Previous | Next 

Celebrate Mother’s Day – but not in church

Selma Hooge

Until a year ago, I had no problem with Mother’s Day and Father’s Day in church.

When I was growing up in B.C.’s Fraser Valley in the 1950s, we had Mother’s Day sermons in the morning and a special Mother’s Day program in the evening. I often recited a poem; my mother wanted me to, and I didn’t mind the attention. I proudly wore a red flower signifying my mother was still alive on this earth.

When I became a mother, the praises of the ideal housewife and good mother given out in Mother’s Day services did not speak about me – I was well aware of that – but I allowed the guilty feelings they produced to serve as a reminder to do better.

By the time my mother died, I was in my 40s and didn’t mourn unduly. Wearing a white flower didn’t bother me.

I had always accepted Mother’s Day as an annual event which Christians celebrate, like Christmas and Easter. Now I wonder if it has a place in our churches.

It came as a great surprise to me when I first heard that some of my friends have passionate feelings against Mother’s Day. All three are devout Christians, but they no longer attend church on that day. These are some of their reasons.

One friend was only six when her mother died. The first Mother’s Day after that, people said to her, “You poor thing. You lost your mother.” She was given a white flower instead of a red one like the other children, but an aunt made her feel special when she said, “You’re the only one who has a mother in heaven.” However, that was little comfort when her father remarried. The love she held for her mother was not transferable to the stepmother. After that on Mother’s Day at church, she had to wear a red flower and a white one. When people said, “You lucky girl. You have a new mother”, she didn’t feel lucky. She didn’t want the new mother, the new siblings or the red flower. Later in life, this same woman’s son died of cancer, and church on Mother’s Day became unbearable. Instead of going to church, she goes to her favourite spot beside the river to worship and meditate. Another friend avoids church on Mother’s Day because she also has unpleasant memories of a stepmother, even though she was much older when her mother died. Furthermore, she longed for marriage and motherhood herself, but it eluded her. What’s to celebrate on Mother’s Day? She stays home that day. A third friend is so filled with guilt (real or imagined) about her own mothering days that she can’t stand listening to the praises of model mothers. “I’ve heard too many sermons about Hannah on Mother’s Day,” she says. She goes for long walks instead of to church that second Sunday in May.

After hearing these friends’ reasons for feeling disturbed on Mother’s Day, I still wasn’t convinced that we should ignore Mother’s Day and Father’s Day in church, but the worship services my husband and I attended last year persuaded me otherwise.

On Mother’s Day we visited a church to be with our children and grandchildren. The program was warm and wonderful. Young boys and girls read loving tributes which they had written for their mothers. At the end of the service, one mom gave her son a hug. It would have touched and moved me to tears any other time, but that day we happened to sit behind a father and his two young daughters; we knew that the daughters’ mother had walked out on them, abandoning them when they were young. Would this father and his daughters ever attend another Mother’s Day service?

Then, on Father’s Day, some of us from a large family attended “Dad’s church”, to honour him. He was 96. One of his sons who never attends church came too, as did grandsons and great-grandsons. I squirmed most of the morning. A skit introduced the pastor’s sermon topic – the problem men have with lusting.

I understand the dilemma of pastors and worship teams – they cannot please everyone – but maybe it’s time to rethink what is said and done in church on these man/woman-made holidays. Although there are many admonitions in the Bible to honour mother and father, Jesus also said, “Who is My mother? . . . For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:48-50).

Selma Hooge is a member of Central Heights MB Church in Abbotsford, B.C.

Previous | Next 

Last modified June 29, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
Masthead and usage information.