Mother's Day

Mother's Day can be a painful time, especially for people living with loss. Author Rebecca Soffer shares ideas for how to care for yourself or loved ones on ...

You may click on “Your Choices” below to learn about and use cookie management tools to limit use of cookies when you visit NPR’s sites. If you click “Agree and Continue” below, you acknowledge that your cookie choices in those tools will be respected and that you otherwise agree to the use of cookies on NPR’s sites. NPR’s sites use cookies, similar tracking and storage technologies, and information about the device you use to access our sites (together, “cookies”) to enhance your viewing, listening and user experience, personalize content, personalize messages from NPR’s sponsors, provide social media features, and analyze NPR’s traffic.

Since its inception, people have wanted to do away with Mother's Day — even the founder, Anna Jarvis. But the holiday is worth saving, even though it's been ...

Or we can honor a deceased mother by joining efforts to provide Mother’s Day flowers and gifts to people who might otherwise be alone and forgotten on the day. Finally, unless your mother demands love in a box, consider doing an activity with her (of her choosing) on Mother’s Day or in the subsequent weeks. Nor do you have to have a living mother, or even a good mother, to celebrate. But it’s worth noting that you don’t have to be a mother to find value in the day. But it was Hallmark’s co-opting of Mother’s Day and the rapid commercialization that led the founder, Anna Jarvis, to hate the holiday. Stretching to the highest rung of inclusivity, Hallmark even sells Mother’s Day cards for dads.

We take a look at the history, politics and commerce of Mother's Day, through the story of its founder, Anna Jarvis.

and even attacked First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt for using Mother’s Day to raise funds for charities.” When a proposal was floated to rename Mother’s Day as ‘Parents’ Day’, she opposed it vociferously. The price of carnations would shoot up around Mother’s Day, even though modifications were made to Jarvis’ original idea, with the white flowers now used for deceased mothers and red or pink ones for those alive. Jarvis died, almost penniless and alone, in a sanatorium in 1948. Anna Jarvis’ family version of the holiday was eagerly taken up by the greeting card industry, the flower industry, candy makers, etc., and Mother’s Day was soon heavily commercialised. Historians and feminists have pointed out that Jarvis, through her energetic efforts to get the day recognised, narrowed the definition of ‘mother’ to a caregiver who puts her children’s needs first. Jarvis hated what the day she strove to establish was fast mutating into. Two years before this, she crashed a retail confectioner convention. She now threw her energies in arresting this commercialisation, through written campaigns, litigations, and later, direct action. Notable among these was Julia Ward Howe, author, abolitionist and suffragist, who had started a Mothers’ Day (apostrophe placement important) celebration in June 1873, which continued for some years. Howe’s, and even the elder Mrs Jarvis’, ideas were more political. Sunday being a holiday was likely to make her job easier. She is entitled to it.”

I am one of the fortunate ones. God has overblessed me by placing four amazing mothers directly in my path – both my grandmothers, my own mother, and my wife.

They get a meal when they might not have it, someone willing to listen when they need it, and encouragement that anything is possible under the most improbable of circumstances. We pray that the love and influence of other mothers found their way into your child, resulting in a positive impact while you get it together. What I have seen is that even the worst of mothers can have a positive impact. They soon come to realize that the goal isn't perfection and mistakes are nothing to fear. It's not possible, and it's a burden that would be too great to carry. None of them are perfect, and I hope they never tried to be.

The devil works hard, but Kris Jenner works even harder for her kids. Boss lady Jenner knows how to keep her six kids Kourtney, Kim, Khloe, Rob, Kendall, ...

Angelina Jolie is notorious for being a loving mother of six kids. Emme's twin brother, Max, is the spitting image of their dad, Marc Anthony. Ciara "1, 2, Step(ed)" into motherhood in 2014 when she and rapper Future welcome their son, also named Future. She and now-husband Russell Wilson also expanded their family with daughter Sienna and son Win.

The majority of countries take their lead from the US practice of celebrating Mother's Day on the second Sunday of May.

The commodification of sentimental symbols like the white carnation led her to withering criticism and even to being arrested for protesting against organisations selling Mother’s Day merchandise. While Mothering Sunday is technically a different celebration to Mother’s Day, the success of the US holiday led to a resurgence in the traditional observance after interest had waned in the early 20th century. What are the origins of Mother’s Day in the UK?