Mother's Day is bittersweet

“The Bittersweet History of Mother’s Day” headlines the story of the holiday in the online Almanac for May 2023.

According to the newsletter, Mother’s Day was not born from a desire to treat moms to a day off and gifts.

"Three women - who championed efforts toward better health, welfare, peace and love - contributed to the day,” says the Almanac. In this country, it actually started as a women’s movement to better the lives of other Americans.The three women who get credit for establishing Mother’s Day are Ann Reeves Jarvis, Julia Ward Howe (think ”The Battle Hymn of the Republic”) and Anna M. Jarvis.

Ann Reeves Jarvis was a young homemaker, Sunday school  teacher and life-long activist, who, in the mid-1800s started “Mother’s Day Work Clubs” in West Virginia to combat unsanitary living conditions. She was especially concerned about infant mortality rates.

During the Civil War, “Mother” Jarvis encouraged women to help soldiers regardless of which side they were fighting for. After the war, she wanted a Mother’s Friendship Day to promote peace between Union and Confederate families. Sometimes, in Appalachia, individual families had been torn apart by having warring brothers fighting on different sides.

Julia Ward Howe was a famous poet and reformer, who volunteered for the U.S. Sanitary Commission helping to provide sanitary conditions for the care of wounded soldiers during the Civil War.  Howe’s version of Mother’s Day was honored in Boston and some other locations in the Northeast for about 30 years after the Civil War, but had died out by the early 1900s.

Then Anna Jarvis, daughter of Ann Reeves Jarvis, wanted to honor her mother’s memory after her mother’s death in 1905. She began campaigning for a national day to commemorate mothers for “the matchless service” rendered.  Although she used the word “service,” she seemed to be thinking more about honoring the role of motherhood.

She managed to have a Mother’s Day celebration in Grafton, West Virginia in 1908. John Wanamaker heard about the celebration and held a special commemoration in his store in Philadelphia. I guess he knew a marketing opportunity when he saw it.

Jarvis was surprised at how quickly 45 states, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Canada and Mexico adopted Mother’s Day.  Politicians liked the idea, and President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill in1908 designating the second Sunday of May as a holiday to be called “Mother’s Day.”

Although Jarvis initially worked with the floral industry to raise awareness of Mother’s Day, by1920 she had become so disenchanted with the commercialization of the holiday that she urged people to quit buying Mother’s Day flowers, cards and candles. She launched countless lawsuits against groups that used the name “Mother’s Day,” and  spent most of her personal wealth in legal fees.

"By the time of her death in 1948, Jarvis had disowned the holiday altogether and even lobbied the government to see it removed from the American calendar,” says the History Channel.

How much money is spent for Mother's Day

According to the National Retail Federation, consumers in the United States will spend $31.7 billion on Mother’s Day this year, up $5.6 billion from 2022. It is said that more long-distance calls are made on Mother ‘s Day than any other day of the year. Some of us are old enough to remember before cell phones that every land line in the country was busy Mother’s Day afternoons and evenings.

A call from her daughter

I remember the year my daughter called me on Mother’s Day from Chicago, where she was visiting a friend. She and her friend had attended church where a group was taking contributions for animals that could be used as food sources .

“I have good news and better news,” she said, when she called. “The good news is that I bought you a Mother’s Day present. It’s two rabbits. The better news is that the rabbits are going to live in Africa.”

Happy Mother’s Day to every woman who has ever nurtured a child.Martha Moore Hobson was an early Certified Financial Planner in the region. Although retired, she still volunteers in the community.

This article originally appeared on Oakridger: Mother's Day is bittersweet