Modern Goddess Magazine

Mother’s Day is a day to celebrate and thank our mums for everything they have done for us throughout the year. Whilst there is no denying the day has become commercial in its celebration, this wasn’t always the case.

Mothering Sunday began in Britain during the 17th Century on the fourth Sunday of Lent as a day when servants and apprentices would return home to visit with their mothers. Most visitors took a gift with them; a particular kind of fruitcake called a “mothering cake”.

The holiday had almost completely died out by the 19th Century, when in the United States of America Julia Ward Howe suggested the idea of a Mother’s Day of Peace following the United States’ Civil War. Whilst celebrations continued for some years, it once again died out when Julia Ward Howe discontinued paying for most of the cost of the celebrations.

The Mother’s Day we celebrate today is credited mostly to Anna Jarvis, who wanted a way to honour her mother, who had died. The first Mother’s Day service was held in Grafton, West Virginia on Sunday 10th May 1908, and just 12 months later, nearly every state in America commemorated the day. In 1914 in the United States of America, the second Sunday of May was officially named Mother’s Day, and proclaimed a national holiday.

Commercial enterprise entered the arena however, and ironically Anna Jarvis spent most of her later life rallying to stop the commercialisation of the celebration she had spent her earlier years founding. Mother’s Day began to be celebrated again in Britain after World War II with the influx of American servicemen and their traditions. It continues to be celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent.

Mother’s Day is an opportunity to bless, thank and honour our mothers, grandmothers, aunts and carers, living and passed, and to celebrate with them the life they have given us. It need not be commercial, nor trite, but a demonstration of our admiration for the women in our lives who have taught us to love, to laugh, and to live.