Commercialization

Why isn’t Mother’s day significant to some families? One of my interivewees said, “It [Mother’s Day] is not really celebrated since it is a holiday made up by Hallmark.” Sadly, Mother’s Day turned into another Hallmark Holiday like Valentine’s Day and Easter. Ana Jarvis, the creator of the US Mother’s Day, lamented for the commercialization of Mother’s Day. She once said during an interview, “Confectioners put a white ribbon on a box of candy and advance the price just because it’s Mother’s Day. There is no connection between candy and this day. It is pure commercialization…The sending of a wire is not sufficient. Write a letter to your mother. No person is too busy to do this. Any mother would rather have a line of the worst scribble from her son or daughter than any fancy greeting card or telegram…” ¹

The following diagram demonstrates how Mother’s Day has become a day for gifting. According to the chart, $1.96 billion was spent on flowers only.

Over the years, Mother’s Day has lost its true meaning of honoring motherhood. What originally began as a day for celebrating the valuable contributions that mothers made became a day for flowers and cards. As Anna Jarvis said, Mother’s day was supposed to be “a day of sentiment, not profit.”  ²

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