Mother’s Day celebrations, traditions evolve over time

By Mary Beth Hislop, Town Crier Staff Writer

This Sunday, mom’s kitchen sink will be piled high with dirty dishes, the flowers in her garden will be cut at their heads and crayon-colored cards bearing best wishes will be littered throughout the house as dads and children present mom with breakfast in bed highlighted by a vase of her favorite flowers. May 11 is Mother’s Day.

And if you aren’t a mom, you definitely have one, so it’s pretty likely that you’re either the one sitting up in bed, pretending to like chocolate chips and marshmallows on burnt waffles, or one of the many men who forgot to pick up flowers at a florist and resorted to desecrating the garden.

How did the second Sunday, in May come to this – a day to honor mothers, symbols of peace – sandwiched between Cinco de Mayo and Memorial Day?

The bottom line is – moms just don’t care. They don’t care if breakfast is charred, dirty dishes await them or the outside sanctuary for sanity is spoiled.

Because they love you just as much you love them.

Honoring moms

Moms weren’t always honored with such lavish attention, but much credit is awarded to Anna Jarvis for being instrumental in assuring mothers in the United States that they would be appreciated at least one day each year.

Jarvis’ mother, Anna Reeves Jarvis, established a mother’s day in 1858 in West Virginia to bring mothers together and draw attention to local sanitation issues. Titled “Mothers’ Work Day,” the movement expanded during the Civil War to focus on unsanitary conditions that permeated both sides of the conflict.

In 1872 Julia Ward Howe, who penned “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” instituted a Mother’s Day for Peace, held June 2 and celebrated for several years in many cities across America. When Howe stopped funding the celebration, the holiday was phased out.

When Anna Jarvis’ mother died in 1905, Anna swore to fill her mother’s shoes by lobbying politicians for a nationally recognized day to honor mothers. To that end, she distributed white carnations, her mother’s favorite, to promote the Mother’s Day movement.

In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson signed a joint resolution passed by Congress that established a national Mother’s Day that emphasized the role of mothers in the home but not as a day for mothers as peace-promoters as Howe envisioned.

In the holiday’s beginnings, Mother’s Day was observed by attending church and writing letters to mothers. Jarvis never dreamed it would become a commercial success.

Moms, moms’ moms and dads’ moms

With weekdays that begin at 7 a.m. getting her 6-year-old son, Kiran, ready for school, Los Altos mom Michelle Oblena still doesn’t think a day spent by herself being pampered at a spa fits the Mother’s Day tradition.

While some moms may dream of downtime alone on an isolated beach without children in tow, Oblena said she plans on spending the day with her husband, Christian, and Kiran.

“That’s the whole reason for Mother’s Day,” Oblena said. “I wouldn’t be a mom without Kiran.”

Oblena said her Sunday would start with a relaxing brunch, followed by a daytrip, which she’ll strongly suggest be the Annie Leibovitz photography exhibition in San Francisco.

Diana Ekstrand of Los Altos expects to stay closer to home this Sunday.

“I think I’ll get breakfast in bed, lots of homemade cards and flowers,” she said.

With three children aged 2, 6 and 8, Ekstrand’s days begin a little earlier than Oblena’s, at 6:30 a.m. Once her older children are delivered to school, Ekstrand takes Nicolas on outings to help him release some of that energy we’d all like to have – Happy Hollow, the Children’s Discovery Museum or Shoup Park, where he likes to throw rocks in the creek.

Ekstrand said she doesn’t wait for the annual holiday to do nice things for herself. In between mom duties, she hikes, has dinner with friends and treats herself.

And treating herself is exactly what Evelyn Gerace will have to do if she celebrates her day this weekend with children Skylar, 10, and Madelyn, 7 – her husband will be out of town.

“My kids are too young to do anything for me,” she said.

Gerace said she would probably celebrate Mother’s Day early this year, but the celebration will be bittersweet. Once not more than an hour away from her own mother, Serena Wang, Gerace’s move to Los Altos Hills from Southern California last year will change what was her family’s tradition.

“It becomes pretty hairy,” Gerace said. “We want to make my mom’s Mother’s Day special.”

Distance is problematic for Ekstrand, too. Her parents live on the East Coast and her sister in Paris. Ekstrand celebrated Mother’s Day early when family arrived to attend her daughter’s First Communion.

