Celebrate Mothers Day For Peace

Before Hallmark Cards and Fin de siecle 19th century capitalism commercialized Mothers Day it was originally a celebration of Peace and a call to End War.

History of Mother's Day: Julia Ward Howe

The idea of official celebration of Mothers day in US was first suggested by Julia Ward Howe in 1872. An activist, writer and poet Julia shot to fame with her famous Civil War song, "Battle Hymn of the Republic". Julia Ward Howe suggested that June 2 be annually celebrated as Mothers Day and should be dedicated to peace. She wrote a passionate appeal to women and urged them to rise against war in her famous Mothers Day Proclamation, written in Boston in 1870. She also initiated a Mothers' Peace Day observance on the second Sunday in June in Boston and held the meeting for a number of years. Julia tirelessly championed the cause of official celebration of Mothers Day and declaration of official holiday on the day. Her idea spread but was later replaced by the Mothers' Day holiday now celebrated in May.

History of Mother's Day: Anna Jarvis
Anna Jarvis is recognised as the Founder of Mothers Day in US. Though Anna Jarvis never married and never had kids, she is also known as the Mother of Mothers Day, an apt title for the lady who worked hard to bestow honor on all mothers.

Anna Jarvis got the inspiration of celebrating Mothers Day from her own mother Mrs Anna Marie Reeves Jarvis in her childhood. An activist and social worker, Mrs Jarvis used to express her desire that someday someone must honor all mothers, living and dead, and pay tribute to the contributions made by them.

A loving daughter, Anna never forgot her mothers word and when her mother died in 1905, she resolved to fulfill her mothers desire of having a mothers day. Growing negligent attitude of adult Americans towards their mothers and a desire to honor her mothers soared her ambitions.

To begin with Anna, send Carnations in the church service in Grafton, West Virginia to honor her mother. Carnations were her mothers favorite flower and Anna felt that they symbolised a mothers pure love. Later Anna along with her supporters wrote letters to people in positions of power lobbying for the official declaration of Mothers Day holiday. The hard work paid off. By 1911, Mother's Day was celebrated in almost every state in the Union and on May 8, 1914 President Woodrow Wilson signed a Joint Resolution designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.

“...each war carried within itself, the war which will answer it. Each war is answered by another war, until everything is destroyed...That is why I’m so wholeheartedly for a radical end to the madness...Pacifism simply is not a matter of calm looking on; it is work, hard work...those lovely small apples out there...everything could be so beautiful if it were not for the insanity of war...one day, a new idea will arise and there will be an end of all wars...People will have to work hard for that new state of things, but they will achieve it.”

Kathe Kollwitz (1867 - 1945) Germany

A Mother’s Grief: Kathe Kollwitz Descends into the Marginalized

Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945) was a progressive artist who used art as a cathartic means to live through the death of her son in WWI and grandson in WWII.

Trapped in the sexist generation of early 20th century Germany, K¨athe defied
the society in which she lived to create art that served as an empathetic
mouthpiece for society’s marginalized. She created thousands of lithographs and
hundreds of sculptures depicting war, death, and poverty. K¨athe found beauty
in the struggle of the working class and constantly used her physician husband’s
patients as subjects of her work. As she continued into the socialist realm, she
made enemies with German leaders, including Adolph Hitler. Her work fiercely
rejected Germany’s involvement in World War I and condemned Hitler’s Third
Reich near the onset of World War II. K"athe’s use of bleak colors and disturbing
subject matter penetrates the viewer’s comfort zone. The viewer is unable to
turn away from her work without feeling guilt, and is forever haunted by her
prudent recognition of truth.

Compassionate Witnessing and the Transformation of Societal
Violence: How Individuals Can Make a Difference

As I understand it, my mother named me “Kaethe” after the German graphic artist
Kaethe Kollwitz, whose work greatly moved her.(Kollwitz & Kollwitz, 1988) Kollwitz primarily depicted workers, and mothers and children. She combined her professional work with devotion to family, a life choice that was especially meaningful to my mother. Apparently, when my father came to the hospital and she told him that she had chosen “Kaethe” for my name, he asked her to re-consider this choice, telling her that he feared it would be unwise for a post-Holocaust Jewish child to have a German first name.

Persuaded, my mother and he decided to call me “Kathy.” So, I had informed my South
African audience, even a name can bear the imprint of macro-societal traumas. I looked down, searching my notes for the example I had intended to provide.

From the back of the room, a woman shouted at me: “But you are Kaethe.” I remember freezing. This woman’s father had been a leader in the South African Defense
Forces during the Apartheid years. She had chosen a different path, working with
dedication to improve the lives of all South Africans, and working to dismantle her own racism. Her comment stunned me, pointing out something that was obvious to her but hidden to me. I had tried to construct a life that was consistent with the values expressed in the life and work of this fine human being my mother so admired.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Celebrate Mothers Day For Peace

Before Hallmark Cards and Fin de siecle 19th century capitalism commercialized Mothers Day it was originally a celebration of Peace and a call to End War.
History of Mother's Day: Julia Ward Howe
The idea of official celebration of Mothers day in US was first suggested by Julia Ward Howe in 1872. An activist, writer and poet Julia shot to fame with her famous Civil War song, "Battle Hymn of the Republic". Julia Ward Howe suggested that June 2 be annually celebrated as Mothers Day and should be dedicated to peace. She wrote a passionate appeal to women and urged them to rise against war in her famous Mothers Day Proclamation, written in Boston in 1870. She also initiated a Mothers' Peace Day observance on the second Sunday in June in Boston and held the meeting for a number of years. Julia tirelessly championed the cause of official celebration of Mothers Day and declaration of official holiday on the day. Her idea spread but was later replaced by the Mothers' Day holiday now celebrated in May.

History of Mother's Day: Anna Jarvis
Anna Jarvis is recognised as the Founder of Mothers Day in US. Though Anna Jarvis never married and never had kids, she is also known as the Mother of Mothers Day, an apt title for the lady who worked hard to bestow honor on all mothers.

Anna Jarvis got the inspiration of celebrating Mothers Day from her own mother Mrs Anna Marie Reeves Jarvis in her childhood. An activist and social worker, Mrs Jarvis used to express her desire that someday someone must honor all mothers, living and dead, and pay tribute to the contributions made by them.

A loving daughter, Anna never forgot her mothers word and when her mother died in 1905, she resolved to fulfill her mothers desire of having a mothers day. Growing negligent attitude of adult Americans towards their mothers and a desire to honor her mothers soared her ambitions.

