All over the country mothers received the fruits of sometimes furtive endeavours, in the shape of burnt toast and marmalade in bed at five o’clock in the morning, inexpertly made flour and water paste photo frames complete with pictures of beloved, tousled haired six year olds within, hastily bought boxes of chocolates, all presented with love. For that is what Mother’s Day is all about.
The fourth Sunday in Lent is always Mothering Sunday. As Easter moves, so too does the date for this special day. Its origins owe its roots to the practise of visiting the ‘Mother Church’ once a year, rather than the local parish church. The annual visit became a day to reunite with the family. Children, particularly daughters, in domestic service or working in apprenticeships, would frequently be given this day off specifically to visit their mother and so the day became known as ‘Mother’s Day.’ Children as young as ten would often go away from the family home to work as servants in Victorian England. Children would bring gifts and flowers for their mother when they were reunited, to show their love.
Today mothers are given cards, flowers and small gifts which are often homemade. They can usually look forward to being awoken very early by small children thinking that their efforts at being quiet to ‘surprise’ Mummy have gone unnoticed.
In the UK restaurants do a roaring trade on Mother’s Day. Special menus are devised and frequently the mother in the group is presented with a red rose or a free glass of champagne. Bookings are taken weeks in advance and the chosen venue is usually full to bursting point.
Card shops sell a dazzling variety of Mother’s Day cards at exorbitant prices most younger children cannot afford on a meagre stipend of pocket money.
Fathers are expected to join in.
All over the country men suddenly find themselves confronted with situations they know nothing about. How on earth do you mix up flour and water paste to make glue? Do we have any flour? Does it matter if you use self raising or plain? How do I get it off the carpet? The cat has eaten it, will it be ok? These and many other similar questions plague fathers of smaller children intent on making Mummy the best Mother’s Day present ever.
Older children are much easier. They tap Dad for funds and disappear to the shops. All the average Father of a teen has to do is remember that Mother’s Day is coming, remind the kids and make sure they have enough funds not to disappoint Mum. Easy! ......It is just as well that there are numerous corner shops in the United Kingdom which open on Sunday mornings and cater for the last minute, panic shopper. These usually give good business to corner shops. With the restricted range of a small business, the panic shopper, usually Dad, will buy just about anything so long as he can get it home before Mum notices he has gone. The wily shopkeeper will take advantage and so it is not unusual to see sad faced men trudging home early on Mothering Sunday with large heart shaped boxes of chocolates left over from Valentine’s Day, for which they have paid a small fortune. Dad vows to be better prepared next year.
Mums can also look forward to the one day in the year when miracles happen in bedrooms. All of a sudden children notice all the junk, sorry treasure, cluttering the floor. The empty soda cans, the dirty laundry, the school books higgledy-piggledy all over every available space, the teddy bears and the action men, the toy cars and the Cindy dolls. If Mum is really lucky, the kids will not just notice but actually do something about all the mess! She will find that, all of a sudden, there are machine loads of extra washing as clothing, long lost and given up forever, find the light of day again. The sink becomes full of dirty crockery, some complete with interesting collections of mould and the whole family remembers what the carpet looks like in the kids bedroom. In short, the bedroom gets tidied up.

Long distance it can be harder to keep up the Mother’s Day tradition but with the advent of the computer age and, in particular, wonderful email, it is much easier than it was. The long distance child of any age, when armed with a credit card, can now log on, browse shops online and send gifts to Mum, waiting at home. What could be better? With the introduction of such innovations as Skype, families can now see their loved ones on Mother’s Day and chat as if they were all together.

This Mother’s Day I called my mother and found she had received the Narcissi I sent her. My brother had visited and brought more blooms. She loves flowers and hearing from us. She was happy.

As for my ‘little’ boy, I received a hastily written email on Monday morning wishing me a happy Mother’s Day. Apparently there is an e-card on its way but this is obviously stuck in the system hub as it has not yet arrived on my desktop. Love is blind of course and I am happy he remembered me.

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