Speaker 1: Hey, this Sandy, and welcome to Stuff I Never told
Speaker 1: your production of I Heart Radios. How Stuff works as
Speaker 1: we record this episode and as you are listening to it,
Speaker 1: if you're listening to it when it comes out into
Speaker 1: your feed. UM, Mother's Day is approaching in the United
Speaker 1: States and so I thought we would have our classic
Speaker 1: update on Mother's Day. And as some of you know,
Speaker 1: I one of the things I first did when I
Speaker 1: got this job, of one of my prior things that
Speaker 1: I was working on was UM I was the producer
Speaker 1: of Stuff I Never told you videos. We used to
Speaker 1: have a YouTube show and I highly recommend checking it
Speaker 1: out if you if you haven't already. But one of
Speaker 1: the my favorite videos that we ever did was on
Speaker 1: the history of Mother's Day. And UM, because I love
Speaker 1: horror movies and m the old co host and creator
Speaker 1: stuff on the utility she she loves like reality shows,
Speaker 1: we did a really fun I think it was fun
Speaker 1: mashup of like horror and reality show and it was
Speaker 1: called Pine Holidays. This story is really really interesting and
Speaker 1: UM I I recommend checking it out. And another thing
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring in here is that UM I
Speaker 1: also work on another podcast called Savor and one of
Speaker 1: the earlier episodes we did in our series and the
Speaker 1: show was um on brunch and Mother's Days, the second
Speaker 1: biggest day for brunch in the United States, and it
Speaker 1: all started out as this whole like Bubba, give the
Speaker 1: mother a day off from cooking and cleaning, and it's
Speaker 1: just still still a very popular tradition for for people
Speaker 1: to take their mother's out for brunch. Also, I do
Speaker 1: want to recognize that this day can be difficult and
Speaker 1: triggering for people who have maybe not the best relationships
Speaker 1: with their moms UM or don't have moms in their lives,
Speaker 1: or for people who want children but cannot have them.
Speaker 1: We see you and we're thinking about you. I hope
Speaker 1: that you enjoy this classic episode about the history of
Speaker 1: Mother's Day. Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from
Speaker 1: how Stuffworks dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline, and happy upcoming Mother's Day
Speaker 1: to all of our mother's listening and to my mother
Speaker 1: even though she's not listening yet. Same here. UM. I
Speaker 1: was so surprised that even though Stuff Mom Never Told
Speaker 1: You has been in existence in podcast land since two
Speaker 1: thousand nine, we've never done an episode on Mother's Day. Crazy,
Speaker 1: I know. So no time like the present, right, because
Speaker 1: Mother's Day is right around the corner. And let's start
Speaker 1: with just a snapshot of Mother's day to day and
Speaker 1: then talk about where Mother's Day came from, because it's fabulous.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, really interesting origins and a really grumpy originator. Yes,
Speaker 1: So just to give you an idea of how big
Speaker 1: Mother's Day is today. In two thousand eleven, in the
Speaker 1: United States alone, spending was expected to reach sixteen point
Speaker 1: three billion dollars, with the average adults spending more than
Speaker 1: a hundred and forty dollars on gifts, according to the
Speaker 1: National Retail Federation, which one forty dollars on gifts makes
Speaker 1: me feel like a very cheap daughter. Yeah, I go
Speaker 1: big on her birthday and Christmas. Mother's Day is more like,
Speaker 1: let's just get together. Yeah, more the more the quality
Speaker 1: time kind of gift. Yeah. And two thirds of Americans
Speaker 1: will celebrate Mother's Day with flowers, and more than thirty
Speaker 1: percent will celebrate with jewelry. And I'm like, who are
Speaker 1: these people who can afford to buy jewelry? Maybe it's
Speaker 1: like crafty jewelry that they get it a local shop
Speaker 1: like macaroni noodle bracelets. Right as a twenty nine year old,
Speaker 1: I'm sure I could do that for my mother and
Speaker 1: she'd appreciate it. It is also, in addition to being
Speaker 1: very popular for Flora's, it is the year's most popular
Speaker 1: holiday for dining out, because that's the whole thing about
Speaker 1: Mother's Day. Don't let mom cook right. Someone else cook
Speaker 1: right one day off, Lady, it won't be dad. Nope,
Speaker 1: it's going to be somebody at a restaurant, because about
Speaker 1: seventy five million US adults were expected to dine out
Speaker 1: in according to the National Restaurant Association. And what else
Speaker 1: do we do her mom on Mother's Day? We give
Speaker 1: her a card, because you know, we want to let
Speaker 1: someone else express some kind sentiment. It's the number three
Speaker 1: holiday for card exchange, behind Christmas and Valentine's Day, according
Speaker 1: to Hallmark. And just to give you a hint at
Speaker 1: how grumpy the Mother's Day founder was about all of
Speaker 1: this stuff that we do for Mother's Day these days,
Speaker 1: she once said, a printed card means nothing except that
Speaker 1: you are too lazy to write to the woman who
Speaker 1: has done more for you than anyone in the world.