To begin with Anna, send Carnations in the church service in Grafton, West Virginia to honor her mother. Carnations were her mothers favorite flower and Anna felt that they symbolised a mothers pure love. Later Anna along with her supporters wrote letters to people in positions of power lobbying for the official declaration of Mothers Day holiday. The hard work paid off. By 1911, Mother's Day was celebrated in almost every state in the Union and on May 8, 1914 President Woodrow Wilson signed a Joint Resolution designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.

“...each war carried within itself, the war which will answer it. Each war is answered by another war, until everything is destroyed...That is why I’m so wholeheartedly for a radical end to the madness...Pacifism simply is not a matter of calm looking on; it is work, hard work...those lovely small apples out there...everything could be so beautiful if it were not for the insanity of war...one day, a new idea will arise and there will be an end of all wars...People will have to work hard for that new state of things, but they will achieve it.”

Kathe Kollwitz (1867 - 1945) Germany

A Mother’s Grief: Kathe Kollwitz Descends into the Marginalized

Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945) was a progressive artist who used art as a cathartic means to live through the death of her son in WWI and grandson in WWII.

Trapped in the sexist generation of early 20th century Germany, K¨athe defied
the society in which she lived to create art that served as an empathetic
mouthpiece for society’s marginalized. She created thousands of lithographs and
hundreds of sculptures depicting war, death, and poverty. K¨athe found beauty
in the struggle of the working class and constantly used her physician husband’s
patients as subjects of her work. As she continued into the socialist realm, she
made enemies with German leaders, including Adolph Hitler. Her work fiercely
rejected Germany’s involvement in World War I and condemned Hitler’s Third
Reich near the onset of World War II. K"athe’s use of bleak colors and disturbing
subject matter penetrates the viewer’s comfort zone. The viewer is unable to
turn away from her work without feeling guilt, and is forever haunted by her
prudent recognition of truth.

Compassionate Witnessing and the Transformation of Societal
Violence: How Individuals Can Make a Difference

As I understand it, my mother named me “Kaethe” after the German graphic artist
Kaethe Kollwitz, whose work greatly moved her.(Kollwitz & Kollwitz, 1988) Kollwitz primarily depicted workers, and mothers and children. She combined her professional work with devotion to family, a life choice that was especially meaningful to my mother. Apparently, when my father came to the hospital and she told him that she had chosen “Kaethe” for my name, he asked her to re-consider this choice, telling her that he feared it would be unwise for a post-Holocaust Jewish child to have a German first name.

Persuaded, my mother and he decided to call me “Kathy.” So, I had informed my South
African audience, even a name can bear the imprint of macro-societal traumas. I looked down, searching my notes for the example I had intended to provide.

From the back of the room, a woman shouted at me: “But you are Kaethe.” I remember freezing. This woman’s father had been a leader in the South African Defense
Forces during the Apartheid years. She had chosen a different path, working with
dedication to improve the lives of all South Africans, and working to dismantle her own racism. Her comment stunned me, pointing out something that was obvious to her but hidden to me. I had tried to construct a life that was consistent with the values expressed in the life and work of this fine human being my mother so admired.

Tags
mother, Kathe Kollowitz, Mothers Day, Anit-War, Peace, Mothers

MOTHERS DAY

Celebrate Mothers Day For Peace
Before Hallmark Cards and Fin de siecle 19th century capitalism commercialized Mothers Day it was originally a celebration of Peace and a call to End War.

History of Mother's Day: Julia Ward Howe
The idea of official celebration of Mothers day in US was first suggested by Julia Ward Howe in 1872. An activist, writer and poet Julia shot to fame with her famous Civil War song, "Battle Hymn of the Republic". Julia Ward Howe suggested that June 2 be annually celebrated as Mothers Day and should be dedicated to peace. She wrote a passionate appeal to women and urged them to rise against war in her famous Mothers Day Proclamation, written in Boston in 1870. She also initiated a Mothers' Peace Day observance on the second Sunday in June in Boston and held the meeting for a number of years. Julia tirelessly championed the cause of official celebration of Mothers Day and declaration of official holiday on the day. Her idea spread but was later replaced by the Mothers' Day holiday now celebrated in May.
SEE MY MOTHERS DAY POSTS HERE

Anna Jarvis Was Sorry She Ever Invented Mother’s Day

The woman who devoted herself to the creation of a national holiday to honor overworked, underappreciated mothers later devoted herself to fighting the commercial juggernaut it became. Was Anna Jarvis stubborn and crazy, as many came to believe, or misunderstood?

by Joel Oliphint
BuzzFeed Contributor
Big Stories·May 8, 2015

During the last 10 years of her life, Anna Jarvis, the founder of Mother’s Day, lived with her blind sister, Lillian, in a three-story redbrick house in North Philadelphia. In the late 1930s and early ’40s, a “Warning — Stay Away” sign greeted visitors, and Jarvis answered the door only if a visitor used a secret knock or a certain number of doorbell rings.

Heavy curtains hid a broken window and darkened a Victorian parlor filled with horsehair furniture and clutter from decades of Mother’s Day proclamations, letters, and news clippings. On the wall was a large portrait of her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, surrounded by holly wreaths. In a Reader’s Digest story from 1960, a reporter recounts visiting her on one of the last Mother’s Days in her Philadelphia home: “She told me, with terrible bitterness, that she was sorry she ever started Mother’s Day.”

In her younger days, Jarvis was described as attractive and intelligent. When a doll was to be made in her likeness in 1933, the instructions given from her organization, Mother’s Day Inc., were for a visage that was “fair, with blue eyes and light brown hair.” She stood 5-foot-5 and preferred blue, size 40 costume gowns with an open neck, pearl necklaces, and blue hats atop her untamed hair. In photographs Jarvis conveys confidence, but even early on, there’s a weariness in her eyes.





(AP Photo/File)
Anna Jarvis in 1928


Later in life, the New York Times described Jarvis as “worn and fragile” and “a frail little spinster who resembles Whistler’s Mother.” Newsweek said she “seldom smiled.” In amateur historian Howard Wolfe’s 1962 book Behold Thy Mother, Jarvis’ mother was said to be “the most loving and lovable teacher, with the sweetest voice and pleasing smile we have ever known,” but that Jarvis herself “lacked much of the graciousness with which her mother was most abundantly blessed.”

