Mother’s Day – Fun Facts!

I’ve been asked to speak Sunday, which is Mother’s Day. Last Mother’s Day both my sons were the youth speakers, which was great! This year, I get to not only speak, but also to bat clean up – which was specifically pointed out to me. So, the counselor is shaking things up a bit, which I like (even if I don’t love to speak!) Here’s my talk so far (comments welcome):

An observation I read on line was that men who speak on Mother’s Day are relentlessly positive, describing the fictional paragons of virtue that raised them. When women talk about motherhood they just sound exhausted.

I had assumed that Mother’s Day was a greeting card holiday invented by Hallmark to turn filial guilt into revenue. I was surprised to discover that Mother’s Day has a history longer than Christianity! Ancients celebrated Isis (Mother of the Pharaohs), Rhea (Greek Mother of the Gods), and Cybele (The Great Mother). Cybele’s festival actually bears some interesting resemblance to Asherah worship (who is considered by scholars to be the Hebrew God’s wife – aka Heavenly Mother). A tree (also the symbol of Asherah) is cut down and paraded to the town while honey cakes and flowers are given out to honor the Great Mother.

A later tradition that emerged in Europe was a celebration of the Mother Church. People would travel to their home town and decorate the church with flowers and jewels. In the 1600s in the UK, this evolved to include a day off for those in service (e.g. maids and footmen) to go home on this day and also enjoy a family feast in which their own mother was honored with a cake. This was called Mothering Day. When the Puritans colonized America, they dropped this tradition as it interrupted their unremitting misery with a fun party. Also they didn’t have a two class system. Everyone’s lives pretty much sucked equally.

After the American Civil War, Mother’s Day was instituted in the US as a day of peace and protesting the sacrifices mothers had to bear who lost sons in the war. In 1908, mothers began to be recognized with carnations: white for deceased mothers, pink or red for the rest. After WWI, France (who had adopted Mother’s Day from the US) added a twist to this by encouraging repopulation. Mothers were given an award based on how many children they had (a gold medal and straightjacket to those with 8 or more children). In some wards I’ve attended they’ve done something similar, recognizing women in the ward based on number of children or grandchildren. Maybe we are trying to repopulate the church.

Over 70 countries celebrate Mother’s Day now. In South Korea it’s Parents Day. In Armenia it’s Mother’s Day and Beauty Day. Arab countries have a different date that coincides with the beginning of spring. In Yugoslavia and Serbia Mothers Day is part of a 3 day celebration before Christmas. The first day is Childrens Day, and the children are tied up until they promise to behave well. The next day is Mother’s Day, and the mother is tied up until she gives them treats. The third day is Fathers Day, and he’s tied up until he promises a lavish Christmas. Apparently they really like tying people up. I can only imagine what happens when Father Christmas shows up. “Give us the goods or the reindeer takes one to the head!” I’m guessing these are traditions that emerge where the winters are long, cold, and mostly confined indoors.

A few years ago, my MIL gave me a copy of the 5 Love Languages, a book that talks about how people recognize affection. For example, some people (like my mother) are skeptical of gifts, feeling like they are wasteful and only given out of obligation, but other people (like my mother-in-law) feel gifts are very personal and show that someone was spending time thinking about you. No matter what we give, the gift should be something that comes from the heart that the receiver will value. Given the variety of Mothers Day traditions, there are traditions that fit all five of these love languages:

 Words of Affirmation. Argentinian children surround their mother and read poetry. In Mexico, the family serenades the mother with songs. In Japan, they write cards to their mothers and also participate in an art contest every fourth year in which children draw pictures of their mother.

 Quality Time. Visiting home, or barring that, a phone call. Many traditions include a family feast followed by time together playing games.

 Receiving Gifts. Traditional gifts include flowers, chocolates, jewelry, Prada handbags.

 Acts of Service. Doing chores for mother, breakfast in bed, cooking the meal. Some countries have a tradition of giving to charity, especially women’s charities. Others use the day to proclaim peace or protest war. The Mothering Day tradition of decorating the church could also be an act of service.

 Physical Touch. Many women appreciate a spa certificate or massage. In Ethiopia, after the feast, the women and girls put butter on their faces and chests and then the whole family dances and sings. I suppose being tied up like they do in Yugoslavia involves a weird sort of physical touch.

We were sent to the earth as infants, dependent on imperfect adults to care for us, to teach us, and to love us despite our own imperfections. We came from a perfected Heavenly Mother who entrusted us in the care of an imperfect human mother. Clearly, no matter how imperfect our mothers were, they were deemed good enough by Heavenly Parents for the purpose they needed to fill. As someone once said: “”There is no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.” We are also cared for in an imperfect human church. In both cases, it’s the ties with other people striving to love and help each other that we should appreciate. But as Rudyard Kipling said: ““An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.” And we are also dependent on the relationship we develop with our perfect saviour. 1 John 4:19 says of our relationship with the saviour: “We love him, because he first loved us.” Likewise, we love our mothers because they first loved us before we knew how to love or to care for others. And as with the saviour, there isn’t just one day a year for showing our appreciation. “If you haven’t convinced your mother you love her on the other 364 days a year, nothing you do on Mother’s Day will convince her.” The worst gift for mother’s day is hypocrisy.

This mother’s day, I challenge all of us to reflect with gratitude on these different mothers:

– Our own mothers, in all their imperfection and grace.

– Our mother church, in all its imperfection and grace.

– Our Heavenly Mother, who sent us here to learn from our mothers and our mother church and grow to achieve our infinite potential.

I also found some good Mother’s Day quotes that I probably won’t use in my talk:

– “A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.” I think my mother would look up with crumbs on her mouth and say, “Oh, you’re home!”

– “I’m against handing out plants on Mother’s Day. That’s the last thing a mother needs: responsibility for yet another living thing.”

– “I want my children to have all the things I couldn’t afford. Then I want to move in with them.” Phyllis Diller

– “There was never a child so lovely but that his mother was glad to get him to sleep.” Ralph Waldo Emerson