The History of Mother’s Day: From Ancient Times to National Socialism and Beyond

Mother’s Day turns 100 on Sunday. It is a day with tradition, on which spirits separate. While shop windows are adorned with pink hearts and flowers, children in day-care centers are busy making little Mother’s Day gifts and mothers are beaming with happiness in TV commercials while listening to kitschy advertising slogans, others consider the day absolutely unnecessary. They argue: Mother’s Day only serves old gender role clichés and is a consumer battle from which retailers in particular make money. Appreciation for the mothers? It doesn’t take a single day to do this, it should happen throughout the year.

But many are also bothered by the historical legacy of Mother’s Day. It is often said that it was an invention of National Socialism. But is that true?

500 cloves are the beginning

The origin of Mother’s Day goes far back – to ancient times. For example, the ancient Greeks paid homage to Rhea, the goddess of the earth and fertility, at their spring festivals. British historians report on “Mothering Day”, the tradition of which, initially dedicated to “Mother Church”, began in the Middle Ages. Later on this spring day, children in particular were allowed to return to their mothers in the service of wealthy families. As a small gift, they brought them flowers they had picked along the way.

The beginnings of Mother’s Day in its modern form lie in the USA. In 1870, in the face of war and slavery, the poet and suffragette Julia Ward Howe called for a “Mother’s Day of Peace”. The feminist Anna Jarvis took up this idea again decades later. She is known as the “Mother of Mother’s Day”. At the time, she wanted to honor the political role of women in society once a year. Her mother, Anna Maria Reeves Jarvis, was a role model, and she had founded the “Mother’s Days Works Clubs”, in which she campaigned against the high rate of child mortality and for health promotion. She died on May 9, 1905.

On the third anniversary of her mother’s death, Anna Jarvis wanted to honor her with a special memorial service. She gave out 500 red and white carnations, her mother’s favorite flowers, to all the mothers who attended the service at St. Andrew’s Methodist Episcopal Church in West Virginia. The red carnations were meant to honor the living mothers, the white ones to commemorate the deceased. The carnation is still a popular Mother’s Day gift today.

For years, Anna Jarvis campaigned to make Mother’s Day a recognized national holiday. In 1914, at the request of Congress, US President Woodrow Wilson introduced the second Sunday in May as a national day of honor. But it was quickly commercialized, against which Jarvis fought hard but in vain. The fact that Mother’s Day had its roots in the women’s movement was forgotten.

National Socialists award “Cross of Honor of the German Mother”

It didn’t take long for the idea of ​​Mother’s Day to spill over into Europe – first to England, Scandinavia and Switzerland. In Germany there was the first Mother’s Day on May 13, 1923, initiated by the “Association of German Flower Shop Owners” out of purely commercial interests. It was introduced as “Day of Flower Wishes”, for which posters with the inscription “Honour the mother” were advertised.

A few years later, the day of honor fell into the clutches of the National Socialists. Even if they didn’t invent it, they at least misused it for propaganda purposes. In 1934 they declared Mother’s Day a national holiday and reduced the role of women to their ability to bear children. “With every child that the woman of the nation brings into the world, she is fighting her fight for the nation,” emphasized Adolf Hitler.

On Mother’s Day 1939, for example, three million women were awarded the “German Mother’s Cross of Honor” – a medal for special childbirth achievements. From the fourth child there was a bronze award, from the sixth in silver, for eight or more children the variant in gold. Provided that the women’s way of life went hand in hand with the values ​​of the Nazi regime.

After the Second World War, Mother’s Day was initially abolished. But in the early 1950s it made a comeback – at least in Germany. There it was mainly commercial. In the GDR, where Mother’s Day was notorious as western reactionary, it was replaced by International Women’s Day on March 8th.

Rename Mother’s Day?

But even today, a hundred years later, National Socialism sticks to Mother’s Day. This is one of the reasons why there is now a demand to rename it – to Parents’ Day.

“I believe that we should rededicate Mother’s Day to Parent’s Day, otherwise we will give the mother a responsibility that she cannot and does not assume on her own,” argues family and education researcher Wassilios Fthenakis. Father’s Day could also be rededicated in this way. “Parents’ Day as a day of love, togetherness, understanding and respect.” No society can exist without parents. “We will not depict the entire diversity with one model, but the spirit behind it.”

RND/with dpa material