compared to other countries?
Mother’s Day in the UK was originally called as Mothering Sunday. It has its origins in the 16th-century custom of ‘Mothering Sunday’, which fell on the fourth Sunday of Lent. That’s three Sundays before Easter and the tie-in with the church calendar is why the date changes each year. The tradition was that you visited your ‘mother church’– either the church where you were baptized,your parish church, or the nearest cathedral.
On this day, which came to be known as ‘Mothering Sunday’, servants were given the day off to go back to the parish in which they were born, with children and other family members also joining in. Because this occasion was a rare opportunity for a family get-together, the focus of the day gradually shifted to visiting not just the mother church, but one’s own mother.
On the way to the church, people gathered wildflowers to leave in the church and to present to their mothers. And, although the day fell during Lent, the abstinence was relaxed for Mothering Sunday and people treated their mothers to edible gifts such as Simnel cake, ‘mothering buns or fig pie.
How did Mothering Sunday change to Mother’s Day?
The name Mother’s Day has its origin from US.It was first celebrated in 1908 – thanks to the efforts of a woman named Anna Jarvis, whose mother,Ann, had nursed soldiers in the American Civil War and founded ‘Mother’s Day Work Clubs’ to help tackle public health. Eager to continue her mother’s work, Anna was successful in getting a day dedicated to honouring mothers nationwide. And then Mother’s Day became a national holiday in 1914 in the US and they celebrate it on the second Sunday in May. US troops brought the idea of ‘Mother’s Day’ over to the UK during the Second World War, and its influence took over the UK’s traditional ‘Mothering Sunday’. But we’ve retained the church-related date which is exactly three weeks before Easter Sunday. The US still celebrate Mother’s Day in May and all the other countries like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India, China, Japan,Philippines, and South Africa follow the US date.
As Mother’s Day falls in the Spring season with the meaning of motherhood, new beginnings and rebirth, so daffodils and other flowers are given as gifts to mothers.In case you were wondering where to put the apostrophe in ‘Mother’s Day’ when you’re writing your card, Anna Jarvis was keen to specify its position, saying that it should be “singular possessive,for each family to honour its own mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers in the world”.
This year, Mother’s Day in the UK falls on 30th March, so make sure you spend some time with your mother and make her feel special and thank her for all that she has done for you.
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO ALL THE MOTHERS OF OUR UK KNANAYA COMMUNITY!
