Mother’s Day: We’re Spending More than Just Time With Our Mothers

Jennifer Beardslee Radi
Staff Writer

    The holiday during which people all over the world take the time to honor their mothers: Sunday, May 11, 2014 marked the 100th birthday of Mother’s Day. Although children have been showing gratitude for their mothers since the beginning of time, it wasn’t proclaimed a national holiday until 1914 by President Woodrow Wilson.

    Establishment of the concept as a holiday is often attributed to Anna Jarvis who aimed for it to be, “a day where you’d go home and spend time with your mother and thank her for all that she did,” according to historian Katharine Antolini of West Virginia Wesleyan College.

    However, much to Jarvis’s disapproval and horror, the holiday was quickly commercialized. Now it is often referred to as a Hallmark holiday, but it has an undeniable economic influence.

    A survey done by the National Retail Foundation (NRF) revealed that the average American spent $163 on their mother, bringing American spending as a whole to around $19.9 billion this year alone on gifts for Mom.

    FORBES brought forth similar results with the spending average per person at $162.94. The breakdown in terms of gifts show that 81.3 percent went the greeting card route, while nearly two-thirds (66.6 percent) planned to buy flowers.

    Online companies such as 1-800-Flowers “increases its staff by four or five times to accommodate demand,” says founder Jim McCann.

    But just because Americans are spending so much on flower’s (over $2 billion), doesn’t mean it solely benefits the U.S. Nearly 80 percent of the flowers are imported from Colombia. The cut flower industry employs many women trying to help support their families.

    While Anna Jarvis, credited with saying that, “A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world,” may not appreciate the sales of greeting cards, Hallmark surely doesn’t mind. Especially with the growing popularity of e-cards, Mother’s Day always proves to provide a huge rise in printed card sales. The company manufactures more than half of the greeting cards you may have seen on shelves this past week.

    Kevin Voigt, guest blogger for The Christian Science Monitor, presented a list of top Mother’s Day gifts, and leading just under greeting cards and flowers was brunch or dinner. Mothers are often responsible for preparing dinner every night. This leads to dinner as an obvious choice when thinking of ways to show our gratitude. What better way to demonstrate appreciation than by relieving her of those duties for the evening? Many people have entertained the dinner idea every year, but few choose to stay at home and cook as they rather turn to restaurant employees to do the work for them. In a survey by The Christian Science Monitor, more than 56 percent of people went out to eat and together spent about $3.8 billion.

    The idea of dining out is international; Mexico in particular, takes Mother’s Day very seriously. Manuel Guiterrez told The Washington Post in 2012 that whichever day of the week Mother’s Day may fall on is always the busiest day of the week for Mexican restaurants.

    As if our mothers don’t already do enough for us, even the holiday dedicated to them offers a boost to the economy.