Although the details vary, over 40 countries around the world designate a specific day every year to honor moms. People show their appreciation by giving cards, flowers and gifts, and many families go out for a meal. The U.S. National Restaurant Association reports that Mother’s Day is their busiest holiday of the year. While no one denies that mothers are known for providing unconditional love and support to their children, how did we end up with a holiday in their honor?
The first organized Mother’s Day celebration in the United States can be traced back to the year 1908 and a woman named Anna Jarvis. That first year, her goal was to memorialize her own late mother, and celebrate all that her mother had done for her personally as well as society as a whole through her volunteer work. Soon after Jarvis began a campaign to expand the concept into an annual yearly tradition of giving thanks to all mothers. She envisioned it to be a day whereby people expressed their appreciation to their moms for everything she’d done.
Anna’s efforts were so successful that within a few years President Woodrow Wilson declared the second Sunday in May was to be officially recognized as Mother’s Day. This spelling was of particular importance to Anna Jarvis, as the singular possessive Mother’s indicates that each family should honor its own mother vs. the plural Mothers, which implies all mothers should be commemorated together. Also important to Jarvis, the idea that the day should be marked by children writing to or visiting their moms to offer personal words of gratitude.
Sadly for Anna Jarvis, greeting card companies, florists, bakeries and confectioneries did not share her commitment to preserve the intimate nature of the holiday. Instead they spotted an opportunity to use the new holiday to boost sales, and the commercialization of Mother’s Day was born. This distortion of her original intent distressed Anna greatly. She fought to take back control; organizing boycotts of the retail organizations, protesting at a candy-maker’s convention and was even arrested for crashing “The American War Mothers” convention after the group began using Mother’s Day for fundraising.
As you know, Anna’s tireless efforts to protest the commercial nature of Mother’s Day failed. There is a positive message in her story, though. Taking a page from her book, we can change the way we approach this holiday. Next year, sit down with a pen and paper and write your mom a note from the heart. Tell her all the ways you believe she’s helped you become the person you are now, and acknowledge the enormous sacrifices she made along the way. As a mom myself, I can tell you that I would cherish these words from my children far more than a generic greeting card and long after a bouquet of flowers had wilted.