Mothers Day

It is hard not to notice that Mothers Day is coming up this weekend. Even my local bakery has some rather gorgeous looking shortbread biscuits in to commemorate it. This is, of course the first year that I will be celebrating it without my mother, so in fact I have noticed it more than I usually would. My mother, obsessed about birthdays, was not too bothered about Mothers Day. I think this is because she was Jewish, and any Jewish comedian worth their salt would remind you that for Jewish mothers, every day is Mothers Day and should be celebrated as such. So, it is only in recent years, when I was living so much closer to her, that I would remember to drop by with a bunch of flowers for her.

I thought I would look into the origins of Mothers Day, which used to be celebrated here in the UK as a specifically Christian festival. I seem to recall when I was younger that it was called Mothering Sunday, and indeed, when I looked into it, that was originally the case. The custom originated in the Middle Ages, when people who had moved away from home were allowed to return to their ‘mother’ churches (and sometimes their mothers) on the fourth Sunday in Lent. A ‘mother’ church is the church where you were baptised. The day coincided with Mid-Lent Sunday, Laetare Sunday, which was a day of respite from penitential fasting. The tradition continued even after the English Reformation, but with the definition of a ‘mother’ church being widened to include the local parish church or the nearest cathedral (a cathedral being the mother church of all the parish churches in a diocese). Anyone who did this was said to have gone ‘mothering’. In later times, Mothering Sunday became a day when domestic servants were given a day off to visit their mother church, usually with their own mothers and family members.

Mothers Day as we know it now in fact arises out of an American tradition, instituted by a woman called Anna Jarvis, who in 1913, created a movement asking for a day to be dedicated to honouring all mothers. In the UK, this cause was taken up by a woman called Constance Penswick Smith, who set up the Mothering Sunday movement and who believed that the day should honour the following aspects of motherhood: The Church – our ‘Mother’; Mothers of Earthly Homes; the Mother of Jesus and Gifts of Mother Earth. I am impressed by the way in which she was covering all the bases! By the 1950’s it was celebrated across the UK and the Commonwealth. Currently Mothering Sunday has become Mothers Day due to American influence, but continues to be held during Lent, whereas the American day is in May. The holiday has also gained secular observance in Britain as a celebration of motherhood, following the American tradition, rather than its original religious meaning, although it is still celebrated in churches as Mothering Sunday.

What I did not know before I looked into this, is that because the day is associated with a reprieve from fasting, and with the story of the Feeding of the Five Thousand, there are various types of buns and cakes associated with Mothering Sunday. The main one is Simnel Cake, a fruit cake with marzipan icing representing Jesus and the Twelve Apostles which I have always associated more with Easter. In some parts of the UK mothering buns, plain yeast leavened buns, iced and sprinkled with hundreds and thousands, are or used to be eaten for breakfast.

It is told that when Anna Jarvis died, part of her funeral was paid for by florists. It is true that flowers are a very traditional gift on Mothers Day, but I have also learned that across many decades it has been usual for children to give violets to their mothers. Violets are meant to symbolise faithfulness and remembrance (and apparently are one of the oldest queer symbols having been linked to lesbian love for over two thousand years, but that is another story). It helps, I guess, that they are also in flower at this time of year. They are one of my favourite flowers, as well as being one of my favourite colours, so this appealed to me for sure.

In common with my mother, I am not that concerned with Mothers Day and doubt that my children will remember it which does not bother me at all. I have a few issues with the day to be honest – I am not that keen on the commercialisation of it and I believe that the day must be difficult for those who have lost their mothers or their children, or are estranged from their mothers or their children, or who wanted to be mothers but have not been able to be for whatever reason. And perhaps a little part of me (the Jewish mother part) also believes that mothers should be honoured and remembered at all times, not for just one day a year.

On a lighter note, and in the spirit of commercialism, because I have to remember that I am also a retailer, and because I have not been able to link Mothers Day to my shop in any way, the photo below, which I saw on Facebook, made me laugh, but perhaps it is also true.