Summertime

[poliphilo]

I started putting the clocks forward yesterday afternoon in the hope that by bedtime my body would have acclimatized itself to the lost hour. It didn't work.

I blame the time-lag for the fact that the card I wrote for my mother first thing this morning reads-

Happy Birth (whoops!) Mothering Sunday...

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

When did Mothering Sunday start to be called Mother's Day? I found a card with the former for my own Aged P., since that's what she tends to call it, but they were thin on the ground. Is it a UK/US thing? A secularizing gesture? I don't know. But "Mothering Sunday" always makes me think that people should be doing more mothering on that day than any other. Apple pies for all!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I was brought up to believe that Mothering Sunday was all about domestic servants getting time off to return to the "mother" church of the parish in which they were born. Nothing to do with human mothers at all.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Now you mention it, I've heard that too. I've also heard that the whole thing was invented by greetings card manufacturers. Could Mothering Sunday and Mother's Day have been two separate occasions that somehow became conflated? That seems unlikely, though I suppose possible. Ah well, I'm content to let it remain a mystery.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I believe the American Mother's Day is celebrated on a different date. If that's the case we might well be looking at two different holidays that have run together in the popular mind.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

The UK isactually out of line with the rest of Europe on this one.

Mothers' Day? Hmmm, yes. I had a mother once. :o(

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've never made a big deal of it- until now.

[redatt.livejournal.com]

Mothering Sunday and Mothers' Day have separate origins, one religious the other secular*, it's just that in the UK lines blurred. I suppose whether one says Mothering Sunday or Mothers' Day depends on how young/secular/traditionalist one is.

*And there after very quickly and heavily exploited by comercial concerns, thus cementing it in culture.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's not my favourite festival. I don't like being morally blackmailed into giving money to the card manufacturers.