The Repeal of Mother's Day
Look, I’m no Grinch. Enjoy your holidays if they bring you the joy they promise. Have at it and godspeed. However, for the parents out there for whom Mother’s and Father’s Days have never felt quite right, this one’s for you.
When my kids were little and had to be persuaded to make valentines for their entire class or create a card for their teacher, the “Come on, Father’s Day is this weekend, it’s time to make cards and show your dad you love him” was simply another part of my job as a parent. As the kids got older, and it became clear that Father’s Day had become my obligation lest their dad feel disappointed or forgotten, I began to resent both the duty and the holiday.
I had a sneaking suspicion that Mother’s Day and Father’s Day were manufactured relatively recently, either by someone in the retail industry or by someone adjacent to the retail industry. It turns out my hunch was mostly correct.
The holiday had a few false starts before Anna Ward Jarvis threw herself into the cause. Formalizing Mother’s Day - and getting credit for it - became her raison d’être, a cause she’d champion, then defend for the rest of her life.
Here’s where the holiday starts to go off the rails for both me and Jarvis: in 1908, she partnered with a large department store in Philadelphia to make Mother’s Day a big public deal - in Philadelphia, at least. It worked, and thousands of people showed up to claim their promised free carnation and shop for gifts. In 1914, Jarvis got her way and Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation that made Mother’s Day an official national holiday.
While Jarvis intended to formalize a day set aside for the heartfelt expression of love for mothers, the department store she’d partnered with in 1908 glimpsed the massive financial boon inherent in a holiday ripe for gifting. In response to the runaway commercialization of what she saw as her holiday, Jarvis went to battle. To be clear: she lost the battle and the war. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), consumers will spend $33.5 billion dollars on Mother’s Day this year, only slightly off from last year’s record of $35.7 billion. The NRF report on Mother’s Day spending continues,
Eighty-four percent of U.S. adults are expected to celebrate the holiday. On average, those celebrating plan to spend $254.04 on Mother’s Day gifts and celebrations, the second highest per-person figure, following last year’s record $274.02 per person. The biggest spenders are expected to be those between the ages of 35 and 44, who are budgeting $345.75. Most (59%) of those celebrating the holiday are shopping specifically for a mother or stepmother, followed by a wife (22%) or daughter (12%).
Jarvis would be appalled. In response to early efforts to commercialize the holiday, she campaigned against all who stood to profit from it, including florists, department stores, and candymakers. According to History.com she spent much of her savings on lawsuits, suing those who stood to profit from Mother’s Day. She disavowed her role in creating the holiday, and lobbied for it to be removed from the calendar.
To have Mother’s Day the burdensome, wasteful, expensive gift day that Christmas and other special days have become, is not our pleasure, […] 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. (National Geographic)
Turns out we do, indeed, know how, and we did. After a marital kerfuffle around expectations versus one year’s hard reality when my kids were around 8 and 13, my husband and I decided to remove the holiday from the Lahey calendar.
We took our decision to the kids and we settled on the removal of three holidays that felt manufactured or carried unwanted obligation: Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Valentine’s Day. For the first few years, My husband and I issued reassurances that our decision really was still in effect: no matter what their teacher or the internet or the signs in store windows said, we have chosen not to honor these holidays. No, really. We promise. No, we won’t be unilaterally changing our minds after it’s too late to find a card or gift or restaurant reservation, and no, no one will get in trouble or risk disappointment.
We still celebrate Mother’s and Father’s Day for my parents and my in laws because they were not a part of our family’s decision, but for our little family of four, ding dong, the obligation to express love one other on a particular day, according to someone else’s timing or expectation, is quite dead.
What remains in their stead have been genuine, heartfelt expressions of love when they well up and spill over, whether in a text sent on a random Wednesday, a card that seemed just perfect when we stumbled upon it last week, or in gifts we see in a shop and can’t not get.
For those of you who observe, I wish you all the happiest, most perfect Mother’s and Father’s Days this year. Parenting can simultaneously be both the most joyous and the most challenging experiences there is, so if a holiday (or the elimination of it) makes our lives better, celebrations are absolutely in order.