Speaker 1: Anna Jarvis, founder of Mother's Day. As I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess I could break out the crayons and make my
Speaker 1: own with construction paper, yeah and stickers. Now, Sally would
Speaker 1: be super excited if I did that. She she kept
Speaker 1: my baby teeth, so she'd probably keep a construction paper card.
Speaker 1: Maybe you could work the baby into the card or
Speaker 1: tape them on or some kind of a bracelet. Yes. Now,
Speaker 1: the US is not the only country, of course, to
Speaker 1: celebrate Mother's Day. Different countries around the world have their
Speaker 1: own forms of Mother's Day celebrations. Yeah. On the Arab calendar,
Speaker 1: Mother's Day falls on March twenty one, to loosely come
Speaker 1: inside with the start of spring. And in Panama it's
Speaker 1: on December eight, when the Catholic Church honors the Virgin Mary.
Speaker 1: August twelve in Thailand is the birthday of Queen Syricuit,
Speaker 1: regarded as the Mother of all ties, and that is
Speaker 1: when they celebrate Mother's Day as well. Yeah, and there
Speaker 1: are a number of countries that deem International Women's Day
Speaker 1: as their default Mother's Day and do all sorts of
Speaker 1: nice things for mothers and women alike. Now, for our
Speaker 1: British listeners, though mothering Sunday is when it all goes down.
Speaker 1: This is a centuries old celebration on the fourth Sunday
Speaker 1: of Lent, and it began as a spring Sunday designated
Speaker 1: for people to visit their area's main cathedral or mother church,
Speaker 1: which led to family reunions, which led to the British
Speaker 1: version of Mother's Day. In this a Sian tradition was
Speaker 1: revived by Constance Smith, who was inspired by Anna Jarvis,
Speaker 1: who started Mother's Day in the United States, and one
Speaker 1: of the traditions um associated with Mothering Sunday slash Mother's
Speaker 1: Day and Brittain is giving a siminal cake to your mom.
Speaker 1: And siminal cakes look delicious. They're a light fruit cake
Speaker 1: with marzi pan layer. Oh no, I think marzipan. It's
Speaker 1: like it's got to be the worst thing in the universe.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But my mother, you know,
Speaker 1: I've said, she flies to Germany and she'll bring me
Speaker 1: marzipan candy from Germany, and it's like the most disappointing
Speaker 1: thing because it's like, oh chocolate, Yeah, you bit into it,
Speaker 1: You're like, oh god, it tastes like furniture polosh. I've
Speaker 1: never had marsy pan. A lot of people like it.
Speaker 1: I my palate cannot handle the marzipan. Perhaps I should
Speaker 1: not make my siminal cake from my mother. I don't
Speaker 1: want to stop you. I'm just saying, maybe taste at first.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I have a feeling we're gonna get
Speaker 1: a lot of listener. I'm sorry. No, it's okay to
Speaker 1: eat your own marzipan or not. But let's get back
Speaker 1: to the United States and to the origin of Mother's Day,
Speaker 1: which you could also call a tale of two Anna's
Speaker 1: I coined that I think I'm gonna write a book
Speaker 1: about it. Um In eighteen sixty eight, Anna Jarvis the
Speaker 1: Elder organized a Mother's Friendship Day in Grafton, West Virginia,
Speaker 1: to reunite family separated during the Civil War. It was
Speaker 1: not intended as a celebration of your mother, but as
Speaker 1: a vehicle for organized social and political action by all mothers.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't so much like let's sit down and
Speaker 1: eat brunch and talk about how awesome you are for
Speaker 1: raising me, But it was like, you know, let's get
Speaker 1: together and build our community. Jarvis and other women organized
Speaker 1: picnics and other events to go along with Mother's Friendship
Speaker 1: Day as pacifist events to unite former foes. And on
Speaker 1: top of this, Anna Jarvis the Elder, who was a
Speaker 1: pacifist obviously and an activist, also organized Mother's Work Days
Speaker 1: to improve sanitation and prevent deaths from disease bearing insects
Speaker 1: and seepage of polluted water. And her early Mother's Day
Speaker 1: work clubs also tended to wounded soldiers of both sides
Speaker 1: during the Civil War, and Mother's Day connections with war
Speaker 1: is going to come up yet again. And another notable
Speaker 1: woman who helped kick off this Mother's Day movement was
Speaker 1: Julia Ward how whose name might ring a bell because
Speaker 1: she wrote Battle Him of the Republic. And in eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy two, that Boston poet, pacifist and suffragist established a
Speaker 1: day for mothers and peace, not long after the Franco
Speaker 1: Prussian War. So from the very beginning uh Mother's Day
Speaker 1: before it really crystallized when Anna Jarvis the Younger started it,
Speaker 1: it was really rooted in peace efforts. Yeah. In eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy Julia Ward Howe wrote the Mother's Day Proclamation? Shall
Speaker 1: I read a little bit of it? We women of
Speaker 1: one country will be too tender to those of another
Speaker 1: country to allow our sons to be trained to injure
Speaker 1: theirs from the bosom of a devastated earth. A voice
Speaker 1: goes up with our own. It says, disarm, disarm. So
Speaker 1: good dramatic reading, thank you, uh so yeah, very pacifist roots.
