Mothering Sunday is not the same as Mother’s Day. During the 16th Century people would return to their mother church ie the church in which they we’re baptised for a Midlent Sunday service. Those who did this were said to have gone “mothering”. In more recent times Mothering Sunday became a day when domestic servants were given a precious day off to visit their mother church often with their own mother and other family members. The modern Mother’s Day was established in America by Anna Jarvis in 1908 to honour the memory of her own mother and all mothers. In England there was an attempt to revive the Mothering Sunday tradition by a woman called Constance Adelaide Smith inspired by Anna Jarvis. Constance Smith published a play, book and booklet (The Revival of Mothering Sunday, 1921) and it was linked to the much older Christian tradition which is why the dates in Britain and America differ. Mother’s Day in America takes place on the second Sunday in May and in Britain on the MidLent Sunday. Interestingly neither woman married nor had children and Anna Jarvis was appalled at the commercialisation of her idea to honour mothers.