In late 1943, Jarvis' friends and business associates became aware of her declining health and had her committed to a sanitarium in West Chester, Pennsylvania. (Lillian stayed behind in the house and was found dead a couple of months later.) Wolfe said Jarvis displayed a particular letter on her bedroom wall at the sanitarium. “I am 6 years old and I love my mother very much,” the note read. “I am sending this to you because you started Mother’s Day.” Sewn to the letter was a $1 bill.

Jarvis died in 1948 — blind, emaciated, broke, and surrounded by strangers. She never married and never became a mother herself. “Her last days were embittered almost beyond comprehension,” Wolfe wrote.

Jarvis’ crusade to create a holiday to honor mothers in the early 20th century was only the beginning. As the day grew in popularity, she committed the next 40 years of her life to protecting and defending it from anyone who tried to co-opt Mother’s Day for their own causes and financial gain. Yet her efforts led to her own financial and emotional ruin — and were often portrayed as excessive, gaining her a reputation as an eccentric. Still, Jarvis’ battles with the candy, floral, and greeting card industries anticipated the commercialism that’s now inseparable from modern-day Mother’s Day.


Chris Ritter / BuzzFeed News

On May 28, 1876, Ann Reeves Jarvis was teaching her Sunday school class, which included daughter Anna Jarvis, then 12, about notable mothers in the Bible. She closed the lesson with a prayer: “I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mother’s day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is entitled to it,” Reeves Jarvis prayed.

Anna paid particular attention to the prayer that day. Perhaps it was the first time she realized what a thankless, sacrificial endeavor motherhood could be. As she recalled years later, “This heartrending, agonizing prayer burned its way into my mind and heart so deeply, and it never ceased to burn.”


Courtesy of West Virginia and Regional History Collection
Ann Reeves Jarvis

Anna’s mother spent much of her life championing women’s causes through work clubs that helped improve health and sanitary conditions in West Virginia, including providing assistance to mothers with tuberculosis. After the Civil War, Reeves Jarvis also created a Mothers’ Friendship Day to ease tensions and promote peace among the war-torn republic. She died in 1905, but not before burying eight or nine of her own children (genealogies vary).

According to Anna Jarvis’ brother Claude, “My sister Lillian and myself were standing beside the open grave on the side. As the bishop said, ‘Dust to dust, ashes to ashes,’ Anna broke out in a heartbreaking cry and said, ‘Mother, that prayer made in our little church in Grafton calling for someone, somewhere, sometime to found a memorial to mother’s day — the time and place is here, and the someone is your daughter. And by the grace of God, you shall have your Mother’s Day.’”

Anna Jarvis claimed she went straight from the gravesite to her home in Philadelphia, where she had moved in the 1890s, to start planning for Mother’s Day. Her campaign didn’t begin in earnest until 1907, but over the next few years, Jarvis wrote thousands of letters to any prominent figure who could wield influence: President Teddy Roosevelt, of course, and 1908 presidential hopeful William Jennings Bryan, but also Mark Twain and former Postmaster General John Wanamaker. The campaign quickly gained steam, even though some — particularly women — ridiculed her idea, and the Senate initially rejected the Mother’s Day resolution in 1908. Wanamaker was one of the first to jump on board in support of her. “It seems possible if we give our hearts to this loving service, it will become one of the most beautiful days of our lives,” he wrote. Twain’s commendation was printed in newspapers in Philadelphia and New York, and Bryan said he was “heartily in sympathy with the movement.”

On May 10, 1908, the first official Mother’s Day services were held in Grafton at Andrews Church and in Philadelphia, where Jarvis spoke for 70 minutes at the Wanamaker Store Auditorium. The venue seated 5,000, but 15,000 tried to gain admission. Wolfe wrote that Russell Conwell, founder of Temple University, heaped praise on Jarvis after her address. “You are a convincing orator, a brilliant thinker,” he said. “You will be able to obtain what you want. Your Mother’s Day idea will honor you through ages to come.”

Most states held Mother’s Day celebrations over the next few years, and Jarvis, who proved an adept publicist, annually requested official Mother’s Day proclamations from state governors, who implored their citizens to observe the day and wear a white carnation. “Next to the name of God,” Kansas Gov. Walter Stubbs proclaimed, “the sweetest word in the English tongue is ‘mother.’” With virtually the entire United States celebrating Mother’s Day state by state, Woodrow Wilson signed legislation designating the second Sunday in May a national holiday in 1914.

Jarvis declared the white carnation the official flower of Mother’s Day, and she urged sons and daughters to visit their mothers or, at the very least, to write home on Mother’s Day. “Live this day as your mother would have you live it,” Jarvis instructed in her letters. Her vision for the day was domestic — focusing on a mother’s role within the home — and highly sentimental. It was to be celebrated “in honor of the best mother who ever lived — your own.”


Chris Ritter / BuzzFeed News

Founding Mother’s Day and fulfilling her mother’s wish was Jarvis’ crowning achievement, and continued to be her all-consuming, singular purpose in life well after the day was officially established in 1914. It wasn’t enough for her to be the originator of Mother’s Day. Jarvis wanted to own it, and she didn’t want any outside forces corrupting her vision of what the day should be. She incorporated herself as the Mother’s Day International Association, copyrighted her own photograph, and trademarked the Mother’s Day Seal with a drawing of a carnation and the words “Mother’s Day” (always singular possessive to distinguish from “Mothers’ Day” impostors), “Second Sunday in May,” and, of course, “Anna Jarvis Founder.”


Courtesy Lancaster Historical Society

Each year Jarvis put together an official Mother’s Day program that included a personal message and suggested music and readings to be used at services and celebrations. All of this required so much time that she quit her job with a life insurance company, where she had been the first female literary and advertising editor, to work on Mother’s Day full-time. She spent the rest of her life promoting her founding vision for the day while also fighting the floral, confectionary, and greeting card industries (“schemers” and “profiteers,” as she called them) who were making money off her holiday.

In 1923, for example, Jarvis crashed the convention of the Associated Retail Confectioners in Philadelphia, accusing them of “gouging the public.” “I want to tell you that you are using a beautiful idea as a means of profiteering,” she told the confectioners, according to a New York Times story. “As the founder of Mother’s Day, I demand that it cease … Mother’s Day was not intended to be a source of commercial profit.”

