Mother’s Day (Día de las Madres) in Mexico – Always May 10th

In Mexico, Mothers Day (El Día de las Madres) is always celebrated on May 10th.   Whereas in the United States where Mother’s Day falls on the second Sunday in the month of May.

Mother’s Day is a Mexican cultural, not statutory, holiday.  Employees do not receive a day off (with or without pay).  Banks schools, government offices and businesses are open as usual.

In Mexico, El Día de las Madres is celebrated in a colorful fashion.  Children honor their mothers and thank them for their efforts in bringing them up.  According to a custom in Mexico, sons and daughters come to the Family Home on the eve of Mothers Day on May 9th.

In Mexico, recognition of El Día de las Madres (Mother’s Day) began in 1922 when a journalist, Rafael Alducín, wrote an article advocating the celebration of Mother's Day in all of Mexico.  Though the practice had already spread to parts of Mexico, Alducín's article led to widespread observance of the holiday, and May 10 became the universal day to celebrate Mother’s Day in Mexico.

On Mother's Day people in Mexico send gifts of flowers and cards to their mothers.  There is also a tradition of giving gifts on Mothers Day.  While the older children generally buy gifts from the store, the younger ones may prepare handmade gifts to honor their mothers.  In many schools Mothers Day functions are organized where little ones present skits and songs to their Moms to express their gratitude and love.

In Mexico El Día de las Madres is a very important holiday (far more so than Father's Day). Although Mother’s Day has great significance in the United States, El Día de las Madres is culturally even more important in Mexico than is Mother's Day in the United States.


History of Mother's Day

Only recently dubbed "Mother's Day," the highly traditional practice of honoring of Motherhood is rooted in antiquity. Pagan societies tended to celebrate Goddesses and symbols rather than actual Mothers. In fact, the personal, human touch to Mother's Day is a relatively new phenomenon. The maternal objects of adoration ranged from mythological female deities to the Christian Church itself. Only in the past few centuries did celebrations of Motherhood develop a decidedly human focus.

One of the earliest historical records of a society celebrating a Mother deity can be found among the ancient Egyptians, who held an annual festival to honor the goddess Isis. In Rome and Asia Minor, Cybele was the major Mother deity most similar to Rhea, the Greek mother of the Gods. Other societies worshipped similar deities including Gaia the Earth Goddess and Meter oreie the Mountain Mother. In many aspects, this Mother goddess was represented and celebrated similarly across cultures.

A later incarnation of a holiday to honor Motherhood came from Europe. It fell on the fourth Sunday Lent (the 40 days of fasting preceding Easter Sunday). Early Christians initially used the day to honor the church in which they were baptized, which they knew as their "Mother Church." This place of worship would be decorated with jewels, flowers and other offerings. In the 1600's a clerical decree in England broadened the celebration to include real Mothers, earning the name Mothering Day.

The first American Mother's Day was conceptualized in the United States with Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation in 1870. She had written The Battle Hymn of the Republic 12 years earlier. She had become distraught with the violence and killing that she had witnessed and was becoming an outspoken peace activist. At one point Howe even proposed converting July 4th into Mother's Day.

Eventually, however, June 2nd was designated for the celebration. In 1873 women's groups in 18 North American cities observed this new Mother's holiday. Howe initially funded many of these celebrations, but most of them died out once she stopped footing the bill. The city of Boston, however, would continue celebrating Howe's holiday for 10 more years.

Despite the decided failure of her holiday, Howe had nevertheless planted the seed that would blossom into what we know as Mother's Day today.

In its present form, Mother's Day was established in the United States by Anna Marie Jarvism, with the help of Philadelphia merchant John Wanamerk, following the death of her mother Ann Jarvis on May 9, 1905. A small service was held on May 12, 1907 in the Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafon, West Virigina where Anna's mother had been teaching Sunday school. But the first "official" service was on May 10, 1908 in the same church, accompanied by a larger ceremony in the Wanamaker Auditorium in the Wanamaker's store on Philadelphia. She then campaigned to establish Mother's Day first as a United States national holiday and then later as an international holiday.

The holiday was officially declared by the state of West Virginia in 1910, and the rest of states followed quickly. On May 8, 1914, the United States Congress passed a law designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day and requesting a proclamation. On May 9, 1914 President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation declaring the first national Mother's Day as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war.

As noted above, in Mexico, recognition of el Día de las Madres or Mothers Day began in 1922 when a journalist, Rafael Alducín wrote an article advocating the celebration of Mother's Day in all of Mexico.  Today Mother's Day is celebrated through the world, albeit on different days.