Do you know the history of Mother’s Day? I love to research the history of holidays and wondered how Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and all those “… Days” came into existence. Apparently in the United States, Anna Jarvis organized the first official Mother’s Day celebration in 1908 to honor her late mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis. Anna’s vision was deeply personal for her and now it is for so many others – a day for reflection, gratitude and honoring the sacrifices of mothers across the nation.
Then in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation establishing Mother’s Day as a national holiday. Jarvis later became one of its fiercest critics, protesting the commercialization of what she intended to be a sacred, emotional observance rooted in remembrance and loss.
What’s your take? Is Mother’s Day a wonderful time to honor our mothers or has it become too commercialized?
I tend to think there is always a both/and: I believe honoring the mothers and mother figures in our lives is a wonderful gesture but it is also fraught with so much more…
The Reality Beneath the Celebration: Grief & Mother Loss
When our mothers are alive and well, Mother’s Day is a great way to give them a special day of our time and attention. However, many of us do not have a mother to take to brunch or bring flowers to.
Approximately 30% of people in the U.S. have experienced the loss of their biological mother. This includes both adults and children—particularly those who lost their mother early in life, a loss that can deeply shape identity, attachment, and the path one takes moving forward.
Then there are the mothers who are the ones grieving – the mothers who have experienced the heartache of deep loss. In fact, as I am drafting this article, it is International Bereaved Mother’s Day.
Millions of mothers globally have experienced child loss (studied across 170 countries) and in the United States, tens of thousands of children die each year from all manners of death.
Mother’s Day can also create a greater sense of loss for those mothers who have experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth. Oftentimes pregnancy loss is invisible to everyone else and can leave the mothers grieving without recognition.
Then there are the mothers and children whose relationship is non-existent through choice such as a mother relinquishing her child(ren) either voluntarily or through court systems… or the mothers and children whose relationship has become estranged.
Every year there are more and more mothers who cannot imagine “celebrating” Mother’s Day because it is a painful reminder of their deep loss.
Mother’s Day: Where Grief and Celebration Can Co-exist
The commercialized segment of Mother’s Day portrayed by greeting cards, bouquets of flowers and family celebration can be a wonderful time to celebrate and honor the mother figures past and present who have provided us love, safety and nurturing.
Yet we can remember the essence of Anna Jarvis’ wish to celebrate mothers. It was never meant to be purely celebratory because it was born from grief, remembrance and the love that continues beyond loss.
What if Mother’s Day didn’t ask us to choose between celebration and grief?
What if it allowed both?
What if we gave ourselves permission to:
- celebrate where there is love
- grieve where there is loss
and honor the ways both - can exist in the same breath
Perhaps that is what Anna Jarvis was trying to tell us all along.
Not a perfect day.
But a real one.
This Mother’s Day, perhaps you will consider reaching out to someone who:
- has lost their mother
- has lost a child
- has placed a child for adoption
- or carries a complicated relationship with motherhood
An Invitation
If this day feels heavy for you, especially as a mother grieving the loss of a child, you can access my book How Do I Survive? 7 Steps to Living After Child Loss, which was written to gently support you in navigating life after loss. If it feels supportive, you can access it on our website.
And for those who feel called to walk alongside others in their grief—whether professionally or from the heart—our certification program exists to help you do just that. It is a space where lived experience can be transformed into meaningful support for others.
Because healing doesn’t happen in isolation.
It happens in connection.