modern thought to the reasons for its beginnings.
It truly is quite lovely that more phone calls are made on Mother’s Day than any other day of the year, spiking the phone traffic by about 37%. But wouldn’t it be nice to try to visit with our mothers, or if geography is an issue, at least ask them what they’d like to do on this day reserved for honoring them? Do you really think they want a smartphone or high-tech gadget? Maybe a pre-paid lunch/dinner for mom and a friend at her favorite restaurant might be more appreciated. A theater subscription or one for fresh flowers delivered to her door assures ongoing happy thoughts. And, of course, it goes without saying that, considering the roots of Mother’s Day it’s always a good time for reconciliation, if needed, to give family (or this divided old world) a peaceful fresh start.