According to history.com, the official Mother’s Day holiday arose in the 1900s, as a result of Anna Jarvis, who lost her mother in 1905. Anna conceived Mother’s Day as a way of honoring the sacrifices mothers made for their children.
The first Mother’s Day was achieved through a partnership with a Philadelphia department store owner John Wanamaker in 1908, where Jarvis organized a celebration at a Methodist church in Grafton, West Virginia, while thousands of people attended a Mother’s Day event at one of Wanamaker’s retail stores in Philadelphia.
Following the success of Mother’s Day, Jarvis resolved to see her holiday added to the national calendar, staring a massive letter writing campaign to newspapers and prominent politicians urging the adoption of a special day honoring motherhood. By 1912, many states, towns and churches had adopted Mother’s Day as an annual holiday, and her persistence paid off in 1914 when US President Woodrow Wilson signed a measure officially establishing the second Sunday of May as Mother’s Day.
Her original idea for Mother’s Day was a personal celebration between mothers and families. Jarvis’ version of the day involved wearing a white carnation as a badge and visiting one’s mother or attending church services. However, once Mother’s Day became a national holiday, its commercialization was inevitable as florists, greeting card companies, and other merchants took advantage of its popularity.
By 1920, Jarvis had become disgusted at how the holiday had become commercialized, outwardly urging people to stop buying Mother’s Day flowers, cards, and candies. She eventually resorted to an open campaign against Mother’s Day profiteers, targeting confectioners, florists, and even charities. By the time of her death in 1948, Jarvis, who remained unmarried and childless, had disowned the holiday altogether, and even actively lobbied with the government to see it removed from the American calendar.
Fast forward to 2023, when US consumers are expected to spend a whopping $35.7 billion on Mother’s Day. Anna Jarvis would probably be appalled.
Ms. Jarvis couldn’t’ stop commercialization once the Mother’s Day genie was released, but if you come to think of it, her well-intentioned push for a day to honor mothers was going to happen no matter what, if not from the USA, then somewhere else, and now that we are here, how we celebrate it is entirely up to us.
Those who follow me know by now that I am not a fan of heavily commercialized holidays. But if there is one day I can’t really complain about, it would have to be Mother’s Day. After all, who doesn’t love their mother, or the mother of their children?
By the time this is published, those who are into gifts and tokens would’ve ordered their Mother’s Day presents and made reservations at their favorite restaurants. And as long as you can afford it, there is nothing wrong with spending some disposable income to pamper the most important person in our lives.
As for me, who hides my being kuripot with pretending to hate commercialization, I would say the best gift for mothers on their special day would be to give them a break from all the mothering they have to do for the rest of the year. Presents and tokens may be nice, but what they would really appreciate is being pampered and reminded of how much we love them.
Giving moms a break means not having to prepare, cook, and clean up for the three meals of the day. It means that they don’t have to clean up after, or keep reminding dad and the kids, especially when it comes to our dirty laundry. It means that it will be a day when beds are magically made in the morning, without requiring their input.
These are some things we can do on Mother’s Day, or we can take our supposed love and appreciation further by making it a point to slowly but surely find ways to make our mom’s lives easier and better every day. By doing what we can, as children and/or partners, and helping them out in running the household and taking care of everyone in it, we can demonstrate to our mothers that they don’t have to bear the burden alone all year round. A Mother’s Day token or family dinner date is good for only one day, but if we start pulling our weight in and around our home, that would be the best year-round gift we can offer to our moms, which costs us nothing but can mean the world for them.
Let’s try to bring back the essence of Mother’s Day, as it was imagined by Anna Jarvis when she did it for her mother, by focusing on the simple yet impactful gestures and character improvements that we can do for our mothers, which is something we should strive for, even as we succumb to the temptation of buying their appreciation by spoiling them with lavish gifts and meals this coming Sunday.*
