My view: Catherine Scott

THERE is something afoot in our house. When I enter a room I am greeted with the rustling of tissue paper and the hiding of felt tips, and small voices shouting “go away”.

I have a feeling Mothering Sunday must be imminent. I will be delighted to receive these gluey tokens of my children’s love for me on Sunday morning. I will be as equally happy with the joy on their little faces as they tidy their bedrooms (a rare occurrence in our house) and attempt to make my day an easy one.

Their joy at my joy at these simple pleasures is enough to make Mother’s Day special for me. But it won’t just be me and the others mums up and down the land content with our children’s hasty art work. Mother’s Day is big business. And in times of hardship, pressure is seemingly constant to “treat your mum to slap-up meal in a top restaurant this Mother’s Day” or “buy her the biggest bouquet you can find to show her just how much you love her”.

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The UK greeting card industry is worth more than £1.2bn a year, according to market research group Mintel. Mother’s Day is one of the biggest events in the industry’s calendar, and Britons send about 23m cards to their mothers.

According to the Flowers & Plants Association, 3.7m mixed bouquets, 394,000 bunches of roses, 294,000 bunches of tulips, 293,000 bunches of freesia and 93,000 foliage plants were bought on Mother’s Day last year.

These statistic would have the founder of Mother’s Day, turning in her grave. The old English Mothering Sunday has its roots in pre-Christian times, but modern-day Mother’s Day – the cards, flowers, chocolates etc – was started in the United States by Anna Jarvis.

The ninth of 11 children, she made it her life’s work to commemorate every mother after her own mother died.

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The idea – like Mothering Sunday – was for families to get together in church to recognise the real value of motherhood.

She got her local church involved and after campaigning for almost a decade, US President Woodrow Wilson officially dedicated a day to mothers in 1914 – the second Sunday in May.

But within years it had become commercialised. Ms Jarvis was horrified. She tried to take action and, along with her sister, Ellsinore, spent the entire family inheritance on trying to undo the damage done to Mother’s Day. She died in 1948, in poverty and without success.

In one respect, what Ms Jarvis wanted from the day lives on – it has taken on huge significance and is a celebration of motherhood. She would have been pleased, however, with a new survey which found that almost half of mums would just like a Mother’s Day hug, and more than a third would just like a simple thank you – although a cup of tea would be nice.

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