It is a day for flowers and greeting cards and family brunches. As if material gifts could adequately repay Mom for all that she does.
And as Americans celebrate Mother’s Day on Sunday, it also should be a time for national reflection about the role of moms and how our nation can improve their lives.
Primary to such reflection is a basic question: Is available, affordable child care a private matter or an issue that impacts the national economy and is essential to providing economic and educational opportunity?
According to the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank based in Washington, D.C., child care costs more than in-state college tuition in 33 states. Those costs often lead parents to stay home with young children rather than pursue employment or education.
And for those who do try to balance work with raising a family, the combination can be overwhelming. As Caitlyn Collins, a sociologist and author of “Making Motherhood Work” told the New York Times: “The level of stress and overwhelm and burnout we feel here in the United States for being obsessed with our jobs, it doesn’t make us better workers. It doesn’t make us more creative and more efficient.”
It also probably doesn’t make for more efficient parenting, with a shortage of child care facilities contributing to the rising costs and limiting the options for families. One study found that in 2022, 11 percent of families turned down a job or changed jobs because of child care issues.
President Joe Biden recently revived efforts to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into nationwide paid family leave, federal subsidies for child care and universal preschool access. But as the Associated Press surmises: “The challenge is convincing Americans — and their representatives on Capitol Hill — that caregiving is not a private issue but an economic one that could be foundational to higher employment and better opportunities.”
Among developed nations, the United States has the least generous family leave policies and the lowest public commitment to caregiving.
All of that is beyond the scope of a single Sunday in May designed to honor mothers and their multitude of roles. They are teachers and nurses and caregivers and psychologists — all without leaving the house. And their tireless devotion to raising the next generation is essential to a prosperous and compassionate society. As Plato is credited with saying, “Give me a different set of mothers and I will give you a different world.”
That role is what inspired Anna Maria Jarvis to promote the idea of Mother’s Day. She envisioned an annual day of acknowledgement, with celebrants attending church and writing letters of thanks to their mothers. In 1914, Congress passed a law designating the second Sunday in May to the cause, but Jarvis quickly lamented the commercialism that came to accompany the day.
As the Associated Press wrote in 2008: “Jarvis became known for scathing letters in which she would berate people who purchased greeting cards, saying they were too lazy to write personal letters.”
The criticism was for naught, and the National Retail Federation estimates that Americans will spend $33.5 billion on Mother’s Day this year. It is a sign of our enduring thanks for Mom and all that she does.
And while we join in sharing those thanks, we also encourage Americans to genuinely consider what our nation can do to improve the lives of mothers throughout the country.
