Mere Christianity – C. S. Lewis (1952)
It is Mothering Sunday (Mother’s Day) here today in the UK.
History tells us that the day has always been celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent, exactly three weeks before Easter Sunday, although for centuries it was about people returning home to their ‘mother’ church on this day which often turned into a family gathering.
The Philadelphian American social activist Anna Jarvis (1864-1948) lobbied the government and this became an official day to honour mothers in 1908. Britain joined the bandwagon in 1913 when a vicar's daughter was inspired by a newspaper report of the campaign and began a push for the day to also be officially marked in England.
The traditions of the day were for mothers to receive handwritten letter and notes of love from their children and simple posies of flowers. However, when in the 1920s, companies started selling Mother's Day cards and manufactured gifts, Jarvis believed that they had exploited the idea for profit and thus established a kudos to the honouring of mothers. In 1938 Mothering Sunday had become a popular celebration with Boy Scouts, Girl Guides and various parishes across Britain, returning it to the idea of giving something that was hand-made, but, by the 1950s businesses once again started to appreciate it as a commercial opportunity.
This brings me back to the quote.
These days it seems to me that Mothering Sunday is more about showing-off how much one person spends, rather than the ethos of the original sentiments. The shops are full of ‘stuff’ that declares all sorts of endearments that should be given from the heart and not in a pre-packaged commercial enterprise aimed at convenience. Worse still, in schools there has always been the customary discussions about what the pupils did to mark the occasion, unwittingly placing a value on how it was celebrated.
Pride should reflect how special a mum is made to feel on that day, not on the amount of money spent.