Facts about Mother’s Day
More calls are made on Mother’s Day than any other day of the year. Reportedly there are approximately 122 million calls are made on the second Sunday of May every year.
Mother’s Day is the third highest selling holiday for flowers and plants. Valentine’s Day might get the roses, but after Christmas and Hanukkah, more people buy flowers and plants for their moms on Mother’s Day than any other holiday. Indeed, approximately 1/4 of all the flowers purchased throughout the year are bought for Mother’s Day.
One of the earliest Mother’s Day celebrations was in Ancient Greece. The Greeks would have spring celebrations in honor of Rhea, the goddess of fertility, motherhood, and generation.
The history of American Mother’s Day starts with peacemaker Ann Jarvis. During and following the Civil War, Ann Jarvis made a concerted effort to foster friendship and community between the mothers on both sides of the war. She started a committee in 1868 which established the first glimmer of today’s holiday: “Mother’s Friendship Day.”
Ann’s daughter Anna continued her legacy by creating the official holiday. Anna Reeves Jarvis sought to honor her own mother by establishing an intimate day of observance that is very obviously the basis of today’s holiday. The very first Mother’s Day was celebrated in 1908. President Woodrow Wilson signed the holiday into law in 1914.
Anna Jarvis would later try to stop what Mother’s Day became. The holiday quickly became a commercialized opportunity for producers to sell flowers, candies, and cards. Anna Reeves Jarvis felt this was detracting from the personal and intimate aspects of the holiday and defied this by starting boycotts, walkouts, and even condemned first lady Eleanor Roosevelt for using the day as a means of fundraising. Jarvis would eventually use all her money in this fight, and died at the age of 84 in a sanatorium.
Normally, Mother’s Day is the busiest day of the year for restaurants. According to a survey by the National Restaurant Association, as much as 48% of people make plans to go to a restaurant for Mother’s Day.
Some countries still observe ancient festivals honoring mothers. In India, people celebrate Durga-puja, a festival that pays homage to the mother goddess, Durga. The festival is a ten-day event that takes place around September or October.
The moniker ‘Mom’ comes from babies. The first thing most babies can vocalize is the ‘ma’ sound, which is why in almost every language the word for mother begins with the letter ‘M’ or is some iteration of the ‘ma’ sound.