Mother’s Day evolved as secular and commercial
VIRGIN’S Day and Spinster’s Day (not always the same thing) have never grabbed the public imagination, but Mother’s Day has been a winner for more than a hundred years. It will soon be added to the Labour Government’s fastgrowing list of public holidays, Mondayised to the adjacent Monday. Jacinda herself is a mother, has a mother of her own and is the Mother of the Nation in spite of never having read a news bulletin.
Mother’s Day began in America and soon took off in New
Zealand. From 1909 churches were holding special services and until the 1930s, Mother’s Day was still pretty much a church affair. The sermons were a breeze to write. In 1925 a Roslyn Baptist minister preached on Monica, the mother of St Augustine. Monica, whose husband strayed frequently, followed the advice of St Peter, “wives be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives when they see your respectful and pure conduct.”
Maybe not the stuff to give a female audience these days. At that Roslyn service Memories of Mother was sung but the congregation was spared the lyrics of a later song of that name which cheerfully begins with,
“On a dark stormy night the angels called mother/The love that we had shared for such a short while/She called us around and said she was leaving/Then closing her eyes, she went with a smile”.
By 1927, the first hint of spending hard cash appeared in Dunedin when a florist advertised flowers for Mother’s Day, but such commercialisation was soon under attack. Letters to the editor in the 1930s spelt it out.
“We do not ask for presents, but simply for a little extra consideration on that day from our children, such as an early morning cup of tea on Sunday after six days of 6 o’clock rising”. By wartime “Mother of Nine” from Oamaru was having a bob each way: “we do not want fuss or presents, but if they give pleasure, then we can accept them in the same spirit. Mothers are knitting and thinking of their boys and offering up their prayers. Those boys will be thinking of mother, finding time for a little prayer. Don’t begrudge us that. A prayer costs nothing and has won more than one battle.”
Meanwhile, the retailers cashed in. Woolworths offered a range of inexpensive items (“Remembrance costs so little, yet it will touch her heart”) and The Savoy topped them all with an invitation to lunch with music supplied by “Dunedin’s most talented musical combination — Miss Rita Holmes, Miss Ethel Wallace and Mr Lloyd Hunter.” In 1935, The Savoy enticed the customers with a huge advertisement showing their new kitchens in which men were doing the cooking! A perfect Mother’s Day.
After the war, Mother’s Day was well established in the secular world and could even be dragged into election speeches. In 1946 Labour candidate for Dunedin Central Phil Connolly told a Kaikorai audience that Labour supplied “a Mother’s Day every month when the family allowance is paid. A jolly good custom”. Getting a laugh, he overdid the gag and insisted that Labour had “Father’s Day every fortnight when fathers got a full wage packet and Grandpa and Grandma Day was pension day.”
Radio held Mother’s Day requests and when the power cuts of 1950 saw Oamaru without power on Sunday afternoons 4ZB promised to play all North Otago requests before 1pm. The request session would have been a marathon of tearjerking, emotionwringing sentimentality. Ancient readers can probably hear them now:
Mother, Pal and Sweetheart, and
It’s My Mother’s Birthday Today. Most popular of all was one written by a New Zealander, David Smith of Christchurch, who was working in Sydney in the early 1950s when he wrote A Mother as Lovely as You and Jan Peerce made it an international hit. “God was kind in giving me a mother as lovely as you,” was how it kicked off, so you can imagine there was not a dry eye in Oamaru.
In the 1950s, objections to the commercialisation of Mother’s Day continued. The Dunedin Central branch of the League of Mothers agreed commercialism was absolutely foreign to the purpose of the day and the Women’s Division Federated Farmers urged members to give flowers rather than expensive gifts.
But now, 70 years on, it looks as though businesses have sentiment well beaten. Whether it’s a $40 bunch of roses or a $5000 home laundry, don’t ignore Mother’s Day, the retailers cry, but maybe just breakfast in bed will do. Don’t forget, though, that it is actually Mum who gets to stay in bed!