Mother’s Day: It’s a time for family
Wishing all mums well on their very special day.
MOTHERING Sunday is a celebration of mothers and motherhood, traditionally celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent, as a Christian holiday throughout the UK and Europe.
However, Mother’s Day began in the United States in the early 20th century and is not actually related to the Christian Mothering Sunday celebration. In the UK, however, Mothering Sunday is celebrated in the same way as Mother’s Day is celebrated elsewhere.
The Christian holiday originally began as a celebration of the mother church, not motherhood, during the sixteenth century. People returned to their ‘mother church’ – the main church or cathedral in their area – for a service. Those who attended were said to have gone ‘a-mothering’.
Years later, the celebration became a day when household servants were given a day off to visit their families. Children would pick wild flowers to present to their mothers, which became the modern-day tradition of giving presents. Generally, servants were not given free days on other occasions.
Mother’s Day, unrelated to the Christian celebration, began in the early 20th century in the United States. It is celebrated on different days across the world, but is the most common date for it is the second Sunday in May.
The first attempts to establish a ‘Mother’s Day’ came from women’s peace groups. In 1868, Ann Jarvis – mother of Anna Jarvis – created a committee to establish a ‘Mother’s Friendship Day’ to reunite families that had been divided during the Civil War. The modern holiday of Mother’s Day was first celebrated in 1908, when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother in Grafton, West Virginia.
By the 1920s, Anna had grown tired of the commercialisation of the holiday, in particular, the use of printed greetings cards. She incorporated herself as the Mother’s Day International Association, trade-marked the phrase ‘Mother’s Day’ – and was arrested for disturbing the peace on more than one occasion. Anna and her sister, Ellsinore, spent their inheritance campaigning against the holiday and what it had become and both died in poverty.
