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Mother’s Day traditions differ across the world — see how other families celebrate
It wouldn’t be Mother’s Day in the United States without the classic traditions Americans know best: large bouquets of roses and carnations, homemade cards, special outings, and accolades for moms near and far.
When the holiday was first started in 1907 by Anna Jarvis to honor mothers, the day’s event was at a Methodist church in West Virginia, where white carnations were reportedly distributed to those in attendance. President Woodrow Wilson in 1914 declared the second Sunday of May a national holiday.
Jarvis fiercely advocated for a day dedicated to mothers and then famously regretted how commercialized it became. In the years since, the holiday has become even more commercialized, with consumers spending a record $33.5 billion.
Over the years, other countries have adopted Mother’s Day, each offering its own unique take — some perhaps closer to the celebrations Jarvis envisioned Some countries celebrate on different dates, and others in May. Mexico celebrates on May 10, Thailand on August 12, Peru the second Sunday of May, and France typically the last Sunday in May, while the United Kingdom celebrates on the last Sunday of Lent, which varies each year.
There’s everything from mariachi serenades to visits to the local church to traditional meals made to honor the family matriarch. No matter how the festivities may look, the intention is the same: to share an appreciation for the women at the center of the family.
Here’s a sampling of some of the Mother’s Day traditions in other places around the globe.
Mexico
Día de Las Madres is celebrated each year on May 10, and festivities do not disappoint. Mexicans usually have the day off, so when the holiday falls on a weekday, they’re able to stay home and spend the day with their mom.
“The mother here is a very important figure,” Lola Barba, a mother of two who grew up in Mexico City, told CBS News. “The country stops when it’s Mother’s Day here.”
Luis Barron / Eyepix Group/Future Publishing via Getty Images
The week leading up to Mother’s Day, elementary schools organize festivals with dances, plays, and songs. Moms are invited to watch and enjoy the treats, said Barba. Families typically gather on the day for large meals with traditional menu items including mole, pozole, and enchiladas, while others opt to take their moms out to a local restaurant. But nothing beats the tradition of hiring mariachi bands or trios to serenade moms — sometimes early enough in the morning to wake them up!
Mexican Mother’s Day came about around the same time as the U.S. holiday, just over a century ago. Mexico later erected a monument to mothers called the Monumento a la Madre.
While she’s now based in Los Angeles., Barba still tends to celebrate Mother’s Day on the 10th. “I usually celebrate on the day, and sometimes I even celebrate twice!” she said.
Courtesy Lola Barba
Peru
Peruvians mark Mother’s Day, known as “Feliz Dia Mama,” by getting the whole household together, whether at a restaurant, or a relative’s house.
“In my family, we usually get together around lunchtime at someone’s house and spend the next several hours together, enjoying each other’s company and strengthening our family ties,” Laura Gonzales, 77, a mom from Lima, Peru told CBS News.
Families are also known to congregate at cemeteries to pay respect to deceased mothers, aunts, and grandmothers – particularly those who live in the provinces outside of the capital of Lima, said Gonzales. Many bring food, drinks, and flowers to lay down on the graves. Vendors have caught on and now sell flowers, balloons, and signs outside the cemeteries. What might seem like a somber tradition is actually regarded as a joyful celebration among Peruvian families.
Gonzales said that in the past, children would typically wear a red rose if their mother was alive, or a white one if they had passed. The tradition has faded over time, but red roses are still one of the most popular flower choices for mothers.
United Kingdom
In the U.K., Mother’s Day goes by a different name: “Mothering Sunday,” which honors the connection to the church in addition to mothers. During the Middle Ages, people who had moved away would come back each year on the fourth Sunday of Lent to visit their “Mother” church — typically where they were baptized. This was an opportunity to reconnect after long periods spent apart. Today, Mothering Sunday is still celebrated on the last Sunday of Lent, the date of which varies each year.
Richard Baker /In Pictures via Getty Images
The holiday’s connection to religion is less obvious nowadays, said Susan Morgan, a 65-year-old mom of three who lives in Suffolk, England. As a little girl, she recalls visiting family for afternoon tea and bringing them flowers and a homemade card.