Speaker 1: And when Anna Jarvis the elder dies, Anna Junior picks
Speaker 1: up the torch and she decides that her mother obviously
Speaker 1: was quite a lady and deserved some honor. Right. Anna
Speaker 1: Junior persuaded churches in Grafton and Philadelphia to dedicate their
Speaker 1: services to mothers on the second Sunday in May of
Speaker 1: nineteen o eight, And she had really decided back a
Speaker 1: year before that a special day was needed to honor
Speaker 1: mother's sacrifices. Um it was quickly adopted people, people got
Speaker 1: find it relatively quickly for a new holiday, and in
Speaker 1: en President Woodrow Wilson recognized Mother's Day. In the first
Speaker 1: decades of the holiday, it was celebrated by a church service,
Speaker 1: and during the church service you'd wear carnations read from
Speaker 1: a mother who's alive or white for one who has passed.
Speaker 1: They would even hand out awards for the oldest or
Speaker 1: newest mothers and for the mother of the most children,
Speaker 1: But Jarvis really wanted it to be something personal where
Speaker 1: you celebrate your mother, which is why Mother's Day is
Speaker 1: mother apostropheus, not Mother's apostrophe. Yeah, she clearly thought her
Speaker 1: mother was wrong on that count. Let's not celebrate all,
Speaker 1: let's just celebrate ours, celebrate yours. Yeah, she you know,
Speaker 1: just something, just a quiet day with your mom. And
Speaker 1: the reason why it's in May, it's because she originally
Speaker 1: wanted it to happen on her mom's birthday, I believe,
Speaker 1: but they couldn't get together a special church service soon enough,
Speaker 1: so they had to push it, and Father's Day lagged
Speaker 1: way behind behind. Um. It was not officially recognized f
Speaker 1: y I until nineteen seventy two, when all Richard Nixon
Speaker 1: signed it into law. People weren't pushing that quite as
Speaker 1: hard as Mother's Day, but so you know, we mentioned
Speaker 1: that it. It gained a lot of traction early on
Speaker 1: and and really picked up speed. But the evolution of
Speaker 1: Mother's Day did not make Anna happy. She was horrified
Speaker 1: by the rapid commercialization of the holiday and spent years
Speaker 1: writing letters to the President about how Mother's Day retailers
Speaker 1: should be stopped yeah. One of the reasons why Mother's
Speaker 1: Day quickly became so popular was because retailers were like, whoa,
Speaker 1: we just got a new holiday that people are going
Speaker 1: to need to buy a lot of things for, and
Speaker 1: Jarvis had none of that. In for instance, she crashed
Speaker 1: a confectioner's convention in Philadelphia, right, And two years later
Speaker 1: she crashed a crushed a convention of the American War
Speaker 1: mothers who used Mother's Day to fundraise and was arrested
Speaker 1: for disturbing the peace. Oh, just disturbing the peace, pacifist woman,
Speaker 1: oh dear um. And in ninety four she succeeded in
Speaker 1: keeping the Post Office from using Mother's Day on a
Speaker 1: three cent stamp in honor of the painting whistlers. Mother,
Speaker 1: I mean, Jervis really did not want Mother's Day going
Speaker 1: so big. Yeah, And in ninety four she went so
Speaker 1: far as to distribute thousands of celluloid flower buttons to
Speaker 1: churches and schools, asking that they'd be sold or given
Speaker 1: away in the hope that it would decrease the Mother's
Speaker 1: Day demand for fresh cut flowers and reduce the floral
Speaker 1: industries profits. She was like, you know, you were going
Speaker 1: to stay home you're gonna go to church, you're gonna
Speaker 1: wear your carnation. We're gonna sit around the table, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna tell your mother how much you love her.
