Mothering Sunday falls on the fourth Sunday of Lent, which puts it in March or occasionally early April. It is the British Mother’s Day, and it is not the same holiday as the American one.
Two different holidays
This causes constant confusion, particularly in families spread across the Atlantic.
- Mothering Sunday — British, moveable, in Lent. Medieval in origin, and a Christian feast.
- Mother’s Day — American, fixed to the second Sunday of May. Founded by Anna Jarvis in 1908 in memory of her own mother, and made a national holiday in 1914.
They are roughly two months apart. British people with American relatives get two, and American people with British relatives are frequently late.
The mother church
The original meaning had nothing to do with mothers as such. On the fourth Sunday of Lent, people returned to their “mother church” — the parish where they were baptised, or the local cathedral — for a service. Attending a smaller local chapel the rest of the year was normal; this was the day you went back to the main one.
The connection to actual mothers came through domestic service. Young people working as servants and apprentices, often living far from home, were given the day off to make the journey to their mother church — which meant, in practice, going home to see their families.
They picked wild flowers along the way to give to their mothers, and carried a simnel cake, which is why the cake is associated with the day as well as with Easter.
Simnel cake
A light fruit cake with a layer of marzipan baked through the middle and another on top, decorated with eleven marzipan balls representing the apostles minus Judas. Lent’s fasting rules were relaxed for the day, which is why a rich cake belongs to it.
It has since migrated largely to Easter, and most British people now associate it with that instead.
The revival
The custom faded almost entirely by the early twentieth century, as domestic service declined. It was deliberately revived from the 1910s by Constance Penswick-Smith, a vicar’s daughter in Nottingham, who campaigned specifically to restore the older English observance rather than adopt the American one.
American servicemen stationed in Britain during the Second World War, celebrating their own May holiday, gave the idea further momentum — and the commercial card and flower industry did the rest.
What happens now
Cards, flowers — daffodils are in season and traditional — chocolates, and above all Sunday lunch. It is one of the busiest days of the year for British restaurants and pubs, and booking a table for Mother’s Day two weeks ahead is not excessive.
Children make cards at school, families ring their mothers, and a great many people spend the morning discovering that everywhere is fully booked.