Nonprofits were also fair game: In 1925, Jarvis was charged with disorderly conduct at a convention of the American War Mothers, which sold carnations to raise funds for servicemen and their families. “It was alleged that Miss Jarvis appeared without invitation at the convention of War Mothers and protested against the adoption of the carnation as the emblem for that organization,” the Times reported.

She even turned on Wanamaker, her biggest champion early on. In one news clipping, a former assistant to Jarvis recounted a story in which Jarvis ordered a salad in the Wanamaker's tea room only to dump it on the floor because it was designated a “Mother’s Day Salad.” In a letter, she accused Wanamaker of trying to crush her movement.

At one time, Jarvis reportedly had 33 Mother’s Day–related lawsuits pending. No one was immune from her stranglehold on the holiday — not even the president’s wife. Eleanor Roosevelt was the honorary chair of the Golden Rule Foundation, which sponsored a fund for needy mothers and their children. Jarvis claimed the organization was trespassing on her cause and commercializing the day, and threatened to sue.

“I think she misunderstands us,” the first lady told the Times in March 1931. “She wanted Mothers’ Day observed. We want it observed, are working for its observance and are really aiding her.”

Early on, Jarvis endorsed boycotts of florists who raised the price of carnations every May. In 1908, she bought 500 carnations for half a penny each; by 1912, they were 15 cents apiece. Jarvis told her cousin in a letter that “the florists are the leaders in causing me so much trouble” — so much trouble that Jarvis eventually rescinded the carnation as the official emblem, replacing it with a Mother’s Day International Association button. “This will do away with profiteering tradesmen and carnation peddlers seeking their own profit through Mother’s Day,” she wrote.

But, of course, the button and lawsuits and protests and boycotts didn’t do away with any of that. Try as she might, Jarvis couldn’t stop Mother’s Day from becoming a cash cow. One stroll through the grocery store in the first two weeks of May proves as much. Last year the National Retail Federation estimated Americans would spend about $20 billion on Mother’s Day gifts; 80% will buy greeting cards, and 66% will buy flowers.


Chris Ritter / BuzzFeed News

One hundred and one years after Mother’s Day became a national holiday, how do we explain Jarvis’ life and legacy? Was she truly the delusional, “frail little spinster” news reports described? Defending a holiday against commercialization is one thing — but why fight, repeatedly, with beloved charities?

No one knows the story of Anna Jarvis better than Katharine Antolini, a professor of history and gender studies at West Virginia Wesleyan College. She lives about 45 minutes from Grafton, where the church Jarvis and her mother attended is now the International Mother’s Day Shrine: a historic but unassuming redbrick building with a white steeple that sits on Main Street and looks like countless other small-town churches of the era.

“They’re lovely people, but none of them are archivists or historians,” she says of the shrine’s volunteers. “All these great, nearly 100-year-old documents were sitting in a box on the floor in the kitchen. I spent the summer [of 2004] archiving the documents, and there was this one letter. It was seven pages long, typed. [Jarvis] wrote it to her cousin in 1933, and she’s ranting about all these people.”

That letter, along with other documents that had been hidden from historians in a box for decades, piqued Antolini’s interest. What began as an archival reorganization project eventually became Antolini’s dissertation and, later, a book. Antolini doesn’t shy away from Jarvis’ eccentricities, but she also sets out to explain her behavior.

“I think a lot of it was ego-driven — wanting to be ‘Anna Jarvis, founder of Mother’s Day,’” Antolini says. “She would constantly sign letters that way. It was such a big part of her identity and her adult life, so any kind of threat to take that away from her is what terrified her.”


Courtesy of International Mother's Day Shrine

But Jarvis was also an unmarried, childless, opinionated, economically independent woman living in the first half of the 20th century. “Sometimes calling her crazy was a way to dismiss a strong woman who had a vision and a movement and was determined to see it through her way,” Antolini says. “Those are the kind of qualities that you would have respected in a man in the early 20th century — not so much in a woman. To be willing to sue and to stand up to the elites of New York City and challenge Eleanor Roosevelt…in a lot of ways, she was fearless.”

Read through that lens, the media’s constant reference to Jarvis as a spinster becomes a way to frame her as damaged or undesirable and to undermine her accomplishments. Because of Jarvis' notoriety, generating copy about her — good, bad, embellished — was part of the publicity apparatus of the times.

“Everything you read in Time or Newsweek — how much of it really did happen, and how much of it was blown up to make a good story and to make this strong woman seem crazy?” Antolini says. Jarvis fought back against the media’s characterizations of her — in 1938, she sent out a press release saying the way she was depicted in a Time story was defamatory and libelous — yet her own, ongoing Mother’s Day publicity campaign ensured she’d stay in the news.

Even today, it’s difficult to separate mythology from fact. Take one of Jarvis’ best-known quotes, which is cited in nearly every online article about her: “A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world.” Neither Antolini nor I came across this quote in documents. It doesn’t sound unlike something Jarvis would say, but the source is unknown, if it exists at all.

By all accounts, Jarvis stayed true to her claim of never profiting financially from the holiday she founded. She was committed to protecting the purity of Mother’s Day, and she believed money sullied that purity. Antolini says Jarvis didn’t trust charities’ allocation of funds, but she especially hated the notion that charitable causes were transforming Mother’s Day into an occasion where mothers were to be pitied more than honored. “You honor them regardless of how rich or how poor or what color or creed,” Antolini says. “That, to me, makes sense. She has some valid complaints about how her day was being used.”

Still, not all of Jarvis’ eccentricities can be chalked up to gender biases of the day. Accusing any charity that borrowed Mother’s Day language of lining its own pockets seems ungracious at best and paranoid at worst. Antolini also wonders about the naïveté of Jarvis’ desire to establish a nationally recognized memorial for mothers while at the same time wanting to keep it pure and protected. “What did she honestly think was going to happen?” Antolini says.


Dave CC BY-NC/via Flickr: crazysanmanhistory

Only one of Jarvis’ siblings, Josiah, had children, and his granddaughter died childless in the 1980s. Howard Wolfe knew the granddaughter and received many of Anna Jarvis’ papers; he painstakingly transcribed nearly 300 pages' worth of correspondence on a typewriter. As Wolfe wrote in 1962, “Her interesting life, her 84 years of consecration and devotion to a cause … will endear the Jarvis name for all future generations.”

It didn’t quite happen that way. While Mother’s Day continues to be celebrated around the world on the second Sunday in May, Anna Jarvis, along with her particular vision of what she deemed a “holy day” rather than a holiday, are mostly forgotten.