Speaker 1: And by God, if you buy her anything, I will
Speaker 1: bring the wrath of Anna Jarvis down on you. If
Speaker 1: that card is not homemade, my goodness. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: it's interesting that it spun out of control in a
Speaker 1: way so quickly. Why why did it catch on? Because
Speaker 1: you know, it's just it's a holiday. I mean, it
Speaker 1: took until nineteen seventy two for Father's Day to be
Speaker 1: officially recognized, but all of a sudden, from nine seven
Speaker 1: to you know, a decade later, people are going wild
Speaker 1: about it. Well, you know, we live in a big world, Kristen.
Speaker 1: It can be scary sometimes and when changes happen, people
Speaker 1: tend to hold on to old things from the past
Speaker 1: that make them feel comfortable, like their mom's right, literally,
Speaker 1: like their moms. Not that moms are old things. Yes,
Speaker 1: we don't mean to make anybody upset, but during this
Speaker 1: changing world, Mother's Day appealed to profoundly conservative values around
Speaker 1: women roles in the family at a time when they're
Speaker 1: being challenged by the new woman, this new woman who
Speaker 1: drank alcohol and war makeup. Yeah. I mean that was
Speaker 1: flying directly in the face of Victorian era cult of
Speaker 1: motherhood that really built up a woman's entire identity in
Speaker 1: her role as a mother and lee Eric Schmidt, who
Speaker 1: wrote Consumer Rights The Buying and Selling of American Holidays,
Speaker 1: wrote that in the nineteen tens and twenties and often thereafter,
Speaker 1: mothers say served as a kind of solace for many
Speaker 1: American Christians, Protestants and Catholics alike who feared that that
Speaker 1: new womanhood was threatening the very institution of motherhood, domesticity,
Speaker 1: and the family. So basically this was a way that
Speaker 1: you know, some more conservative people saw to bring focus
Speaker 1: back to this role of the woman in the home
Speaker 1: taking care of the kids in her rightful place. They
Speaker 1: would say, yeah. And at the time, a lot of
Speaker 1: people were saying, you know, this was as people were
Speaker 1: moving to cities, clustering in in urban locations, away from
Speaker 1: their families. And at the time in nineteen fifteen, Susan
Speaker 1: Tracy Rice, in her book Get Ready for It Mother's
Speaker 1: Day It's history, origin, celebration, spirit, and significance as related
Speaker 1: in pros and verse, says that the holiday is needed
Speaker 1: because of the growing lack of tender consideration for mothers
Speaker 1: among worldly minded, busy, grown up children. So if that
Speaker 1: wasn't a guilt trip, I don't know what was. Well.
Speaker 1: The ultimate irony with a lot of this and and
Speaker 1: how it really gains team is that even though it
Speaker 1: roots back to these women and their pacifism, it's ultimately
Speaker 1: war propaganda in World War One that helps launch it
Speaker 1: into this huge national thing. In World War One, mothers
Speaker 1: were organizing for peace and they were not very interested
Speaker 1: in helping the war effort. And this is something historically
Speaker 1: with women, um, you know, being more active in peace
Speaker 1: movements and especially moms who don't want to see their
Speaker 1: children going off to war and possibly being killed. But
Speaker 1: the government ended up using propaganda to show that real
Speaker 1: mothers quote unquote knew the true love for their country
Speaker 1: and their sons meant sacrificing their children. And in nineteen eighteen,
Speaker 1: General Pershing said he wanted every soldier an officer to
Speaker 1: write a letter home on Mother's Day to quote carry
Speaker 1: back our courage and our affection onto the patriotic women
Speaker 1: whose love and prayers inspire us and cheer us on
Speaker 1: to victory, which I'm sure Anna Jarvis would have just
Speaker 1: I don't even know what she would have should have
Speaker 1: burned Pershing's house down or something and sprinkled it with
Speaker 1: the celluloid flower button um be highly flammable. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: melt it would cover it in a weird coating anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so Mother's Day, you know, relatively new holiday. Father's Day
Speaker 1: did not catch on as quickly. One holiday that people
Speaker 1: tried to get instituted that ended up fizzling out it
Speaker 1: was Parents Day, and it's something that fizzled out and
Speaker 1: continued to fizzle out throughout the twentieth century. Yeah, people
Speaker 1: have tried really hard to cram Parents Day down our throats. Nope,
Speaker 1: we are not having it for whatever reason. In the
Speaker 1: early nineteen twenties is New York radio personality Robert Spiro,
Speaker 1: who I think was called Uncle Bob, sponsored the first gathering,
Speaker 1: but it ended up fizzling out after nineteen thirty nine
Speaker 1: when he retired from organizing it. And one of the
Speaker 1: big reasons why Parents Day never caught on was because
Speaker 1: it didn't have much support among retailers because they're like, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: we got Mother's Day and we're gonna have a Father's Day.
