The website Statistic Brain estimates that there are 85.4 million mothers in the U.S. and that we'll spend $20.7 billion dollars honoring them this year on Mother's Day. This staggering sum includes restaurant meals, flowers, candy, greeting cards and all manner of other gifts, from the homemade to high-end jewelry. Interestingly, the amount is $8 billion more than what we'll spend on poor old dad come June 19, proving that moms edge out dads in importance when it's time for that once-a-year, "Thank you."
Granted that none of us would be here without our dads, but it's the mom who is credited with giving us life through the remarkable process of pregnancy and birth. It is her face we see the most during childhood, from being cradled in her arms as infants to having her wipe our tears away as she affixes a Band-Aid to a fresh scrape. Our first word was probably "ma ma." All of this accounts for why we never see "Dad" tattooed on the arm of a sailor, though if we do, it might be wise to consult Freud for an explanation.
The extreme importance of mothers carries over into our vocabulary. We have Mother Earth, mother tongue, motherboards and motherships. Substitute "father," and these terms just don't carry the same import. Captain Kirk would be more likely to giggle at mention of a Klingon fathership than command his crew to, "Prepare for battle!"
The celebration of mothers can be traced all the way back to classical times and the festivals held to honor the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele. Our own official holiday dates back to 1914 and Anna Jarvis, who wished to have a day to honor her recently deceased mother, as well as all mothers and the sacrifices made for their children. She also complained that our holidays were weighted in favor of male achievement.
If you are one of those who bemoan yet another holiday designed to enrich the coffers of Hallmark and the FTD Flowers people, you would have been in good company with Jarvis. That's because in six short years she revolted against the commercialization of her holiday and campaigned to stop people from buying cards, candy and flowers. She even sued businesses to get them to cease using "Mother's Day" as a promotion for their products and wished to see the government remove the holiday from its official calendar. Jarvis had wanted the event to be a low-key, family celebration, but there was no putting the marketing genie back in the bottle.
"Silent Cal" Coolidge was president at the time and, speaking on an unrelated topic, he famously remarked, "The chief business of the American people is business." Hence, we all know that Jarvis' campaign proved futile.
A word to the wise: Get out there and buy something for mom or make arrangements to take her to brunch or dinner if you can still get a reservation. The least you can do is call her, though you may run into some technical problems. Phone companies claim that there are more phone calls made on Mother's Day than any other day of the year. Traffic increases as much as 37 percent — another indication of the powers that moms hold over us.
While moms and dads will be with us until the end of time, the words "mother" and "father" may experience some rough seas. The State Department has announced that these maternal and paternal designations will be removed from children's passport applications and replaced with gender neutral terminology.
"The words in the old form were 'mother' and 'father,' " said Brenda Sprague, deputy assistant secretary of state for passport services. "They are now 'parent one' and 'parent two.' "
The State Department website notes: "These improvements are being made to provide a gender neutral description of a child's parents and in recognition of different types of families." Lest you start complaining about political correctness run amok, Brenda Sprague further explains, "We find that with changes in medical science and reproductive technology that we are confronting situations now that we would not have anticipated 10 or 15 years ago."
Despite this awkward State Department dispatch from what appears to be our "Brave New World," I'd like to wish all of the moms out there a Happy Mother's Day!
Frank Batavick writes from Westminster. His column appears Fridays. Email him at fjbatavick@gmail.com.
