Transforming Mother’s Day into Mothers’ Day

Mother’s Day is 10 weeks away. But if we move the apostrophe in “Mother’s,” it’s not too early to think about Mothers’ Day or learn about the Mothers’ Day Movement.

It’s also timely to invoke this movement during Women’s History Month and just before the International Women’s Day celebration March 8.

The Mothers’ Day Movement (MDM) was founded by a group of women led by Eva Hausman and her daughter, Greenwich resident Kim Hausman Athan, and also Greenwich resident Stephanie Norton. In 2011, MDM began raising money for nonprofit organizations that address the oppression that plagues so many women — so many mothers — throughout the world.

Each year since 2011 MDM has fundraised for one selected nonprofit. The year’s chosen nonprofit addresses conditions that impact women such as lack of reproductive and maternal health care, educational deprivation, infant hunger, lack of clean water, the absence of economic opportunity, gender-based violence including rape and sex trafficking.

The story, Athan wrote in an email, “is that over $30 billion will be spent in this country on Mother’s Day this year.” She pointed out that this dollar amount could educate all the girls everywhere in the world who are not receiving an education. “We are seeking to redirect the billions spent on fleeting gifts to create lasting ripples of change for mothers and their families globally.”

At the core of the movement is an intention to harness this commercial potential in a transformative way, with lasting benefits. “It’s about rethinking your giving priorities,” Athan said during my recent Zoom interview with her and her mother. She pointed out that one can honor one’s own mother by helping others.

“My mother was my inspiration,” Athan said, crediting her mother with the idea that gave birth to MDM.

Hausman, in turn, credited New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and his wife, business executive and Pulitzer Prize winner Sheryl WuDunn, with giving her the idea. Their book “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide” was featured in the New York Times Magazine in the summer of 2009. The book’s title, according to the authors, comes from a Chinese proverb: “Women hold up half the sky.”

After reading the article, Hausman, a high school social studies teacher in Simsbury for more than 30 years, now retired, was moved to do something to help transform oppression into opportunity for women. Troubled by what she learned about the childbirth injury known as obstetric fistula that goes untreated when it can easily be corrected and that ruins the lives of more than a million women in Africa and Asia, Hausman raised $5,000 for the Fistula Foundation, and found a match that brought the total to $10,000.

This provided the model for MDM, which is not structured as a 501(c)3. Each year MDM selects a 501(c)3 for which to fundraise, with 100 percent of the funds going directly to the chosen nonprofit. Nothing goes to MDM, which is staffed entirely by volunteers.

The nonprofit that MDM selected this year is the African Education Program (AEP). Its flagship Learning and Leadership Center in Kafue, Zambia, offers resources and training in education, health, entrepreneurship, and leadership development, preparing women to become leaders in the transformation of their communities.

Hausman, whose fundraising for the Fistula Foundation was inspired by Kristof and WuDunn, sent a letter to let them know this. And in his May 9, 2010, Mother’s Day column, Kristof mentioned Hausman’s letter and the work she had done.

In this column Kristof also called for moving the apostrophe:

“So let’s celebrate Mother’s Day with all the flowers and brunches we can muster … But let’s also think about moving the apostrophe so that it becomes not just Mother’s Day, honoring a single mother, but Mothers’ Day — an occasion to try to help other mothers around the globe as well.”

Hausman and Athan answered Kristof ’s call to move the apostrophe, inspired to start an organized movement in which Mother’s Day is transformed into Mothers’ Day. And in so doing, they’ve called upon us to not only be aware of the oppression women face, but also to do something, to transform our Mother’s Day gift from flowers to empower.