“For the day to be popular, she no longer has to be connected to it,” Antolini says. “Now that the child has grown up, you no longer have to associate it with its mother.”



There was a reason Jarvis emphasized writing letters home rather than relying on greeting cards, which have a tendency to simplify a relationship dynamic that, for many, is complicated. Let’s say you’d like to tell your mother in a letter that she’s truly the best mother you could possibly imagine, just as Jarvis intended. Today, it would be difficult to do so without sounding like an overly sentimental Hallmark card. In other words, the commercial corruption of Mother’s Day has rendered cliché our ability to talk about how wonderful a mother is. A sentiment that at one time might have sounded heartfelt and sincere now sounds like a platitude, as your local Target and Walgreens and Walmart have aisles full of greeting cards for sale with that same sentiment, and millions of sons and daughters will purchase those cards — myself included. Just this week, standing in a checkout line with a handful of Mother’s Day cards (sorry, Ms. Jarvis), the cashier sighed. “I feel bad,” she said. “I’ve been scanning all these cards and I haven’t even bought one yet. They’re so expensive!”

Those sappy cards seem harmless, even helpful. But the trickle-down effect of their trite sayings and inflated prices is sneakier than one might imagine. Perhaps Jarvis knew this. It was a losing battle, but maybe she could see the future more clearly than her contemporaries. Maybe she could see that the Hallmarkification of Mother’s Day would actually make it harder, not easier, to communicate a true, deep, and loving appreciation of mothers.


Chris Ritter / BuzzFeed News

The author would like to thank West Virginia Wesleyan College’s Katharine Antolini for her assistance with this piece.

Commemorating Mummy: Reflections on Mother’s Day

by Binoy Kampmark / May 12th, 2025

Commercial gimmicks are sometimes impossible to beat off. Their stench and pull follow, even as you look the other way. One occasion is most prominent in this regard.  Nostrils get clogged and eyes get fogged, and the message is this: Remember Mommy.

Mothers’ Day is rarely more than the draw and pull of extracted business and mined guilt. This is the worshipped and leveraged, the human breeder elevated and remembered, if only for one day. It resembles, in some ways, the link between poverty and the church box of charity. Give a few coins and save the child. Your conscience can rest easy.

The day itself denigrates the mother in false respect and guilts the family for ignorance of that fact. It sanctifies a family relation for reasons of commercial worth. Suddenly, Mummy escapes her metaphorical sarcophagus, the nursing home, the flat, and finds herself seated at the end of a table with regrets. The hideous spectacle follows. The grumbling, the sneers. Mummy wonders what she is doing there. Monument? Reminder? A disgusting reminder to die off? Thoughts turn to the will.

It was not necessarily intended that way. In the aftermath of the American Civil War (1861-65), Julia Ward Howe, author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, proposed that women unite in common cause and promote peace. In time, it would become the Mother’s Day Proclamation. In 1908, the idea became more concrete with West Virginian Anna Marie Jarvis’s church memorial in honour of her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis.  Ann Jarvis had been a committed peace activist, aiding wounded soldiers during the Civil War.

On May 9, 1914, US President Woodrow Wilson officially announced the establishment of Mother’s Day as a national observance to be held annually on the second Sunday of May. Such observance was to involve the display of the American flag on government buildings and private residences “as a public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.”

Mother’s Day in Australia only took off with Sydney’s Janet Heyden, who insisted in 1924 on remembering the aging mothers at Newington State Hospital, many of whom had been widowed by the calamitous slaughter of the First World War.  As an activist, she encouraged local schools and businesses to furnish the ladies with donated gifts.  In its more modern iteration, it has evolved into a family affair.  As Australian historian Richard Waterhouse benignly describes it, “It’s not just about recognising the role of mothers, though that’s still there, but it’s really recognising Mother’s Day as a day in which families can get together.”

As with other days of elected memory, Mother’s Day draws in the retail and restaurant dollars.  Guilty emotions are easy fodder for the capitalist impulse.  Unremarkably, it was the United States that propelled its commercialisation, beginning with card companies like Hallmark and enterprising florists keen to make a profit.  Jarvis, so instrumental in establishing the tradition, took to loathing it, attacking such marketing gimmicks as “Mother’s Day Salad”.  For years, she harangued politicians, organised protests, and sought audiences with presidents to arrest the trend towards commodification.  Such efforts eventually exhausted her, leading to a lonely, poor death in a sanatorium.

Even as the Second World War raged, the scope of merchandise in anticipation of the day burgeoned.  An April 1941 issue of New York’s Women’s Wear Daily notes how “Mother’s Day as a gift event has continued to grow in importance, and is now second only to Christmas”.  In Dallas, one Margaret Evans, promotion manager of A. Harris & Co., enthused at the growing number of departments offering gift choices for the occasion.  These included bags, gloves, hosiery, handkerchiefs, toiletries, and jewellery.

Eventually, women’s libbers cottoned on to the idea that a commemorative occasion supposedly emphasising the importance of mothers had been hijacked and shamelessly exploited.  In 1971, a pamphlet issued by the Adelaide women’s liberationists suggested that the woman remained invisible, a chained martyr to the home, a slave to domestic chores, and the cult of domesticity.  Mother’s Day was that one occasion of the year that a woman’s invaluable role in the home was acknowledged, and even then, only imperfectly.  Such a mother’s “basic needs”, including a degree of independence from their children, remained unmet.  But the pamphlet went further, arguing that women “renounce [their] martyrdom” and reenvisage themselves as human beings and “not just ‘mum’.”

The nexus with children was also a point of comment in that decade.  Radical feminist Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution took solid aim at the distorting role played by parenting and mothering in the formation of children. Implicit in her argument was that both the mother and the child needed emancipation.  It remains a pertinent point, even as the swamp of commercialisation looks deeper than ever.

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Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

How Much Longer Must Mothers in Gaza Fear Losing Their Children?

As the US celebrates “Mother’s Day,” thousands of mothers in Gaza are mourning.

By Dalia Abu Ramadan ,

Truthout

May 11, 2025

Koki — pictured here at age 4 shortly before her death in March 2025 — was killed by an Israeli bomb as she celebrated Eid at her grandparents’ house

.Lolo Mando Al-Qishawi / Majdi Fathi / NurPhoto via Getty Images


This spring, with hands overflowing with tenderness, Lolo Mando Al-Qishawi — a Palestinian mother living on Yaffa Street in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood in the eastern part of Gaza City — lovingly adorned her daughter in her Eid dress, her eyes reflecting the girl’s pure, uncontainable joy. But soon, those same hands, trembling with heartbreak, had to strip away the colors of celebration, wrapping her child instead in the cold, final cloth of farewell.