Speaker 1: That's two days people have to buy things. If you
Speaker 1: cram it in a one day, we lose some profits.
Speaker 1: So they weren't having it, and it just never caught
Speaker 1: on enough to become a true social movement. But Anna Jarvis, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: might have been one of the reasons why Spiro kicked
Speaker 1: it off to begin with. Yeah, Spiro's New York Committee
Speaker 1: for the Celebration of Mother's Day not Parents Day Mother's
Speaker 1: Day was prevented from sponsoring a Mother's Day parade and
Speaker 1: meeting at the City College of New York. Why because
Speaker 1: Anna Jarvis, the younger by then widely recognized as the
Speaker 1: founder of Mother's Day and the president of the Philadelphia
Speaker 1: based Mother's Day International Association, put a halt to his festivity,
Speaker 1: saying that Spiro had no right to hold a parade
Speaker 1: or even celebrate because it was her holiday. Yeah it was,
Speaker 1: I mean, because she was seriously trying to keep it
Speaker 1: from getting any bigger, and so spiit was like, oh, Okay,
Speaker 1: you don't want me to have this Mother's Day celebration,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make my own holiday called Parents Day. And
Speaker 1: he wasn't alone. Um, Henry Woodward Hulbert had urged a
Speaker 1: Home Day in nineteen sixteen to honor the whole family,
Speaker 1: and then in the publisher of Parents Magazine, George Hecked
Speaker 1: pushed for Parents Day as well. Um and back then, interestingly,
Speaker 1: for Parents Magazine, the readership was both men and women.
Speaker 1: But when in nine Spiro started to step down from
Speaker 1: organizing Parents Day, the Parents Magazine publisher ended up citing
Speaker 1: more with Mother's Day because by that point the readership
Speaker 1: was skewing female right, So whatever you got to do
Speaker 1: for circulation, Hecked. So the Parents Day movement gained momentum
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties after a New York State assemblyman
Speaker 1: introduced a bill to establish the holiday, but like we said,
Speaker 1: it just never gained traction. They never got more than
Speaker 1: about twenty thousand people coming to these big events in
Speaker 1: New York. And it's interesting to look at whether it's
Speaker 1: an attack on mother's because at different points in history,
Speaker 1: mothers have been accused of making sons soft and for
Speaker 1: smothering their children, and oftentimes, like around World War One,
Speaker 1: if soldiers weren't very successful, mothers were blamed for, you know,
Speaker 1: making them too soft as they grew up. The Parents
Speaker 1: Day campaign actually reached its zenith during the Depression, when
Speaker 1: women were regularly blamed for men's problems. Yeah. A lot
Speaker 1: of times. The high unemployment among the guys was, you know,
Speaker 1: blamed on women for I guess, costing too much money,
Speaker 1: having too many children, all those shoes. Yeah. Um. In
Speaker 1: one Spiro announced that the annual celebration of Parents Day
Speaker 1: would be held in Central Park on Mother's Day. Come on, Spiro, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he said, it's a reminder that both parents should be honored,
Speaker 1: and you shouldn't divide love and affection because it weakens
Speaker 1: the home. You should honor both parents, and even had
Speaker 1: a slogan a kiss for mother, a hug for Dad. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But even though they had a catchy slogan and indeed
Speaker 1: turnouts at Central Park. Um, it just like we said,
Speaker 1: it never really caught on. Once he stepped down in
Speaker 1: ninety nine, the entire thing just sort of fizzled out. Notably,
Speaker 1: President Clinton did declare the last Sunday in July to
Speaker 1: be Parents Day. Um, and he didn't use any kind
Speaker 1: of gendered rhetoric. But again, I don't I don't think
Speaker 1: I've heard of anyone who celebrates parents Day no, And
Speaker 1: then it's it's just interesting to see how something that
Speaker 1: seems so innocent, like a holiday where you celebrate your parents,
Speaker 1: can be so political. Because there was Clinton who didn't
Speaker 1: use any gender rhetoric like we said, and you know,
Speaker 1: made it a very inclusive holiday that you know, could
Speaker 1: celebrate any number of types of families. And then George W.
