This year Mother’s Day in the UK falls on 14th March.  It is a day set aside for honouring and pampering our mother’s and to thank them for everything they have done for us.  But why do some call it Mothers Day and others Mothering Sunday?

Mothering Sunday

Originally Mothering Sunday was a religious event, as are so many traditions and festivals. Dating back to the ancient Greeks who celebrate Rhea the Mother of the Gods and Goddesses every spring. The Romans also celebrated their mother Goddess Cybele, every March as far back as 250BC. 

Wth the spread of Christianity this festival was adopted as a day to honour and give thanks to the Virgin Mary mother of Christ and known as Mary Mother. This was deemed to be held on the fourth Sunday in Lent, exactly three weeks before Easter Sunday. (It was sometimes known as Refreshment Sunday because the fasting rules of Lent were relaxed that day).

For this festival it was deemed to be essential for people to visit their “mother church” from wherever their family originally came from. (This reminds me of the Roman census where Mary and Joseph had to travel back to their place of origin). As Christianity spread throughout Europe, Mothering Sunday became an annual fixture in the church calendar. Seeing children as young as 8 years old were often working away from home as apprentices and domestic servants, this automatically reunited families and especially “mothers” who were often separated. It became the custom for employers to give everyone that particular day off so that they could return to their Mother Church and their families.  

The traditional food for Mothering Sunday is Simnel cake, which is a fruit cake with to layers of marzipan, one in the middle and one on top, decorated with sugar violets and 11 balls of marzipan to represent 11 disciples as Judas was not included. The name reputedly comes from an argument between a couple, Simon and Nell over whether the cake should be boiled or baked. Eventually they decided to do both and so it was named after them both.

Mother's Day

In the USA and many other parts of the world is held in May. Mother's Day was established in America by President Wilson in 1914 after many mothers, lead by Anna Jarvis, campaigned for a mothers day in America. The date was selected in memory of her own mother who died. She became disillusioned very soon because she believed the sentiment of love and been overtake by profit. It is believed she said “A printed card means nothing, except you are too lazy to write to the pan who has done more for you than anyone in the world”. In lots of ways she is right. Many other countries choose to celebrate on the second Sunday in May  (which this year is the 9th of May and my mother's birthday) and in some ways it makes it easier as the day is always the same each year whereas Lent always changes as it follows a lunar calendar.

Other countries choose to celebrate it on 8th March which is International Women's Day.