Where did Mother’s Day come from?
Since Mother’s Day is coming up in the UK soon, I thought it would be fun to find out a little more about the annual event. I mean, it’s HUGE in the Greetings Card industry! According to the Greeting Card Association’s 2022 Annual Market Report, the UK spent over £68 million on cards for Mum’s in 2021. But what does it really mean to us today, and where did it come from?
British Mother’s Day appears to have been born in the 17th century, back when many young people worked in the service industry and couldn’t nip home to see their Mam every weekend. Employers gave staff a day off on the fourth Sunday of Lent so they could visit their parents. They took gifts and visits were called ‘going-a-mothering” aka Mother'ing Sunday.
Mother’s Day dates are varied depending on the country you live in. Mother’s Day cards went crazy when wartime Americans soldiers saw their landladies as substitute Mums and sent them cards and gifts. The British soon followed suit and Mother’s Day cards stuck.
Beyond the war, sending a card became a popular way to celebrate important occasions, express sympathy or say thank you.
Given that there are so many different types of Mums, relationships and family set-ups, I personally feel that Mother’s Day can encompass a lot of different messages and cards. At Cake and Crayons I try to embrace those differences, and offer a variety of sentiments.
Here are a few interesting Mother’s Day facts*!
British ‘mums’ opened 30 million cards on Mothering Sunday 2021
The UK population are a nation of cards senders – sending more cards per capita than any other nation.
We spent £1.5 billion on single greeting cards in 2021
Sales for Valentine’s Day, Mother’s day, Easter and Father’s Day account for just 11% by value of the total single card market, together totalling £167m, an increase of 12% on 2020.
Greeting cards is a world-leading British Creative industry; we lead the world in innovative design and export our cards all over the world.
Cards are a good tangible way of keeping in touch, and mean more than a social media message which are sent all the time.
18-34 year olds are sending more cards than a generation ago. This trend is being seen in US too – Millennial’s were responsible for the 44m more cards sent in 2018 according to the USPS.
There is an increase in ‘all occasion’ cards, sending cards to people just to say hello, share a joke, image provoking a memory, express how you feel, thinking of you. This has increased even more during the pandemic lockdown of 2020.
