United Way of Monroe/Lenawee Counties: Saluting mothers and supporting families

Today is Mother’s Day. I wondered how this special day became a holiday. In my research, I came across these five surprising facts about Mother’s Day in a Good Housekeeping article from April 2020:

1. Anna Reeves Jarvis is most often credited with founding Mother’s Day in honor of her mother, Ann, who passed away in May 1905. She wished to honor her mother and all mothers as a group. The first Mother’s Day celebration took place three years later in Grafton, West Virginia, at Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill recognizing Jarvis' idea as a national holiday to be celebrated each second Sunday in May.

2. Also credited with the origins of Mother’s Day is activist and author Julia Ward Howe, who floated the idea decades earlier — to promote a Mothers’ Peace Day. For her and the antiwar activists who agreed with her position — including Jarvis’ own mother — the idea of Mother’s Day should spread unity across the globe in the wake of so much trauma following the Civil War in America and Franco-Prussian War in Europe. These early attempts to create a cohesive peace-focused Mother’s Day eventually receded when the other concept took hold.

3. In today’s world, Mother’s Day is a $25 billion holiday in America, with those who celebrate spending about $200 on mom, according to National Retail Federation data published in 2019. More people buy flowers for Mother’s Day than any other time of year except during the Christmas and Hanukkah season. Gift givers spend more than $5 billion on jewelry alone, and nearly another $5 billion on that special outing. Approximately $843 million is spent on cards, and $2.6 billion each on flowers and gift certificates, according to the data.

4. Ironically, today’s commercialism is the exact opposite of what Jarvis would have wanted. She actively advocated against aggressive marketing, even facing arrests for public disturbances. She even railed against first lady Eleanor Roosevelt for interpreting Mother’s Day inclusively to promote the well-being of women and children at large. She did not even believe in organizations using the occasion to raise funds for charity; she did not trust their intentions and saw them as profiteering from the holiday. In 1920, she said, “To have Mother’s Day the burdensome, wasteful, expensive gift day that Christmas and other special days have become, is not our pleasure.” She also said, “If the American people are not willing to protect Mother’s Day from the hordes of money schemers that would overwhelm it with their schemes, then we shall cease having a Mother’s Day — and we know how.” Jarvis herself never profited from her idea. In 1948, at the age of 84, she died penniless — having used all her money to fight the holiday’s commercialization — in a sanitarium.

5. The white carnation became the official flower of the holiday shortly after Jarvis’ own mother died. On May 10, 1908 — three years after that loss — Jarvis sent 500 white carnations to Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in her mother’s honor for that first Mother’s Day celebration, according to Time. Jarvis compared that flower’s shape and life cycle to a mother’s love. “The carnation does not drop its petals, but hugs them to its heart as it dies, and so, too, mothers hug their children to their hearts, their mother love never dying,” she said in a 1927 interview. Good Housekeeping suggests if you are buying flowers for mom this year, consider the white carnation — but also pause to consider the holiday's uncommercial origins. After all, it is not about flowers or cards or gift cards or jewelry — it is all about love.

If you have or had the unconditional love of a good mother, you are blessed. I was blessed with a wonderful mother. If you still have your mother, you are lucky. Losing my mom was one of the most difficult events in my life. Being her only daughter was a joy, and we were close. The heartache never goes away, you just learn to live with it. I find great comfort in knowing I will see her again one day. I wish you the gift of a good mother or mother figure in your life. If they are still on this earth, please honor them today.

I have the great honor of working with the United Way whose mission is to try and ensure all have an opportunity for a good life. Part of that mission includes funding agencies and programs that do promote a healthy family life. Many of the families we support are single female headed households, and we help mothers in crisis with resources to improve their livelihood and those of their children. We honor motherhood on an ongoing basis via a safety net of programs to ensure low-income mothers successfully raise their families.

The United Way currently funds 27 local agency programs in Monroe County. See our website (www.unitedwayMLC.org) for a list of those agencies. We appreciate your support to help fight poverty, homelessness, food insecurity, mental health and substance use disorders, domestic violence and other important community needs. Additional direct programs and services provided by our local United Way include the 211 Health and Human Services Hotline, Project Ramp, Health Check, and the 21-Week Racial Equity Challenge.

For more information about living united, please contact us. Call us at 734-242-1331, email lpipis@unitedwaymlc.org, contact or visit us at 216 N. Monroe St., Monroe, MI 48162, or visit our website at www.unitedwaymlc.org. Visit our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok social media platforms, too.

Laura Schultz Pipis is the executive director of the United Way of Monroe/Lenawee Counties.

This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: United Way of Monroe/Lenawee Counties: Saluting mothers