Eid Al-Fitr was meant to be a day of blessings, but instead it turned into a haunting sorrow as a mother’s heart was shattered. How had happiness vanished so swiftly? What cruel twist of fate had stolen away her sweet, innocent girl, who had wished for nothing more than a simple, joyful Eid?

This is how the mothers of Gaza endure every shade of pain.

Mothers in Gaza start fearing for their children during the nine long months of pregnancy, pouring their souls into preserving the fragile life within their wombs.

As a child grows before a mother’s eyes, her love and protection only deepen; she beams with pride at her baby’s first steps and first words. But now, again and again, mothers in Gaza have been forced to gather the shattered pieces of their children’s broken bodies from beneath the rubble.

Related Story

On Mother’s Day, Remember the Mothers of Trayvon, Sandra and Tamir
A lamentation for the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice and others harmed by police violence. By Eisa Nefertari Ulen , Truthout  May 12, 2019

Lolo, my mother’s cousin, was one of those mothers whose journey through infertility was a tale of endless struggle and heartache. Her greatest dream was simple: to become a mother, to hold her child in her arms, and shower her with boundless love and care.

But this dream was not easy to realize. Lolo endured years of grueling attempts through in vitro fertilization treatments, each procedure a painful step toward hope. The road was never smooth; she underwent numerous fertility treatments, one after another, with every failure intensifying the anguish in her heart. Yet she never gave up. Her determination to become a mother burned brighter than any setback.

Her father, living abroad, supported her unwaveringly, sending large sums of money to fund her costly treatments, never once questioning the sacrifices she had to make.

After more than 750 injections that drained both her body and spirit, her long-awaited miracle finally came — she was pregnant.

Lolo gave birth to the daughter she had dreamed of for so long, naming her Koki, the living symbol of her patience and struggle. Koki, who grew up in her mother’s arms, became the light of Lolo’s life, filling her world with joy for four beautiful years. But happiness, it seemed, was never meant to last.

On the second day of Eid, Koki was filled with excitement to go with her father to her grandparents’ house to wish them a happy Eid and say “Eid Mubarak” to everyone.

Most children in Gaza cherish every moment of Eid — dressing up, going out to visit family, clinging to moments of fleeting joy. Lolo lovingly prepared Koki, dressing her in the beautiful dress she adored, and sent her off with her father, full of joy and innocence.

But just minutes later, a devastating message reached Lolo: The house of her husband’s family had been bombed.

In that heart-stopping moment, the news came — the entire family was killed, including her husband and their beloved daughter Koki. In an instant, everything shattered. The joy of Eid was replaced by a tragedy so deep that no words could ever capture its horror.

Lolo’s mind refused to accept the reality. Moments earlier, she had been laughing with her daughter and husband, holding onto happiness — and suddenly, in a heartbeat, everything was gone. How could a life built on love vanish so cruelly? How could an entire family be wiped out without even a chance to say goodbye?

Lolo’s story is a deep wound, but the story of her daughter, Koki, cuts even deeper.

How could the military kill a child so innocent, so full of life, with such merciless cruelty?

My family couldn’t reach Lolo on the phone because her grief was too raw, too overwhelming. But we watched a video clip of her on the news, broken and inconsolable, clutching her daughter’s small body and crying out: “After all these years of struggle, I finally held you… How could you leave me, my beloved?”

To this day, Lolo wakes each morning with the same heartbreaking question on her lips: What crime did my innocent child ever commit?

Imagine how many other mothers in Gaza are experiencing the same grief as Lolo. We were all born from the womb of a mother who endured and sacrificed for us. We know their feelings — how they fear for us as much as we fear for them, how we live in constant anxiety, always fearing the worst.

I vividly remember at the beginning of the war when a house next to ours was bombed, and my brother Mohammad was struck in the skull. His injury was severe, and the feeling that swept through all of us was as if someone was trying to tear our family apart, to rob us of our happiness. I remember my mother clearly — how she cried bitterly and stayed awake all night, not resting until Mohammad was discharged from the hospital, and we knew he was stable and safe.

How many mothers will continue to live with this fear? How many will carry this unbearable burden, day after day?

It’s not only the fear of death that haunts the mothers of Gaza, but also the unbearable agony of watching their children starve, unable to feed them, powerless to save them.

It’s not only the fear of death that haunts the mothers of Gaza, but also the unbearable agony of watching their children starve, unable to feed them, powerless to save them. A thought so unimaginable — especially in the year 2025. Who could have ever predicted that children would die from famine in such a time as this?

I vividly remember when the war began, my mother said something that haunts me to this day: “I wish you were still in my womb, so I could protect you more.”

She said this out of a profound fear of losing us, as if she longed for a way to shield us from the horrors we now face.


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.


Dalia Abu Ramadan is a Palestinian storyteller and aspiring graduate of the Islamic University of Gaza, sharing powerful narratives that reflect the strength, resilience, and challenges of life in Gaza.

 

When parents drink during Super Bowl, kids get harsh discipline

Alcohol use affected both mothers and fathers, study finds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Parents who drank alcohol while watching the Super Bowl were more likely than those who abstained to use aggressive discipline on their children during the game, a new study shows.

 

Most of the parents in the study – more than 90% - were mothers, which is significant, said Bridget Freisthler, lead author of the study and professor of social work at The Ohio State University.

 

“The links between alcohol use, aggression and watching violent sports have been studied almost exclusively among men,” Freisthler said.

 

“This is the first study we’re aware of that shows women may also be affected to act more aggressively by the combination of alcohol and watching violent sports like pro football.”

 

The study also looked at use of alcohol among parents during another special occasion – Valentine’s Day. Results showed that parents who drank on Valentine’s Day were actually less likely to use aggressive discipline on their children that day than were parents who didn’t drink.

 

The study was published today (Dec. 13, 2023) in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

 

Most studies that examine alcohol use tend to focus on people’s typical drinking habits. But special occasions like holidays, weddings and big sporting events may be anything but typical, Freisthler said.

 

“When you ask about typical drinking behavior, people may say they usually only have one beer a day,” she said.  “But on the Fourth of July they may say they have four beers.  That could be a big difference.”

