“LET’S GO A-MOTHERING”

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 188, 6 May 1937, Page 6

“LET’S GO A-MOTHERING”

Ah Old English Custom Gives An Idea to America NATIONAL APPEAL OF “MOTHER’S DAY” pONG before Christianity, the ancient Romans dedicated a feast to Hilaria, mother of the gods. It was held on the Ides of March, the fifteenth day of the month, and the people brought offerings to the temples to commemorate it. This was the origin of Mothering Sunday, which is celebrated in Christian Churches on the fourth Sunday of the Lenten season. Its significance has lapsed sadly, but the idea was lately taken up with new vigour in America, where was established, not w'thout an eye to business, the modern “Mother’s Day.” Founded as it is upon a deep-rooted instinct, “Mother’s Day” is likely to become one of the most considerable celebratory occasions of the year.

jgOMEHOW, as the years go by and Fate takes us to far places, a day of national remembrance like Mother's Day strikes us with a paug of homesickness. It means so much more to those who are grown-up than to those who have their mothers at. their side. For, however old we are and whatever or wherever we may be, we are still to mothers their children —as much as in the days when they worked and planned for us. It is when families leave home that there is most need for the little acts of remembrance and comradeship that in some slight way help to pay back the debt for years of kindly protection and service. When children are young and malleable, motherhood has a peculiar quality of being its own reward, apart from the children’s expressed gratitude. How substantial and lasting are its joys are best told by a young woman interviewed recently by a French journalist who had known her in the days when she was unmarried. He had not seen her for many years, and when they met again she had a family of four young children. She said to him: “You are surprised to see me at the bead of all these j children? You would be all the morel so if you knew how I have changed. I You knew me when I was a silly girl, thinking only of clothes, cocktails and other frivolous amusements. To-day i am completely happy. Renewal of Health.

“JIEOPLE who have always been ill, weak and suffering, and who through some miracle have suddenly regained their health, must experience the same sense of well-being and calm joy that came to me at the birth of my first child. It seems to me that i motherhood gives women a renewal of health, a new balance, through which life takes on a feeling of greater security. “I pity those of iny friends who have uo children. To me they seem to lack something, physically and spiritually. I see them as poor oldyoung girls, purposeless, disappointed, and, I must say, disappointing. One does not turn one’s back on one’s natural vocation with impunity. They are poor unhappy creatures. “As for me, if you only knew how full my days are! Remember that my oldest is only six years old and Hte baby is IS months! Louis, take your thumb out of your mouth! I bathe ail four of them, and what a job that is! .1 laugh, I play with ,

’ them, I scold them. We have fun l " all the time. "What a care they are, too! One 11 must watch their teeth and their l " stomachs, look up their noses and down 0 l their throats; examine the whites of ' f their eyes; seperate them when they I fight; correct one, praise another. And “ j when you scold them, how your heart ; smites you, and how you would love 1 ' to hold them close and tell them that 1 : it doesn’t matter, anyhow. ? No Time To Grow Old. “T TELL you that from morning unA til night I never cease to be 1 I happy. And the questions they ask! ' 'Mother, why are lemons yellow?’ ' I ‘.Mother, why don’t flies wear any ’ clothes?’ Answer that one! And ' i this crowd has to learn to talk, to read, to count, to be polite. At one ' i moment I am four years old learning _ ! to spell C-A-T cat, and again I am six, and now I am IS mouths old; , I but. I never have time to be my own r ' age. | "You see, when a. woman has child- . 1 ren, she is not afraid of growing old. . | I even think that she does not grow | old. Life opens up to her entirely ! new perspectives. 1 think of the ’. future of Louis or George as though I ,it were my own. 1 see myself a brilI liant success . . . but if I were to tell ! you all of those things I would never : finish. In short, I am a handsome i blond youth, and I am getting ready t ito conquer the world. . . .” ■ | Children No Longer. 'T’HOSE were the words of a young i' X mother who had not yet experienced the problems and sorrows of , I watching her children grow to raanj hood and womanhood. She wanted no . smile of gratitude or young voice to say “Thank you.” She felt them within I ' her. i It is iu later years—when eircum- i i stances may have placed many miles ■ | between the mother and her child, or j when the headstrong impulses of youth I and the conservatism of age have combined to put two people of one blood on either side of a psychological barrier—it is then that an occasional gesture of • gratitude for past happiness has Its . full power for good. Mothers do nor. ask much —a small gift, a postcard 1 perhaps, a bunch of flowers, a letter telling what we are doing and thinking. The thought matters. In England a good many years ago i the old festival of Mothering Sunday ! had more significance even than

I “Mother’s Day” has now. The young I men bound as apprentices often had to serve their indentures some distance . from home, and it was a custom during ' Lent for them to “go a-motherlng.” : Their masters allowed, them time off ! to visit their parents and take home i little gifts. Why not “go a-mothering" this Sunday, those of us at least who have drifted from home for one reason or another? If we can manage it. why not make a special visit home to sen the mother whom, In the busy round of our own lives, we are so apt to neglect? If we cannot go in person there is nothing to stop us sending a gift or a letter. If by any chance, some of us have left home in anger or fierce independence. now is an -opportunity to soften that anger and temper that independence. A graceful opportunity. Do not let it slip. If may smooth many a misunderstanding between two people who are not meant to quarrel. Traditional Gift. ONE of the most charming customs of the old Mothering Sunday, which unfortunately lias not survived the years, was the practice of sending a simnel cake to mothers. Quaintly enough, one legend about the origin of the simnel cake is bound up with a quarrel. According to this story, “simnel” is derived from the names of an old couple, Simon and Nell They were always quarrelling, but one day they settled down in friendly fashion to make a cake for their children. Soon they found even in that peaceable task a cause for disagreement. One said tlie cake should be linked, the other that it should he boiled. Nell broke a broom over Simon’s head and Simon threw a stool at Nell. Meanwhile the crust of the cake had ha'-doned and they were only just in time to rescue it before it was snoiled altogether. From that day, s'mnel cakes always had very hard crusts.

Although we can no longer send simnel cakes, the idea behind the gift may endure. Despite ultra-modern notions. the family still remains the rock upon which the nation is founded and stands firm. The strength of the family lies in the mother, who is comforter and sunnorter to her husband, and to her children the final and strongest wall of defence against an unkindly world.

All too often, however, mother love is taken for granted in these matter-

of-fact and rather selfish times. Only in periods of unhappiness or trouble is it called from the past—-and is always found ready. In the words of an old couplet:— Changed our customs; changed our lot; But mother love, It changes not. It is not a bad thing to remember when we go a-mothering in Hie modern way.