Ahead of May 11, Sharon Lesley Le Roux reflects on the reasons we celebrate Mother’s Day, and why they are as relevant today as ever
Ahead of May 11, Sharon Lesley Le Roux reflects on the reasons we celebrate Mother’s Day, and why they are as relevant today as ever
As a child growing up in the UK, Mother’s Day was all about a handful of daffodils (my mother’s favourite flower) picked from the garden, a handmade card containing a message of love, and a Mother’s Day breakfast that consisted of my mother’s favourite marmalade, with toast and coffee, all delivered on a tray to my mother in bed.
For my mother, I’m certain it wasn’t about any of these gifts at all. It was knowing the pleasure that bringing them all together had given me, her child. It was understanding the excitement I felt about being able to ‘surprise’ her on her special day. And, because she was my mother, she would have overlooked the soil I’d brought in on my shoes, not seen where I’d coloured outside the lines, not cared one jot about the burnt bits I hadn’t managed to scrape off.
Whoever, and wherever, we are in the world, we all observe Mother’s Day. The same day my mother and I were busy celebrating, so were mothers and their children in Ireland, Nigeria and Bangladesh. Mother’s Day is one of only a handful of celebrations observed by families all around the world; each nation setting aside a date once a year – the second Sunday of May in Hong Kong – to celebrate the relationship of mother and child.
Mother’s Day has been observed, in some way or other, throughout history. The Greeks and Romans held annual festivals to honour their mother goddesses. In 17th-century England, Mothering Sunday – the fourth Sunday of Lent – was the day faithful people returned to their ‘mother church,’ the church they were baptised in. After a prayer service to honour Mary, Mother of Jesus, children of the parish would give the gifts and flowers they’d brought for their own mothers. On Mothering Sunday in Victorian times, girls working in service as housemaids went home to visit their mothers.
In early-20th-century America, one daughter’s successful campaign for a national day to celebrate and honour the sacrifices mothers make for their children is why today millions of people around the world, celebrate Mother’s Day on the second Sunday of May.
In Hong Kong, as in the US, children celebrate their mothers by giving them a card and a bouquet of flowers. Carnations are a popular choice. Schools encourage children to dedicate poems to their mothers and to help out in special ways at home. As it is a holiday, families often mark the occasion with a big get-together.
In the 21st century, what is Mother’s Day about? Is it just another of those ‘Hallmark’ occasions which businesses cash in on? I don’t think so. Handmade cards made by small hands still beat shop-bought ones, just as they did when I was a child. Phone conversations with mothers and grandmothers abroad are priceless compared to flowers, chocolates or gifts ordered online.
Mother’s Day isn’t just one special day in the year when children get to show their awareness of, and appreciation for, the things their mothers do for them; of course, this happens in households all over the world every day. For children, Mother’s Day acts as a reminder to stop and think what their relationships with their mothers mean.
Similarly, for mothers, Mother’s Day is a time when we are reminded to pause a while in our busy lives, and reflect on just how absolutely awesome it is for us to be able to bring life into the world. It’s for us to remember there was a time when our little people didn’t exist, and to acknowledge how much richer, as a result, our lives are for having them.
It’s a time for us to look back and see how, as each year goes by, we are changed by the act of motherhood. We are changed by the sacrifices we make daily, simply to put our children before ourselves. And we are changed by feelings of protection and empathy and joy and more, the depths of which we didn’t experience before we had children. In creating our children, we, in turn, have evolved and grown.