 

This study was part of a larger project that asked parents in central Ohio to report on their alcohol use and parenting techniques three times a day for 14 days. For this study, the researchers included parents who participated during the Super Bowl in February 2021 (255 participants) and one week later on Valentine’s Day (184 participants).

 

All the parents in the study had a child who was 2 to 12 years old at the time.

 

During the three times on Super Bowl Sunday and Valentine’s Day (and on the rest of the 14 days in the study) parents were asked whether they were drinking alcohol and whether they were using punitive or aggressive discipline with their child.

 

That could include discipline such as spanking or shaking the child, or shouting or yelling at them – not just to stop a behavior but to call them a name or shame them. This includes behaviors that are less severe than official child abuse or neglect, yet more frequent.

 

The study didn’t find any relationship between alcohol use and aggressive discipline on most days studied – but the results of the Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day stood out, according to Freisthler.

 

“That’s why we think drinking on special occasions deserves more attention,” she said.

 

There are many reasons why the use of alcohol during the Super Bowl may make parents – particularly mothers – more likely to use aggressive discipline, Freisthler said.

 

“When you add stress and alcohol, that is not a good combination. There’s the stress of the game, particularly if you’re invested in one of the teams. If mothers are hosting a Super Bowl party, that’s another level of stress,” she said.

 

“And for mothers, if their husbands are invested in the game, they may feel it is their job to keep the kids quiet and out of the way of the TV.”

 

The reason that Valentine’s Day resulted in less use of aggressive discipline, despite the alcohol use, may be because of the different nature of that holiday compared to the Super Bowl, according to Freisthler.

 

On Valentine’s Day, the parents may be more likely to be drinking at a restaurant, away from their children. They may feel less stress than normal because of the nature of the romantic holiday, and alcohol use could enhance the good feelings – all of which could lead to less harsh discipline.

 

But Freisthler noted that there are probably more special occasions throughout the year that resemble the Super Bowl than Valentine’s Day.  Holidays like Christmas and the Fourth of July often involve events at home with large groups of people and children around, and also involve more alcohol use than usual.

 

“We need to understand how much parents are drinking on special occasions, how that differs from their normal drinking behaviors, and how is that related to their parenting,” she said. “That’s what we are trying to get at in this study.”

 

Knowing that drinking on special occasions affects levels of drinking – and parenting – means that parents can take steps beforehand to minimize negative impacts, she said.

 

For example, during events like the Super Bowl, parents could hire babysitters if they are able. They could have a special room set up for the kids with fun activities. Or maybe some people who are not interested in the game, like possibly grandparents, could entertain the children during the game.

 

“Parents need to create environments that are most conducive to positive parenting and reduce the risk of harsh parenting,” she said.

 

Freisthler conducted the study with Joselyn Sarabia, a doctoral student in social work at Ohio State, and Jennifer Price Wolf, associate professor of social work at San Jose State University.

---

JOURNAL

Alcoholism Clinical and Experimental Research

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Using ecological momentary assessments to understand how drinking during special occasions relates to parenting behaviors

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

13-Dec-2023

TJA: For the Kurdish people, woman and mother are the name of leadership and pride

Celebrating Mother’s Day, TJA stated that mothers are pioneers in the search for justice and social change.


ANF
NEWS DESK
Sunday, 12 May 2024, 14:43

In a statement on Mother's Day, the Free Women’s Movement (Tevgere Jinên Azad, TJA) emphasised the important role of women in society.

The statement said that mothers represent the creative and vital power of women in society, emphasising that women have been developing socialisation for thousands of years and have formed the basis of culture, life and creativity.

TJA stated that Kurdish mothers in particular have resisted under various names to protect the honour of society and are feared by the fascist system.

The statement said that mothers are the conscience of society and bravely fight against injustice. Stating that the fascist system has increased the pressure on mothers and that many Kurdish mothers are still being held in prisons, TJA said: "For the Kurdish people, women and mothers are the basis of socialisation as well as the name of leadership and pride. The light that grew from the hands of Mother Üveyş has reached a universal cry in the person of Kurdish mothers until today. In the darkness of 12 September, when a genocide was imposed, our mothers fearlessly embraced their children. Against the imposed oppression, our mothers have sometimes become Saturday Mothers, sometimes Peace Mothers, sometimes Mothers in White Headscarves, sometimes Justice Mothers and have not allowed society to deviate from its honour and human values."

The statement remarked that the struggle of the mothers is not limited to the Kurdish geography and that many mothers and women around the world are engaged in similar struggles. It was noted that mothers are pioneers in the search for justice and social change.

Finally, TJA celebrated Mother's Day and drew attention to the valuable roles and struggles of mothers in society.

HEDGEFUND HORROR

What Happens When Private Equity Owns Your Kid’s Day Care

By Hailey Huget

04.22.2025 

 JACOBIN

When my toddler’s day care started turning parents away at the door due to staffing shortages, I learned it was owned by private equity — which maximizes enrollment to squeeze profit out of childcare and now owns eight of the 11 largest US day care companies.

A KinderCare Learning Center in Pembroke Pines, Florida, on September 14, 2024. 

(Eva Marie Uzcategui / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Afew months ago, I was chatting with the mom of a toddler who is the same age as my daughter. As tends to happen when parents of young kids get together, the subject of childcare came up. She relayed that she was happy with their current situation — a nanny share with a few other families — and that it was a welcome change from the day care center they had used previously. One day at their former day care, they showed up at the door and were told to leave: the day care center didn’t have enough staff for the day and was at capacity with kids.

My mouth fell open. “You were turned away at the door? For services you paid for? On a day you were supposed to be at work?”

“Yup, that’s exactly what happened,” she said. I relayed that while there were problems with our day care situation — it was expensive, of course, among other things — thankfully nothing like that had occurred in the nine months we’d been there.

I went home later feeling like we had dodged a bullet. My partner and I had looked at that same day care her family had used, even putting in an application, but we ultimately chose a different one. I may have been patting myself on the back a bit, thinking that our intuition about that place had been right. Turns out the joke was on us.

The history of day care is like the history of oysters: once for poor people, now a luxury commodity. Day cares were originally charity programs, designed to help poor and working-class mothers who worked in urban industrial centers. During World War II, the US government opened the first government-sponsored childcare, intended to encourage more women to enter the workforce and support the war effort. It was short-lived, ending as soon as the war stopped. It wasn’t until the 1970s, when more middle-class and upper-class women began entering the workforce, that momentum began to build around creating universal, nationally funded childcare programs through the Comprehensive Child Development Act. Richard Nixon vetoed that bill in 1972, stopping the effort in its tracks.The history of day care is like the history of oysters: once for poor people, now a luxury commodity.

