Posted on 05/14/2017 6:53:09 AM PDT by TigerClaws
American social activist Anna Jarvis may be the mother of Mother’s Day (Jarvis founded the holiday in the United States in the early 1900s, in honour of her own late mother). But historians are unanimous about one thing: Jarvis was no fan of her offspring. This is because when Jarvis launched the movement to establish a day recognizing mothers she did not envision the pink, floral, commercial behemoth the holiday would grow up to become. What did Jarvis envision for Mother’s Day?
Moms working together for a better world. Jarvis hoped that the holiday would develop into a day of unified action, one on which American moms might advocate for mothers less fortunate than them.
Fat chance.
Today, Mother’s Day means many things to many people — breakfast in bed, flowers, scented candles, mugs that say “Number 1 mom” — but social justice isn’t usually one of them. Brunch is.
Read more:
When Mother's Day is a reminder of loss
The woman who created Mother’s Day died despising it
Once Upon A City: Stores quick to cash in on Mother’s Day
And yet, as though egged on by the ghost of Anna Jarvis, critics of the spring holiday abound. Every year, Mother’s Day — and Father’s Day too for that matter — are ridiculed for their Hallmark-, Indigo-inspired consumerism. Lately though, these holidays are getting a bad rap for something else too: rather than make people feel good, they tend to make them feel bad or excluded.
For example: Both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are extremely difficult for people who have lost parents or children, a reality that many who have experienced stillbirth pregnancies, for instance, have begun to write about openly in recent years. The gendered holidays are also generally a drag for non-binary parents who don’t identify with a single gender. Some of these parents have even begun advocating online for the creation of a brand new holiday to recognize parents who aren’t male or female. (A proposed date for “Non Binary Parents Day” is July 17). None of these critics have proposed scrapping Mother’s Day or Father’s Day altogether. But I’m beginning to wonder if that’s exactly what we should do.
After all, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day aren’t merely painful for a lot of people or exclusionary to some: they are often simply more trouble than they are worth — for everyone. Survey research shows that one of the most common complaints about these parental-honour holidays is that they’re a lot of hard work and stress for precisely the people they’re meant to pamper. A big reason for this is that beyond the obligation to see family members you may not want to see, these holidays don’t fall on a day of our own choosing — and unlike Christmas, New Year’s or Thanksgiving, you don’t necessarily get a day off work. You may love everyone in your family and you may love brunch, but if you don’t get to see your loved ones and eat your breakfast in bed on your own terms, at a time of your own choosing, then Mother’s Day can be a burden rather than a boon.
This is why I’d like to propose that we scrap both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day for good. And in the spirit of both inclusivity and selfishness, I’d like to propose a new holiday called “Guardian’s Day.” Guardian’s Day, which has a nice sci-fi fantasy ring to it, will be a rotating statutory holiday — meaning you can celebrate it any day you please, and you can interpret it any way you like. A guardian can be a mom, a dad, a non-binary parent, a grandparent, an aunt, an uncle, a pet owner, or why the heck not — somebody who takes really good care of his houseplants.
Guardian’s Day may not fulfil Anna Jarvis’s dream of moms working together to help the less fortunate (it would also most certainly lead to the production of millions of the kind of impersonal greeting cards she hated so much). But at the very least, it might mean that the people the day is meant to honour might actually, for once, enjoy themselves.
How about a “Hate the Press Day,” when people fire off scorching emails and tweets to the most perverse member of the sad-sack media, whose main purpose in life is to make others miserable for feeling happy?
What does Bruce Jenner celebrate?
You’re on to something there.
We could call it Truth Day. Then we could take the writer’s advice and celebrate anytime we want.
300 days a year seems like a good start.
Boy what a bunch of scrooges! BAHUMBUG!
Is that why Muslim’s hate Mother’s Day?
It is time to get rid of Mother’s Day, decades past time actually. Not for any of the reasons above but because it became stupid and commercial and pointless.
>http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2014/07/diversity-destruction.html<
...Diversity is an anti-religion, and anti-ideology, a nepotism which promotes everything except one’s own family.
Diversity therefore equals the destruction of any and all religions and of all positive ideologies.
Because Diversity can only be destructive: whatever IS is insufficiently or inexactly diverse.
Whatever IS must therefore be destroyed in order to make it MORE Diverse.
And there is no conceivable or measurable end to it. Yesterday’s Diversity is today’s intolerable lack of Diversity.
Diversity is the destruction of Good; and it is the destruction of all types of Good - however defined. All are chewed up and spat out by Diversity.
Diversity is the promotion of chaos by the destruction of Good; and then there-naming of chaos as Good.
I don’t see the commercial aspect at all. It’s not over commercialized, but that’s not why they oppose it: it’s because it’s about NORMAL motherhood (I include adoption in that).
Right. And there should NOT be a day for dickchoppers, surrogate “mothers” and other perversions.
Just like every other ‘holiday’. I really hate the commercialization of all holidays so I don’t participate in most of them other than maybe a card from the Dollar Tree.
Christmas is the one that really peeves me off. I still like to keep it simple. I’m really glad my daughter finally saw the error of her ways and toned down the stuff for the kids the last few years.
Some of us think of it as more than just being commercial. People need to be prompted to remember the most important person in our lives. You don’t have celebrate it if you want to.
Remember what Michelle Obama said: Barak has a lot of work to do the change our history and traditions.
I think that is now the mantra of the Demoncrats.
That guy over there is offended you pointed out he’s a 1%er
Mother’s day is the busiest restaurant day of the year. Scrapping it would lose millions of dollars for the restaurant industry and their employees.
People do NOT need to be prompted to remember the most important person in their lives. And it’s not really up to me, the mother demands it, and especially the mother-in-law. I’ve noticed there’s an inverse proportion between the quality of the parenting and the importance of the day. The MIL thinks this is the most important day in the calendar, she’s also the most evil person I know who deliberately sabotaged the emotional growth of her children. Good mothers I know think the day is stupid and tell their kids to ignore it.
“Some of these parents have even begun advocating online for the creation of a brand new holiday to recognize parents who aren’t male or female.”
No such thing.
I didn’t fully realize the importance of a Mothers’ Day remembrance until I became a mother.
By who? That's the first I've ever heard of it.
Let’s face it. People, for the most part, are idiots and take for granted the people who are most important in their lives. It is nice to dedicate a day out our very busy lives to a VIP.
Again, if you don’t want to celebrate it, then don’t.
A nice brunch on behalf of our mothers is not going being an end to world. And seeing the reaction from is priceless!
I don’t give in or provide for Hallmark Holidays (Mothers Day, Fathers Day, Valentines Day). All pointless money making schemes for people who desperately seek and desire attention
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