When is Mother’s Day 2018 and what is Mothering Sunday?
When is Mother’s Day 2018 and what is Mothering Sunday?
Mother’s Day is an annual celebration of motherhood and a day on which mother figures are honoured around the world, most commonly marked in March or May.
The day is referred to as Mothering Sunday in the UK and falls on the fourth Sunday of Lent but in other countries like the United States, the holiday has less of a religious observance and has been criticised for being too commercial.
Mothers are usually given gifts and are treated to lunch or a fun outing. Special Mother’s Day cakes can also be bought and schools usually encourage children to make handmade cards for the mother figures in their lives.
What is Mothering Sunday?
Mothering Sunday is a Catholic and Protestant holiday and is celebrated on Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent, usually three weeks before Easter Sunday.
In the 16th century, people would visit their ‘mother’ church, the church where they were baptised or their local church, on Laetare Sunday and they were said to have gone ‘a-mothering’.
Later, Mothering Sunday became a day when domestic servants would be given a day off to visit their mother church and their families.
By the 1920s, the Mothering Sunday tradition became less celebrated and the commercialised American version of the holiday replaced the religious event.
Inspired by Civil War activist Anna Jarvis’s memorial to her mother and her consequent campaign to make Mother’s Day a recognised holiday in America, daughter of a Nottinghamshire vicar, Constance Penswick-Smith, created the Mothering Sunday Movement.
When is Mother’s Day 2018 and what is Mothering Sunday?
She wrote a book calling for a revival of Mothering Sunday in a time where there was strong influence from American and Canadian soldiers serving in World War II and therefore, the Church of England traditions were merged with the imported ones.
When is Mother’s Day 2018?
In the UK, Mother’s Day 2018 will be celebrated on Sunday, March 11.
The US will mark Mother’s Day 2018 on Sunday, May 13.
Australia, China, India and a number of European countries also celebrate Mother’s Day in May.
Why does the UK have a different Mother’s Day to other countries?
As mentioned above, the American Mother’s Day holiday was established in 1914 after Anna Jarvis’s campaign for a celebration in May in the memory of her mother.
President Woodrow Wilson made Mother’s Day an official holiday, but later Anna was not pleased by how commercialised the day had become, but many countries have adopted these modern traditions to celebrate on the same day.
Mother’s Day in the US always fall on the second Sunday in May and like the UK’s Mothering Sunday, which is based on Easter, the date changes every year.
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