Speaker 1: Bush used a Parents Day Declaration to promote quote unquote
Speaker 1: traditional families and all of the political hullabaloo that comes
Speaker 1: along with that. So because by traditional you mean heterosexual
Speaker 1: mom plus dead and right, it was definitely used as
Speaker 1: a platform of sorts for his views. So, oh, I
Speaker 1: guess we might as well just stick with Mother's Day
Speaker 1: and Father's Day so that nobody gets angry. Now. I
Speaker 1: did like how in the article for Bitch magazine called
Speaker 1: parent Trapped by Erica freak Or, she traces the history
Speaker 1: of Mother's Day. She points out that in nineteen sixty,
Speaker 1: the Society for the Appreciation and Preservation of Spouses, which
Speaker 1: that sounds like a fun society, called for Mother's Day
Speaker 1: to be moved to February and extended to a whole week.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why they wanted it to be in February.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they were like, let's just coincide
Speaker 1: it with Valentine's Day and take a week off when
Speaker 1: it's cold anyway, but yeah, they were like, the husband
Speaker 1: should do all of the chores that the that the
Speaker 1: wife normally does during that week. Well, okay, that is
Speaker 1: a great point about the whole thing of you know,
Speaker 1: we celebrate Mother's Day by relinquishing her chore duty in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. And so there was a study
Speaker 1: published in Gender Issues in two thousand and eight that
Speaker 1: looked at how Mother's Day in Father's Day tend to
Speaker 1: re in force these traditional there's that word again, gender roles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: on Mother's Day, families spent more time celebrating. Mothers are
Speaker 1: more likely to receive gifts than fathers to you on
Speaker 1: Father's Day, and families are more likely to celebrate and
Speaker 1: go out. But why is it more recognized? Perhaps they
Speaker 1: write the greater importance placed on motherhood, or because of
Speaker 1: the centrality of motherhood to women's identity, or maybe the
Speaker 1: family perceives that mothers want more attention or are more
Speaker 1: willing to accept and are even more appreciative of that attention.
Speaker 1: Because they point out like you know, like, like I
Speaker 1: just said that idea that motherhood is central to women's identity,
Speaker 1: but Father's Day isn't important and didn't catch on. It's
Speaker 1: fast because fatherhood is not essentral to men's identities, right.
Speaker 1: And whereas Mother's Day is associated with giving mom a
Speaker 1: day off from her chores, father's Day is more associated
Speaker 1: with dad getting a day off from work so that
Speaker 1: he can hang out with his kids, right, or go
Speaker 1: fishing or whatever whatever it is that men do. Who knows, um.
Speaker 1: But so, like you said, you know, mothers are more
Speaker 1: likely to report they're relieved of chores on the holiday,
Speaker 1: which is a good thing, right right, kind of well,
Speaker 1: it does highlight the fact that they are normally the
Speaker 1: woman's responsibility. And then the whole eating out thing. You know,
Speaker 1: we mentioned at the top of the podcast that everybody
Speaker 1: goes out to eat on Mother's Day. That just emphasized
Speaker 1: that the fact that cooking is again part of this
Speaker 1: gendered identity as a mother. They also point out the
Speaker 1: fact that maybe women aren't doing really rewarding work around
Speaker 1: the home that they're being relieved from, so it's They
Speaker 1: also point out that the routine nature of women's daily
Speaker 1: chores might make it easier for someone to take them
Speaker 1: on in her place for a day, like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: women can't take on men's work, but men can share,
Speaker 1: you know, load the dishwasher one night. Kristen wouldn't let him.
Speaker 1: Y'all know how I'm particular about my dishwasher being organized.
Speaker 1: It's sadly true. Um. But the sad thing was that
Speaker 1: these researchers found was that mothers did not enjoy their
Speaker 1: Mom's Day celebrations as much as dad's did. And their
Speaker 1: theory was that maybe it's because motherhood is still considered
Speaker 1: a woman's primary identity and vocation, and mother's expectations might
Speaker 1: be too high for this one magical day off, whereas,
Speaker 1: like you said, the man's identity is not so closely
Speaker 1: tied to whether or not he has kids, so he's
Speaker 1: less invested in Father's Day. He's like, oh, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: this is cool, and so his expectations might be a
Speaker 1: little bit lower for that fishing trip or playing catch
Speaker 1: or working on the car, mowing the lawn, being sweaty,
Speaker 1: hey brownie man. Anyway, So looking at chores, though traditional
Speaker 1: mothers quote unquote traditional mothers who weren't relieved of chores
Speaker 1: on Mother's Day. We're unhappier than those who were. Okay,
Speaker 1: makes sense, but relief from chores did not affect quote
Speaker 1: unquote mo etern mothers. And they write that it could
Speaker 1: be that traditional mothers have a heavier chore burden to
Speaker 1: begin with, or the chores are becoming less tied to
Speaker 1: the identities of non traditional women, so the acknowledgement might
Speaker 1: be less important. It might be like, we're all chipping
Speaker 1: in around the house. It doesn't matter so much that
Speaker 1: you're filling the dishwasher for a day. Yeah, And they
Speaker 1: and they used traditional versus modern. These researchers did to
Speaker 1: delineate between women whose work was really just central to
Speaker 1: the home and women who worked more outside of the home.
