¡Viva Mother’s Day!
May 10 is Mexican Mother’s Day (no matter what day of the week it falls on), and the American Mother’s Day is on the second Sunday in May.
We just celebrated Mother’s Day – some of us, twice. For mothers of Mexican descent in the U.S., Mother’s Day is a “two-fer.” May 10 is Mexican Mother’s Day (no matter what day of the week it falls on), and the American Mother’s Day is on the second Sunday in May. Two Mother’s Days in the span of a few days can be cumbersome for families (not to mention expensive), so usually what happens is that one of the Mother’s Days is celebrated and the other acknowledged.
These back-to-back Mother’s Day share a common historical trajectory, viz.:
“Mothering Sunday”…
In a general sense, Mother’s Day is rooted in the early Christian tradition known as “Mothering Sunday,” which was once a major tradition in Britain and other parts of Europe. Observed on the fourth Sunday in Lent, “Mothering Sunday” originally was a time when the faithful would return to their “mother church” – the main church in their home community – for a special service. Apprentices and servants would be given Mothering Sunday off to go home to attend the church services and, while there, see their mothers. After the church service individual families held their own celebrations, usually revolving around a big family meal.
The tradition of gift-giving is also rooted in this Mothering Sunday service. As a gift, the apprentices and servants would take to their mothers a special Mother’s Day cake known as a Simnel cake, a pastry made with fruit and almond paste, decorated with 11 marzipan balls representing the apostles of Jesus (minus Judas Iscariot). And on their way to church on Mothering Sunday, children would pick flowers and, as a gift, present bouquets to their mothers. Thus, eating, gift-giving, and flowers came to be embedded in the holiday.
“Mothering Sunday” originally was a time when the faithful would return to their “mother church” – the main church in their home community – for a special service.
Over time Mothering Sunday shed its Christian / religious purpose and became a secular holiday. The going-to-church aspect was dropped, but the tradition of family meals, children presenting their mothers with flowers and other tokens of appreciation remained. As we’ll see, this would become problematic.
Activist women take the helm…
Mother’s Day as celebrated in the U.S. dates back to the 19th century and involves several activist women, some of whom had political motives. Here’s a thumbnail sketch:
In the years preceding the Civil War, Ann Reeves Jarvis of West Virginia established “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” to teach local women how to properly care for their children.
After the Civil War, the “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” clubs morphed into a unifying force. In 1868 Jarvis organized a series of “Mothers’ Friendship Day,” at which mothers gathered with former Union and Confederate soldiers to promote reconciliation.
Another precursor to Mother’s Day came from the abolitionist and suffragette Julia Ward Howe. In 1870 Howe wrote and promoted the “Mother’s Day Proclamation,” a call to action that asked mothers to unite in promoting world peace. In 1873, Howe campaigned for a “Mother’s Peace Day” which she proposed be celebrated every June 2.
Other early Mother’s Day pioneers include Juliet Calhoun Blakely, a temperance activist who in the 1870s inspired a local Mother’s Day in Albion, Michigan and Mary Towles Sasseen, who, along with Frank Hering, worked to organize a Mothers’ Day in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
And then there was an official Mother’s Day…
Anna Jarvis campaigned to establish Mother’s Day as a way of honoring the sacrifices mothers made for their children.
The official Mother’s Day holiday we observe today came about in the 1900s as a result of the efforts of Anna Jarvis, daughter of the above-mentioned Ann Reeves Jarvis. After her mother’s death in 1905, Anna Jarvis campaigned to establish Mother’s Day as a way of honoring the sacrifices mothers made for their children.
In May 1908 Anna Jarvis organized the first official Mother’s Day celebration at a Methodist church in Grafton, West Virginia, which was attended by about 400 people. Simultaneously, thousands of people attended a Mother’s Day event at a retail store in Philadelphia owned by one of her supporters.
Following the success of her first Mother’s Day, Jarvis set out to establish Mother’s Day as a national holiday, maintaining that American holidays were biased toward male achievements. She launched a massive letter-writing campaign to newspapers, church officials, politicians and anyone else she thought could help urging the adoption of a holiday honoring motherhood.
By 1912 Jarvis had established the Mother’s Day International Association as a vehicle to help promote her cause. As a result, many states, towns, and churches adopted Mother’s Day as an annual holiday. Jarvis’ persistence paid off. In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson signed a measure officially designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day. In a very real sense, however, Congress and President Wilson simply made official a holiday that was already being celebrated in some form or another in every state of the union.
But then Jarvis lobbied against Mother’s Day…
Originally, Anna Jarvis and her supporters conceived of Mother’s Day as a simple day of personal celebration between mothers and families. Their plan involved wearing a white carnation as a badge and visiting one’s mother and/or attending church services. After Mother’s Day became a national holiday – and a popular one at that – the florists, card companies, and other merchants jumped on the band wagon.
In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson signed a measure officially designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
Jarvis became disgusted with the commercialization of the holiday and launched an open campaign against Mother’s Day profiteers and urged people to stop buying Mother’s Day flowers, cards and candies. By the time of her death in 1948 Jarvis had disowned Mother’s Day altogether, and she actively lobbied the government to remove Mother’s Day from the American calendar.
Jarvis was on to something…
In the United States, besides its traditional focus, Mother’s Day has at times even been a vehicle for political or feminist causes. In 1968, for example, Coretta Scott King used Mother’s Day to host a march in support of underprivileged women and children. And in the 1970s women’s groups used the holiday to highlight the need for equal rights and access to childcare.
But, overall, Mother’s Day is celebrated by showering mothers with gifts and flowers and taking them out to eat. It has become one of the biggest holidays for consumer spending.
According to an analysis by the organization Fit Small Business, Americans will spend $33.5 billion on Mother’s Day gifts and experiences this year. Greetings cards, flowers, and taking Mom out to brunch or dinner are the most popular Mother’s Day gifts. Although not the most popular category in terms of number of Mother’s Day shoppers, jewelry is the biggest product category in terms of sales, projected to generate $7 billion in sales this year. And Americans will spend $5.6 billion taking Mom out for brunch or dinner.
One can only imagine the level of disgust these statistics would generate in Anna Jarvis.
Mexico gets into the act…
May was selected for Mexican Mother’s Day since that is the month dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and the 10th was chosen because the tenth used to be “pay day” in those days.
In the early 1900s, some residents of northern Mexico, influenced by their neighbor, the United States, began to observe a Mother’s Day holiday. A widespread media campaign, anchored by a strong supportive editorial in Mexico City’s largest newspaper, El Excelsior, and the support of the Catholic Church paved the way for Mexico to establish Mother’s Day as an official holiday on May 10, 1922.
According to the National Council for Culture and the Arts of Mexico, May was selected for Mother’s Day since that is the month dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and the 10th was chosen because the tenth used to be “pay day” in those days.
The celebration of Mother’s Day in Mexico is very much as it is in the United States. Children present their mothers with gifts of candy, cards, flowers, jewelry, etc., and children who can’t be home on Mother’s Day will telephone Mom to let her know that she’s loved.
As in the U.S., Mother’s Day in Mexico often involves taking Mom out to lunch or dinner. Some families bring food to their mother’s home and enjoy a meal together there. Often, there is a serenata (serenade). Those who can afford it hire trios or mariachi bands for this, while others do the serenata themselves. Many families attend special church services, followed by a community breakfast.
Quite a historical trajectory. Too bad the commercial aspects of Mother’s Day have completely taken over what started out as – and what was meant to be – a simple but meaningful holiday. c/s
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