“It felt like an important day to me, slightly religious, and about going with my mum to show respect to her mother and her mother’s mother,” Morgan told CBS News.
Thailand
In Thailand, Mother’s Day is a holiday that the entire country joins in on — it’s a public holiday and people are given the day off. Originally celebrated on April 15, the holiday was moved to August 12 in 1976 to coincide with the birthday of Queen Sirikit, a member of the Thai royal family.
Wang Guoan/China News Service via Getty Images
With double the reason to celebrate, there’s plenty of fanfare. Leading up to the 12th, buildings across the country are adorned with images of the queen, along with colorful flags, flowers, and lights. In Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, fireworks can be seen lighting up the sky during an annual ceremony for the queen.
Children offer their moms white jasmine flowers, which are in high demand in and around the holiday. “It is not just a holiday; it is the day that we appreciate mothers and motherhood and reflect how grateful we are,” said Ploy Khunisorn, who lived in Thailand for 22 years but is currently living in Boston.
Last year, the U.S. Embassy in Thailand extended warm wishes to the queen and all Thai mothers.
France
Celebrations look different depending on the family, but in France, it’s typical to offer moms small gifts and flower bouquets, like the famed Lily of the Valley.
Mother’s Day typically takes place on the last Sunday of May.
Spending quality time with loved ones is also an important part of how the French mark the day, Anne-Sophie Bellemin, a French mother of two who lives in the town of Novalaise, told CBS News
Bellemin said her husband has historically gone to le marché, the market, the morning of Mother’s Day to buy a colorful bouquet replete with roses, daisies and other flowers. “It was a tradition for the kids to give me the bouquet my husband had bought,” she said.
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MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota Vikings rookie Khyree Jackson died overnight in a car accident.
The Upper Marlboro, Maryland native played for Alabama and Oregon. He was drafted by the Vikings in April in round 4 as the 108th overall pick.
He was 24 years old.
“Our thoughts are with Khyree’s family, friends, teammates and coaches, as well as all the victims of this tragic accident,” the Vikings wrote on X.
Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell said he was “crushed” by the news of Jackson’s death.
“In our short time together, it was evident Khyree was going to develop into a tremendous professional football player, but what was more impressive was his desire to become the best person he could be for his family and those around him,” O’Connell added.
The crash happened in Upper Marlboro shortly after 3 a.m. and involved three cars, according to Maryland state police. Investigators believe the driver of a silver Infiniti car tried to change lanes at a high rate of speed and struck the car that Jackson was in, as well as a Chevrolet Impala.
The two other occupants of Jackson’s car also died in the crash. The occupants of the other cars were not hurt.
Officials believe that alcohol could have been a contributing factor in the crash.
In a statement, the Minnesota Vikings say they have offered support to Jackson’s family, and are offering counseling and emotional support to the players who seek it.
This is a developing story. Check back with WCCO.com for more.
Note: The above video first aired on June 24, 2024.
Alfred Handley leaned back in his wheelchair alongside a major Phoenix freeway as a street medicine team helped him get rehydrated with an intravenous saline solution dripping from a bag hanging on a pole.
Cars whooshed by under the blazing 96-degree morning sun as the 59-year-old homeless man with a nearly toothless smile got the help he needed through a new program run by the nonprofit Circle the City.
“It’s a lot better than going to the hospital,” Handley said of the team that provides health care to homeless people. He’s been treated poorly at traditional clinics and hospitals, he said, more than six years after being struck by a car while he sat on a wall, leaving him in a wheelchair.
Circle the City, a non-profit that works in multiple cities and hospitals and treats about 9,000 people annually, introduced its IV rehydration program as a way to protect homeless people in Phoenix from life-threatening heat illness as temperatures regularly hit the triple-digits in America’s hottest metro.
Matt York / AP
Homeless people accounted for nearly half of the record 645 heat-related deaths last year in Maricopa County, which encompasses metro Phoenix. As summers grow warmer, health providers from San Diego to New York are being challenged to better protect homeless patients.