Speaker 1: And they also looked at um couples that were more
Speaker 1: egalitarian to see if that had any influence on their
Speaker 1: the gendered aspects of their Mother's versus Father's Day celebrations.
Speaker 1: And it really didn't seem to make any difference. So
Speaker 1: what would Anna Jarvis think about all this? If you
Speaker 1: leave the house on Mother's Day for anything but church,
Speaker 1: no good, God help you. I wonder if she liked
Speaker 1: Siminal Cake and mar se Pan. Mars Pans just probably
Speaker 1: thinks that Seminal Cake and marz Pan is too happy,
Speaker 1: too indulgent. Yeah, it's tied to too many bakery profits perhaps,
Speaker 1: um but okay, so we there's some people have some
Speaker 1: trouble with those, uh you know, those those generals being
Speaker 1: just reinforced and reinforced every year on Mother's Day and
Speaker 1: Father's Day. Although I gotta say, if I had kids,
Speaker 1: I look forward to Mother's Day. I look forward to
Speaker 1: any day that someone wants to take me out for food.
Speaker 1: You know, I just look forward to food in general.
Speaker 1: Speaking of a low expectations. All you have to do
Speaker 1: is put food in front of my face, and I'm
Speaker 1: pretty happy about it. Just bring me like a stack
Speaker 1: of sandwiches on crunchy bread, leave me alone. So you're
Speaker 1: you're a little more cut up for Father's Day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably sounds like stead of working on the car, I'm
Speaker 1: working on the sandwich. But yeah, I'm sure. And none
Speaker 1: of this is a call to end Mother's Day. But
Speaker 1: it is fascinating to see how the holiday began and
Speaker 1: how it's really saddened. It's founder and a Jarvis she
Speaker 1: would be horrified at the fact that it is now
Speaker 1: a sixteen billion dollar holiday. Oh yeah, and she would
Speaker 1: be so angry with me because I'm going to go
Speaker 1: buy my mother some flowers. I'm making the macaroni pasta bracelet.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about, but what do
Speaker 1: mothers want? Because the thing is Jarvis might have been
Speaker 1: onto something about the whole not spending money on mom
Speaker 1: because according to a poll conducted by Mother Company, Yes
Speaker 1: that is a business, they found that what women want
Speaker 1: for Mother's Day, it's just well behaved children. Yeah. Of
Speaker 1: the women polled said well behaved kids was what they wanted,
Speaker 1: only three percent said they wanted a purchased gift like roses, chocolate,
Speaker 1: or brunch. And I'm like, who are you people buy
Speaker 1: me brunch any day of the week for any meal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they want the well behaved kids, followed by time to themselves,
Speaker 1: a homemade card or then yeah, the stuff that you
Speaker 1: can spend money on. So maybe you should pay more
Speaker 1: attention to old Jarvis. I guess I don't know. I'm
Speaker 1: looking at this. I think this applies more to people
Speaker 1: with young children, because I know my mother wants me
Speaker 1: to move back in with her like, that's how much
Speaker 1: she wants me to be at the house. So I
Speaker 1: don't think she wants more time to herself on Mother's Day. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. That's true. I'm sure. I'm sure that the
Speaker 1: entire experience of Mother's Day is much different when you
Speaker 1: when you have smaller children. Yeah, in the house. Well,
Speaker 1: so let's hear from listeners now about your best Mother's
Speaker 1: Day or maybe your worst. What do you really want
Speaker 1: that you never get? Are you Are you in search
Speaker 1: of time to yourself, some quiet time? Are you looking
Speaker 1: for reference alert? Are you looking for it like a
Speaker 1: Claire Huxtable room to yourself, like what her husband built
Speaker 1: her on The Cosby Show? Is that what you want
Speaker 1: in your life? I would just like to be friends
Speaker 1: with Claire Huxtable. Yeah, that would be a good Mother's
Speaker 1: Day present. Brunch with Claire Huxtable for a Mother's Day
Speaker 1: I'd be pretty cool. Well, right to us mom Stuff
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot comm is where you can send your emails.
