The National Retail Federation says Americans spend more than $20 billion on Mother\u2019s Day gifts and treats every year, adding that the outlook for 2014 (Sunday, May 11) is about the same. That figure is dwarfed, to say the least, by the $210 billion we fork over during the winter holidays. Still, the “billion” is the daunting part \u2014 lay mom\u2019s bucks end to end, and they\u2019d literally stretch about 40 times around the world, or to the moon and back.\u00a0
\nAnd to the moon again.
\nThat\u2019s the problem. To hear the day\u2019s founder tell it, 14 cents spent in mom\u2019s honor is 14 cents too many. The late Anna Marie Jarvis pretty much pooped her own party in later life amid her disgust over the commercialization of the event.\u00a0
\n“I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit,” she once lamented, calling the profiteers “termites” and dedicating the last 30 of her 84 years to sabotaging the honor she helped create. Indeed, she and her blind sister Elsinore spent the family inheritance on their failed campaign \u2014 billions of dollars later, Mother\u2019s Day is the third most profitable day of the year, trailing only the winter holidays and Valentine\u2019s Day in total haul.
\nIt all started innocently enough in 1907, two years after the death of Jarvis\u2019 mother (also named Anna). The younger woman, a native of Taylor County, W.Va., saw to it that her mom\u2019s last wish \u2014 the establishment of a day to honor all the nation\u2019s mothers, living and dead, as the givers of life and comfort \u2014 was first marked at a modest church service, during which she passed out a white carnation to each of the 500 mothers in attendance. On May 10, 1908, St. Andrew\u2019s Episcopal Church in Grafton, W.Va. held a service feting Grafton\u2019s moms.
\nThat year, influential Philadelphia businessman John Wanamaker joined Anna\u2019s efforts in creating a national campaign. Soon after, a bill proposing the establishment of Mother\u2019s Day made it as far as the U.S. Senate floor.
\nThe legislators failed to pass the measure \u2014 but by 1909, 46 states informally observed Mother\u2019s Day, and the bill\u2019s reintroduction was only a matter of time. In 1914, on the heels of Anna\u2019s furious campaign efforts, President Wilson signed a joint resolution marking a national observance every second Sunday in May (Anna\u2019s mother died on that day in 1905).
\nThe younger Jarvis\u2019 patience and tenacity had been roundly rewarded, but familiarity would soon breed contempt. Simple good wishes took deleterious wing, landing on printed cards, inside candy boxes and at overhyped restaurants. Even the otherwise pious Wanamaker, who by now had spearheaded the big Wanamaker department store chain (and would eventually become U.S. postmaster general), eagerly profited from the sale of Mother\u2019s Day goods, just as he would over the year\u2019s other major holidays.\u00a0
\nIn 1923, Jarvis unsuccessfully sued New York Gov. Al Smith to stop a Mother\u2019s Day fundraiser; years later, she vigorously campaigned against the issuance of a Mother\u2019s Day postage stamp and was arrested for disturbing the peace during a Mother\u2019s Day flower sale. Even as the years brought surges in revenue, Jarvis\u2019 anti-holiday rhetoric grew to fever pitch.\u00a0
\n“A printed card,” Jarvis said, “means nothing except that you\u2019re too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to mother and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment.”
\nIronically, and unknown to Jarvis, the Florists Exchange \u2014 a major player in the Mother\u2019s Day flower trade \u2014 picked up Jarvis\u2019 nursing home tab. Blind, broke and childless, Jarvis died in 1948, rife with the discouragement she\u2019d experienced amid the perceived ruination of her dream. Perhaps it\u2019s just as well. Today, Mother\u2019s Day is celebrated in more than 80 countries, presumably with the same commercial zeal reflected in those billions of American dollars.
\nAs for me, I think Anna overstated her case. Flowers, after all, are an indispensable part of the human experience and a stable ecosystem; their exchange is presumably a gesture of love and respect, which makes them an especially appropriate Mother\u2019s Day tribute. And yes, you and I are as guilty as the next guy of dipping into that candy box \u2014 but c\u2019mon. It\u2019s the thought that counts, and it\u2019s a cinch mom offered you the goodies of which you eagerly help relieve her every second Sunday in May.
\nBut Jarvis\u2019 distaste is also understandable. There\u2019s a gluttony about such commercial success, and it doesn\u2019t constrain itself to Mother\u2019s Day, Christmas or any single day of the year. Jarvis learned this lesson the hard way \u2014 and she died amid the belief that she\u2019d inadvertently placed a sacred trust in a nationful of the wrong hands.
\n\u2014 Martin Jones Westlin is interim editor of La Jolla Village News.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The National Retail Federation says Americans spend more than $20 billion on Mother\u2019s Day gifts and treats every year, adding that the outlook for 2014 (Sunday, May 11) is about the same. That figure is dwarfed, to say the least, by the $210 billion we fork over during the winter holidays. Still, the “billion” is […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Mother\u2019s Day: Not what founder had in mind","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11593,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-299914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-no-images","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299914\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}