How do we take back Mother's Day?

Weaving joy into OUR day

This Sunday, May 11th, is Mother’s Day in the US. Among the mothers we know, it’s approached with trepidation, frustration, sadness, and maybe a little bit of feeling celebrated. Like most holidays, it’s a consumerist extravaganza that profits big companies and often leaves mothers feeling underwhelmed.

How can we flip this switch? How can we actually find joy and support on this day?

A bit of history

Mother’s Day was first celebrated as a holiday in the United States on May 12, 1907. Anna Jarvis wanted to honor her deceased mother, Ann Jarvis, for creating “Mother’s Friendship Day” that reunited families torn apart as the result of the Civil War. Ann Jarvis was also responsible for creating “Mother’s Day Work Clubs” that helped improve sanitation and health for both the Union and Confederate parties during the Civil War. After the Civil War, these clubs taught women how to hygienically care for their children.

Nine years after the first Mother’s Day celebration, Anna Jarvis was disgusted by the commercialism and false sentimentality of the day meant to commemorate and honor her mother, who championed families and health. She was so distraught that she spent the rest of her life, and most of her personal wealth, trying to abolish Mother’s Day.

Capitalism strikes again

This year, Mother’s Day is expected to generate $34.1 billion in revenue. Imagine how many children could be fed, how many diseases could be treated, with that amount of money going to support families instead of being spent on cards and flowers.

That this holiday benefits commercial business more than mothers themselves, deeply underscores how motherhood is not supported or respected in our culture. The lack of paid parental leave and affordable childcare puts a burden on us from the moment our babies are born. Not to mention the fact that Social Security credits are not available for women who don’t work outside of the home, harming women and their families in the long term.

Yet we still celebrate this holiday in spite of this mind blowing consumerism. It is not at all what Anna Jarvis or her mother would have ever wanted or envisioned. Though we can now take clean water for granted and typhoid is no longer a threat, the way we live and our cultural value of money over people still pose great risks to our mental and physical health.

Plus, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows

Mother’s Day can be fraught with so many emotions. If our own mothers are emotionally immature or narcissistic, we may not know how to navigate meeting their expectations alongside celebrating ourselves as mothers. Or we may have lost our mothers prematurely before they could see and celebrate us as mothers. There can be incredible grief, pain, and heartache on this day.

But share this on Mother’s day? Our culture says “How dare you!” Just brush all of that hard stuff and those inconvenient feelings under the rug. Today is for celebrating mothers!

So we’re supposed to put on a happy face and be so grateful while our culture is busy devaluing mothers, our experiences, and the work we do.

So, how do we take back Mother’s day?

Let’s start by trying to hold it all at once and remember that more than one thing can be true. Here’s what we’re holding:

We can receive flowers AND choose to spend at least part of the day doing something that truly brings us joy (more on that below in our practice).

We can grieve for the mother we had (or never had) AND celebrate our own mothering journey.

We can acknowledge our painful relationship with our mothers AND still celebrate them.

We can acknowledge the parts of motherhood we despise AND still allow ourselves to be honored by those who love us.

We can mother our children AND ourselves, healing the wounds we all have from living in a patriarchal, capitalist, oppressive culture.

Our practice this week and the conversations we’ll have in our circles are inspired by the idea that we can make this Mother’s Day more empowering, supportive and joyful. By putting some thought into it, we can celebrate beyond consumerism and consider what will feel rejuvenating and celebratory for us.

---

Want to go deeper?

Our summer cohort registration opens Friday! Gather with a group of like-minded mothers to dive deeper into the topics we share here each week. Weekly meetings are in-person in Silver Spring, MD on zoom. Use the button below to add your name to the waitlist and get early access to registration.

---

Practice

Today’s practice comes from the work of Bethany Webster, author of Discovering the Inner Mother.

A 3-step process for creating an empowering Mother's Day:

1. What are all the things that make Mother's day stressful for you? List them out in detail.

2. If you could act in total alignment with your truth, how would you do things differently? If there were no limits and you could spend this day any way you wanted, what would that look like? Flesh that out in detail.

3. What is at least one thing that you can do this Mother's Day to move the painful status quo closer to your ideal? Decide what you'd like to do. Take a step today to make that happen. You got this!

---

Resource

Bethany Webster’s article Happy “Inner Mother’s” Day: Acknowledging the Myth and Embracing Your Truth is a great place to dive deeper into navigating mother’s day for yourself.