Dr. Liz Frye, vice chair of the Street Medicine Institute which provides training to hundreds of healthcare teams worldwide, said she didn’t know of groups other than Circle the City administering IVs on the street. The organization also distributes tens of thousands of water bottles each summer and tries to educate people about hot weather dangers.
“But if that’s what needs to happen to keep somebody from dying, I’m all about it,” Frye said.
Bringing care to people in need
The amount of people requiring treatment for heat illnesses is rising. The Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, featured in last year’s book, “Rough Sleepers,” now sees patients with mild heat exhaustion in the summer after decades of treating people with frostbite and hypothermia during the winter, said Dr. Dave Munson, the street team’s medical director.
“It’s certainly something to worry about,” said Munson, noting that temperatures in Boston hit 100 degrees with 70% humidity during June’s heat wave. Homeless people, he said, are vulnerable to very hot and very cold weather not only because they live outside, but they often can’t regulate body temperature due to medication for mental illness or high blood pressure, or because of street substance use.
The Phoenix team searches for patients in homeless encampments in dry riverbeds, sweltering alleys and along the canals that bring water to the Phoenix area. About 15% are dehydrated enough for a saline drip.
Matt York / AP
“We go out every day and find them,” said nurse practitioner Perla Puebla. “We do their wound care, medication refills for diabetes, antibiotics, high blood pressure.”
Puebla’s street team ran across Handley and 36-year-old Phoenix native Phillip Enriquez near an overpass in an area frequented by homeless people because it’s near a facility offering free meals. Across the road was an encampment of tents and lean-tos along a chain-link fence.
Enriquez sat on a patch of dirt as Puebla started a drip for him. She also gave him a prescription for antibiotics and a referral to a dentist for his dental infection.
Living outside in Arizona’s broiling sun is hard, especially for people who may be mentally ill or use sedating drugs like fentanyl that make them less aware of their surroundings. Stimulants like methamphetamine contribute to dehydration, which can be fatal. Dr. Matt Essary, who works with Circle in the City’s mobile clinics, said the organization also often treats surface burns that can happen when a medical emergency or intoxication causes someone to fall on a sizzling sidewalk.
Matt York / AP
Temperatures this year have reached 115 degrees in metro Phoenix, where six heat-related deaths have been confirmed through June 22. Another 111 are under investigation, and the city is seeing an “increasing” number of patients with heat illnesses every year, according to Dr. Aneesh Narang, the assistant medical director of emergency medicine at Banner Medical Center-Phoenix, which treats many homeless people with heat stroke.
Narang’s staff works frequently with Circle the City, whose core mission is providing respite care, with 100 beds for homeless people not well enough to return to the streets after a hospital stay.
Extreme heat worldwide requires a dramatic response, said physician assistant Lindsay Fox, who cares for homeless people in Albuquerque, New Mexico, through an initiative run by the University of New Mexico’s School of Medicine.
Three times weekly, Fox treats infections, cleans wounds and manages chronic conditions in consultation with hospital colleagues. She said the prospect of more heat illness worries her.
Highs in Albuquerque can hit the 90s and don’t fall enough for people living outside to cool off overnight, she said.
“If you’re in an urban area that’s primarily concrete, you’re retaining heat,” she said. “We’re seeing heat exposure that very quickly could go to heat stroke.”
Serious heat stroke is far more common in metro Phoenix, where Circle the City is now among scores of health programs for the homeless in cities like New York, San Diego and Spokane, Washington.
Circle the City works with medical staff in seven Phoenix hospitals to help homeless patients get after-care when they no longer need hospitalization. It also staffs two outpatient clinics for follow-up.
Rachel Belgrade waited outside Circle the City’s retrofitted truck with her black-and-white puppy, Bo, for Essary to write a prescription for the blood pressure medicine she lost when a man stole her bicycle. She accepted two bottles of water to cool off as the morning heat rose.
“They make all of this easier,” said Belgrade, a Native American from the Gila River tribe. “They don’t give you a hard time.”
