What is Mother’s day? As the name suggests, Mother’s Day is a day for celebrating mothers and motherhood. A mother can be a biological mother: someone who gave birth to us.
Or, a mother can be an adopted mother, a foster parent or similar. We can also use Mother’s Day to celebrate anyone who is a mother figure to us, if we want.
Mother’s Day is an annual celebration that falls on different days of the year in different countries. In the India, for instance, it is celebrated in May, whilst in the UK it is celebrated in May. In India, the 2017 celebrations will be held on Sunday, May 14.
This is a designated day in the year when we celebrate our mothers. Though Mother’s Day might fall on different days in different countries, the principle behind it is the same: respecting, honoring and celebrating mothers.
Why do we celebrate Mother’s Day?
Mother’s Day is a hugely important event in the calendar. There are plenty of reasons for celebrating Mother’s Day. Below, you will find various reasons why we celebrate Mother’s Day.
Historical reasons: Mother’s Day has its roots in ancient Greek and Roman festivals, and Christian customs in Britain in the early modern era. The UK customs in the Renaissance, for example, were linked to celebrations of the Virgin Mary and ‘mothering Sunday’ rituals were developed around this from at least the early seventeenth century onward.
Mother’s Day is an opportunity to show our love for our mothers: Sometimes, a formalized celebration can be a useful prompt to show our appreciation for someone that we care about. Mother’s Day helps us to show our love. Quite simply, we are motivated to celebrate this day because of the love that we feel for our parents. That is why this day has kept on going for so many centuries - and will most probably continue well into the future as well.
Saying thank you: Mother’s do a lot for us. Our mothers gave us life, and throughout our lives mothers do so much for us: everything from feeding us to educating us in fact. Mother’s Day is a day when we can say thank you to our mothers for all that they have done for us. Sometimes it helps to have a designated day, and a formal structure, for doing so.
Mother’s Day brings families together: Mother’s Day is a designated day for families (and all the family, not just mothers and their children) to get together and spend some quality time together.
The economy: one aspect of Mother’s Day is related to the economy - shops sell specialty gifts and cards for this day. However, we do not need to feel that giving a material gift is the only way to show that we love someone. Finding the words to express ourselves spontaneously can be difficult here.
Fun time spent together: Mother’s Day is a very fun holiday to get involved with. It can involve good food, good times and lots of laughter. A great day for relaxing and letting your hair down as you get to know your children, or your mother, a bit more. Typically, on Mother’s Day, mothers and children like to eat together, head to the park, watch a film or go out to a restaurant - whatever is fun and a little pampering too.
Getting to know our mothers: Mother’s Day is a chance to really talk to our mothers and get to know them. We might learn something new and interesting about their past life, before they became our mother. Mothers often have fascinating stories to tell, and wisdom to share with us as well. So why not use Mother’s Day to make the most of this?
Celebrating women: Mother’s Day is also a good opportunity to celebrate women in general and to ponder how to take action to achieve equal rights for all. Not all women are mothers, of course - and not all want to be. But, Mother’s Day is a great day for thinking about the diversity of women in general and how all women should be respected equally.
A benchmark for the rest of the year: We are doing Mother’s Day wrong if we think that we can just pamper our mothers on this one day of the year and we are let off the hook for the rest of the year. Rather, Mother’s Day should be a day when we learn how to treat our mothers’ right for the rest of our lives.
Conclusion.
Mother’s Day is a very important day in the yearly calendar. As you can see from the above, Mother’s Day is celebrated for a large number of very good reasons. It is always a good idea to start laying plans for Mother’s Day well in advance, but also to celebrate our mothers on every single day of the year.
Laura, edited.