Today is Mothering Sunday in the UK. Although we Brits also refer to it as “Mother’s Day” it has a different origin to its namesake celebrated in the US.

Mothering Sunday has origins from a historical religious holiday associated with encouraging people (as in servants, largely) to go back to their “mother churches” on the 4th Sunday in Lent. The fact they also visited their mother’s was probably just taking advantage of having a rare day off from their toils and also because their parents were most likely to live near the original church since, years ago, people didn’t generally travel so far. Over the years, as Britain has become more secular, the original meaning seems to have been largely lost.

Mother’s Day in the US, on the other hand, was first celebrated in 1908 by a lady called Anne Jarvis who held a memorial to her mother Ann Reeves Jarvis, if Wikipedia is to believed, and occurs on the second Sunday of May. It appears to have no particular religious connotations.

Anyhow,  being of British origin, my children helped to celebrate today by accompanying my wife and I to a nice brunch and walk through the local horticultural gardens. I had my small camera with me and so was able to get a few nice uplifting floral shots to share.

So, to all you mums out there, in the UK and elsewhere – Happy Mothering Sunday!

~Richard