Speaker 1: You can always facebook us or tweet us at Mom's
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast. And we're gonna read a couple of your letters.
Speaker 1: But first and now back to our letters. I have
Speaker 1: one here from Anne about our Administrative Assistants episode. She says, Hello,
Speaker 1: Hello Anne. I'm a fairly new fan of your podcast,
Speaker 1: and after listening to your show on secretaries, I felt
Speaker 1: the need to chime in. My very first grown up
Speaker 1: job out of college was as an executive assistant at
Speaker 1: a local advertising website. So far, it has been my
Speaker 1: only experience in a secretarial position, and so far it
Speaker 1: has also been the only job where I saw sexism
Speaker 1: in action. However, I feel like that particular brand of
Speaker 1: sexism had more to do with the industry I was
Speaker 1: working in nightlife advertising, then with how I was treated
Speaker 1: as not only the sole employee in a secretarial position,
Speaker 1: but also the only female staff member for at least
Speaker 1: half the time I was employed there. Some examples of
Speaker 1: the sort of sexism I ran into were one time
Speaker 1: when my boss decided the winner of tickets to a
Speaker 1: water park Memorial Day party by looking only the female
Speaker 1: entrance up on Facebook and picking the one who looked
Speaker 1: best in a swimsuit. Or how answering the office phone
Speaker 1: became my responsibility because the same boss said it would
Speaker 1: be better to have a woman's voice answering the phone.
Speaker 1: Apparently it was supposed to be more friendly. There was
Speaker 1: also no shortage of clients asking for scantily clad, busty
Speaker 1: ladies to adorn their event poster, many of which I
Speaker 1: had to approve and pick up at the printers. Though
Speaker 1: for the record, I never was asked to get anybody coffee.
Speaker 1: So thanks for the story, Anne. Well, I've got one
Speaker 1: here from Madison and she is studying in Morocco right now.
Speaker 1: She's a gender studies major and and she writes, I
Speaker 1: know this is digging way back into the past, but
Speaker 1: I wanted to write you about your cat calling podcast.
Speaker 1: I was really listening to it because I'm in Morocco
Speaker 1: right now and the cat calls are out of control here.
Speaker 1: It's a sign of masculinity to be able to cat
Speaker 1: call in at least three languages, and men seem to
Speaker 1: have nothing better to do than make some kind of
Speaker 1: comment or just leer at you as you walk by.
Speaker 1: I have been cat called as I walked through the market,
Speaker 1: from bicycles, cars, while walking home, and once from a
Speaker 1: dump truck by men of varying ages as in age
Speaker 1: eight up to about sixty. Although it's predominantly young men
Speaker 1: that do it. It has nothing to do with being Western,
Speaker 1: it happens to Moroccan women as well. It really boils
Speaker 1: down to women being second class citizens here. I've talked
Speaker 1: to Moroccans about it, and a few have acknowledged that
Speaker 1: it's wrong, and certainly none of the women appreciate it.
Speaker 1: One man had the audacity to tell a room full
Speaker 1: of women that he cat calls because women like it. He, however,
Speaker 1: did say that if someone cat calls his sister or girlfriend,
Speaker 1: he thinks it's wrong. There's an interesting disconnect here. We
Speaker 1: can in no respond to the street harassment here. That's
Speaker 1: just not done, and we are more likely to get
Speaker 1: aggressive responses. This is also not something that is a
Speaker 1: matter of public discourse, and it has such a deep
Speaker 1: rooted cultural ties that it's hardly thought of as an issue.
Speaker 1: So thanks for writing in from Morocco and um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can imagine that that would get very exhausting getting
Speaker 1: around there. Um So thanks to everyone too who has
Speaker 1: written into mom Stuff at Discovery dot com. You can
Speaker 1: email us, you can find us on Facebook, where we're
Speaker 1: up to all sorts of fun things all the time.
Speaker 1: You can follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast.
Speaker 1: You can even find us on tumbler Stuff I've Never
Speaker 1: told You dot tumbler dot com. And last, what's certainly
Speaker 1: not least, you can watch us now on YouTube. That's right,
Speaker 1: Stuff I've Never Told You has a brand new YouTube channel.
Speaker 1: It's YouTube dot com slash stuff Mom Never told You.
Speaker 1: And while you're at it, you should check out our
Speaker 1: podcast pals Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know
Speaker 1: because they're on YouTube as well. They're at YouTube dot
Speaker 1: com slash Stuff You Should Know, so lots to do.
Speaker 1: Check us all out, and if you still have time,
Speaker 1: head over to our website, it's how Stuff Works dot
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Is it how Stuff Works dot com