By Sally Raskoff

How do you spend the two days of the year that we honor the
challenging and important job that parents do? Mother’s Day and Father’s Day
are celebrated in the U.S. in May and June, respectively. Both days generate
many family interactions, restaurant orders, greeting card sales, and phone
calls.

On the surface, these
days appear to be equivalent and equally valued holidays that are meant to
honor those who generate and raise children. However, the history and current
practices highlight some differences in what mothers and fathers mean to our society.

According
to Wikipedia, Mother’s Day was celebrated first in the mid-late 1800s as an
outgrowth of women’s peace groups that were formed in response to family losses and divisions during the civil war.  It took until 1914 to become a national
holiday, designated as the second Sunday in May, as a day “for American
citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in
war.” 

Also
according to Wikipedia, Father’s Day began in the early 1900s, in part to
complement Mother’s Day as a day to celebrate the male role in parenting.
However, it was not a national holiday until 1972 when the third Sunday in June
was so designated as a day to honor fathers.

Wikipedia suggests that Congress’ worries about
commercialization were to blame for the sixty-year time lag. Evidently, the
founder of Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis, was vehemently opposed to the
commercialization of the holiday.

Wikipedia also mentions that there is an International Men’s Day (November
19^th), founded in 1999 to honor men who are not fathers. This day
took on a focus for improving men’s health, improving gender relations and
inequality, and positive role models. There is also an entry for International Women’s Day
(March 8^th), originally called International Working Women’s Day.
This day was started “as a socialist political event” but later, in some
regions, generalized to celebrate women. Since 1975, the United Nations has
supported International Women’s Day with proclamations and ties to human rights
and peace campaigns.

(You might have noticed that I’ve been citing Wikipedia very
carefully. This site is a convenient source for basic information that is
widely agreed upon and it does include its sources. However, some of the
sources present more questions than evidence thus I caution against believing
something just because it’s posted there without qualifications. For example, the
sources for how Ms. Jarvis was against the commercialization of Mother’s Day
were from articles published in 2008 and their sources were newspaper and other
journalistic articles. The more removed from the primary source, the less
accurate a source might be.)

What do you notice so far about these holidays?

While Father’s Day is a day to celebrate personal
fatherhood, Mother’s Day was started to honor the national debt to a specific
type of mother, one who had lost a son in wartime. Mother’s Day did not
officially start as a day defined to celebrate mothers and motherhood in
general. It was sparked by a specific need to support wartime losses and buoy
patriotic and national pride.

The International Men’s and Women’s Days have similar
histories, with the women’s day focusing on societal issues of work, family,
and human rights, while the men’s day emerging later. Different, of course, is
that the International Men’s Day has a focus on societal issues.

It seems odd that Congress would not designate a day for
fathers because it was afraid of commercialization. The commercialization of
Mother’s Day is a boon for our capitalist economy and society as it greases our
economic wheels at the same time it has the potential to maintain and
strengthen familial connections.

In addition, the impression one gets from Wikipedia that
Mother’s Day is not specifically for all mothers is not bourn out by some other
sources. The National
Archive page (cited by Wikipedia) for May 9^th includes
information about the gestation of Mother’s Day as a day to honor mothers and
“the important roles that mothers play in the family, church, and community.”

Looking at this information with a sociological eye, what
might it mean that these days are cast in such different tones? With the
exception of the very recent International Men’s Day, men are individuals yet
women are social goods. Men are celebrated in their experience of fatherhood.
Period. Women are celebrated for being the support beams in the societal
framework.

One might argue that this is counter to the gender
inequalities in our society – that, finally, women are seen as important!
However, are we valuing the roles of mother and father in the same way?
Personal honor is given to men for their fatherhood role yet women’s role in
motherhood is not celebrated in the same way. By tying the holiday to the
societal framework, we dehumanize women as social cogs but also maintain the
expectation that mothers must do these things.

The social norms that women – especially those who are
mothers – must support the “family, church, and community” are strengthened.
However, at the same time, Father’s Day allows men to  enjoy fatherhood on a personal level rather
than commemorate the ties of fatherhood to society and societal obligations.
Are there social norms tying fatherhood specifically to societal needs? Most
link directly to the provider role which does not itself necessarily include
fatherhood. Thus the role of father is left disconnected from societal
processes and can celebrated on a purely personal level. Men’s roles as parent
and provider are more separately defined than women’s roles are.

No matter how we define these days at the national or
international level, how will you practice or celebrate these days? Do you send
your mother and father greeting cards? Take them out for a meal? Bring or send
your mother flowers?

Take a moment and think sociologically about how your
practice, and that of millions of others who do the same thing, affect society?
Besides the economic fuel you may add to our societal tank, how might your
actions affect the social solidarity of society? How do they link to our
gendered divisions of labor and life?