Oblena said becoming a mother has altered the way she celebrates the day with her own mother, and it’s changed her husband’s tradition also. They, too, celebrate the holiday on a different day to accommodate all the moms in the family.

“We take the opportunity when we have it, not necessarily the day of,” Ekstrand said of holiday celebrations.

Dynamics of

distance and dollars

Whether separated by endless miles or limited time, 96 percent of America’s consumers choose to honor their mothers by purchasing a gift, spending a median $44, according to a 2007 survey of 1,000 consumers by Amplitude Research.

A 2008 survey of U.S. small business owners found that of the 1,000 respondents, 37 percent thought flowers were the best Mother’s Day gifts; dining out was the second most popular purchase to honor mom, garnering 25 percent support from survey respondents; a spa/salon appointment generated 21 percent of the vote; jewelry was the fourth favorite at 13 percent; and 4 percent considered clothing an approprate gift.

The popularity of flowers should keep Jeff Baumgartner and Randy Ellis busy during the next few days. Ellis and Baumgartner own Just for You Florist & Plants in the Rancho Shopping Center and have been fielding orders for fields of flowers for weeks.

“It’s probably the biggest day for florists,” Baumgartner said of Mother’s Day, which tops Valentine’s Day in sales. “Not everybody has a sweetheart, but most families generally have two moms.”

As opposed to the roses popular in February, Baumgartner said bright, mixed arrangements are favored in May. He looks for the nicest, freshest flowers. Priced at $25, wrapped bouquets are the favorites with teenagers and men in their 20s and 30s, shopping at the last minute.

“They don’t always plan far ahead,” he said of those men.

While the shop offers seven different arrangements, Baumgartner said, “Here in Los Altos, everybody wants something custom.”

Still, cut flowers are destined to die, no matter how much they cost. Baumgartner is designing something new for moms, the European basket garden, which will last longer, he said.

Commercial concerns

As Mother’s Day evolved from church devotions and letter writing to sending pre-made cards, gifts and flowers, Anna Jarvis became angry that a day devoted to mothers’ memories was being exploited for profit. Before she died in 1948, Jarvis purportedly admitted she was sorry for ever promoting the annual tradition.

But staying true to Jarvis’ spirit in honoring mothers and personalizing the holiday is Linda Mooers’ kindergarten class at Springer School. Last week, the young students were putting the final touches of paint on pinch pots they created from balls of clay – this week the pots will be glazed, fired and wrapped for mom.

“As a mom, I know that any gift a child makes with (his or her) own hands is special and they will cherish them forever,” Mooers said.

Five-year-old Marley Magee thinks her mom will really like the pink and purple colors she chose for her pinch pot, while Nithin Singhal, also 5, still has to figure out his color scheme.

It’s a painstaking process for the patience of 5-year-old children, Mooers said, involving forming, etching, painting – a lot – firing, glazing and firing.

“Every ounce of love and effort goes into each stroke,” Mooers said of the painting process.

Moreover, Jarvis would be jubilant and Hallmark heartbroken to know the tiny, shiny clay pots will be delivered to mom with cards made in class, pastel-colored construction paper carefully folded – “they’re experts at that” – and decorated with hearts, flowers, teddy bears and best wishes for a happy mother’s day, Mooers said.

Second-graders in Judy Jorgenson’s class at Covington School are making cards themed “The Top 10 Reasons Why I Love My Mother,” delivered with gifts they’ve made themselves.

Jorgenson said the children are working hard on their own top 10 reasons.

“The main theme is that their moms take care of them,” she said. “They find a way to (get) ‘help’ in there … and we want to be helpful to our children.”

Real rewards

It won’t matter if the cards have misspellings – although dad might want to reconsider allowing the kids to cook – but whatever the plans, moms really aren’t waiting for Mother’s Day to feel acknowledged.

“I definitely think that it’s a very rewarding, ‘job,’” Oblena said of motherhood, “having that little somebody that loves you unconditionally.”

Ekstrand couldn’t agree more.

“I feel like it’s Mother’s Day every day,” Ekstrand said. “I get an enormous amount of reward and satisfaction throughout the year.”

Contact Mary Beth Hislop at marybethh@latc.com.