The lack of a universal childcare program has left a patchwork of nonprofit and for-profit services, of varying quality and increasing unaffordability, to fill the void. In the last two decades, private equity started making major moves into the sector. Today eight out of the eleven largest day care companies in the United States are owned by private equity.

There were a number of warning signs before the day I showed up with my toddler and was turned away at the door. A few weeks before, we got a message in the app that the day care used to communicate with families that said they’d be shortening their hours for the coming week because of a staffing problem. It was inconvenient but felt like nothing major: a temporary issue with understaffing that would soon pass.

But the hours were shortened again the following week. And the week after that.

Then the “at capacity” messages started coming. The first one arrived at 10:20 a.m. on a Thursday: “Unfortunately, we have reached capacity for children today and will be unable to accommodate any more children.”

The second one came the very next day, even earlier in the morning: at 8:57 a.m. The center was so short-staffed that if one or two teachers were out for the day, even due to planned vacation, it would have to turn kids away.The on-site manager let slip that new kids would be starting soon in our daughter’s class.

The message was clear: the earlier you get your kid in the door, the more likely you are to have a spot that day. For the next couple weeks, parents began showing up earlier and earlier to drop off their children, the small parking lot swarming with cars by 8:30 a.m.


One day my daughter slept in a little late and we got there at 8:45. Too late. One of the managers met me at the door, looking panicked. “I’m so sorry, we have been so busy that we haven’t been able to send a message in the app. We are at capacity for the day.”

One of the primary ways that private equity is able to squeeze profit out of childcare — a historically unprofitable institution — is by maximizing enrollment. The more kids you enroll, the more tuition money comes in. And if you have just enough low-paid teachers to ensure you’re in compliance with state-mandated ratios, you can keep labor costs down. Private equity–owned day care centers also try to lower operational costs by, for example, “shifting daily cleaning responsibilities from outside companies to teachers” and reducing “the number of sheets of paper per day” they give to kids. With this model, private equity–owned day cares are able to turn profits of 15 to 20 percent.

While families struggle to afford tuition and day cares struggle to retain their low-paid and overworked staff, the CEOs of these companies are cleaning up: the CEO of KinderCare, one of the largest childcare chains, made $2 million last year. Executives at KinderCare are also paid in equity or stock options, where those stock options “accrue depending on how much money the company returns to their private equity owners, Switzerland-based Partners Group.”

Our day care’s staffing issues persisted for months. Like other families, we found this totally unsustainable — my partner and I have full-time jobs, which is why we needed a day care in the first place. When the day care couldn’t accommodate us, we had to use vacation days to take time off work, and when we couldn’t do that, we had to triage our time so that we kept only our most essential meetings and bumped everything else to other days, making those other days chaotically busy. Of course, it messed up our daughter’s routine as well. All of this prompted us to start investigating other childcare options.

But the moment that really broke us happened when my husband was speaking with the day care’s on-site manager: she let slip that new kids would be starting soon in our daughter’s class.

Despite everything that was going on, and despite the fact that the center was barely able to comply with the state ratio of one caregiver for six children (some other states maintain ratios of one to four), they were continuing to enroll more children. It was absurd. The only thing I could think to compare it to was an airline, systematically overbooking the plane.All the places we had toured and all the ones that came recommended were, it turns out, owned by private equity firms as well.

I was shocked that any day care would function like this, so I started some frantic, rage-induced research. I learned that our day care is one of many “day care brands” owned by the Learning Care Group. Learning Care Group is, in turn, owned by a private equity firm called American Securities. American Securities owns many companies, including: Conair, which makes small appliances like hair dryers; FleetPride, a parts distributor for the trucking industry; and the Aspen Group, a “leading multi-vertical retail healthcare support organization providing business support services to consumer healthcare brands” (huh?). I quickly got the impression that charting all of these businesses and their interrelationships would make 30 Rock’s satirical GE org chart look quaint.

Then I looked into other day cares in town. All the places we had toured and all the ones that came recommended were, it turns out, owned by private equity firms as well. The only places we had heard of that didn’t appear to be owned by private equity were church-run day cares that were only open for half the day and closed all summer. There’s no way that would work for us.

Despite everything I’ve said so far, I think it is possible for a child to be safely cared for in a day care that is owned by private equity. At least I hope this is true, as our daughter started at a new day care recently, and it is, of course, owned by private equity. The facilities seem nicer, and their current ratio of students to teachers is better. We get a small tuition discount because it’s associated with my partner’s employer, so the total cost is not too much more than our old, unacceptably chaotic day care.

But private equity companies have a playbook: buy a business, run it into the ground, extract maximum profits, and flee the scene. They are responsible for the bankruptcies of many popular restaurant and retail chains: Toys “R” Us, Red Lobster, TGI Fridays, Bed Bath & Beyond — the list goes on and on. They’re responsible for elder care facilities imploding and closing down. Knowing this leads me to wonder how much longer my daughter’s new day care will be an acceptable place to send her for eight hours a day. It’s very possible — even likely — that it’s a decent place only because we are experiencing it in the early stages of the private equity takeover. And its implosion wouldn’t just be an inconvenience to us as parents: consistency in who provides childcare is critical for her and other kids’ development.

Is there any hope in this state of affairs? Of course, crisis always presents opportunities. As private equity vacuums up more childcare centers, and as conditions deteriorate, it may provide the fuel we need to see mass unionization in the sector. And if parents can unite with childcare providers to support their demands — such as for better pay and better staffing ratios — together they could become a major bloc that could take on the shadowy forces of capital ruining childcare provision. (Right now, this possibility seems more likely than the US government passing a universal childcare bill.)

While many of us know on an abstract level that private equity is bad, we don’t really understand how it shows up in our daily lives. Most parents I’ve spoken to in my town have no idea that their child’s day care is almost certainly owned by private equity. Part of how private equity gets away with running their playbook again and again, in various industries, is by hiding in the shadows. Maybe if more families start to draw connections between issues they experience with childcare on a day-to-day basis and private equity’s takeover of the sector, we can lay the groundwork for the system-wide changes we all desperately need.

Contributor
Hailey Huget is a labor organizer who lives in North Carolina with her partner, toddler, and dog.