• Financial & Investment Management Group
  • Tuesday, January 06, 2009

What our Mothers do for the Economy

by Paul Sutherland
Posted May 02, 2008
FIM Group
PDF Version

We will come out of the current tougher economic times and thrive again. The economic reality is that economies ebb and flow. The seeds of the next boom are in the current recession. What makes me so confident about this? Well, for one rea- son, our mothers.

Despite the fact that I was raised by a mom dedicated to making sure her five sons and one daughter could cook, my siblings and I help make Mother?s Day the most popular day of the year to dine out at a restaurant in the U.S. After Christmas, Mother?s Day is the second highest gift-giving holiday in America.

All of this started 100 years ago, when Anna Jarvis started the crusade to found a memorial day for women and to honor her own mother, an Appalachian homemaker who had organized ?Mothers? Work Days? in an effort to improve sanitary conditions on both sides during the Civil War. In 1905, Anna Jarvis promised at her mother?s gravesite to dedicate her life to honor- ing mothers ? living and dead. Soon after her promise, she handed out 500 white carnations to women at St. Andrew?s Church in Grafton, West Virginia starting the tradition we all know as Mother's Day.

Today, over 80 percent of small retail busi- nesses say that the day we honor the 82.8 mil- lion mothers in the U.S. is crucial to their yearly earnings. Many of us will make the 125,000 employees who work for the 23,000 florists get lots of overtime pay, and we will help make AT&T, France Telecom, Deutsche Telecom, Verizon, and other phone companies, as well as their employees, suppliers, and shareholders, happy as we make more phone calls than on any other day. Total spending on Mother?s Day in the U.S. alone is expected to be $15.8 billion this year.

World economies need not worry, because word travels fast about anything good. Some form of Mother?s Day is now celebrated in over 100 countries, including Thailand, Turkey, Italy, Finland, and Belgium. While some cultures have their own unique traditions, many countries ? particularly in Asia ? have copied the heavily commercialized version developed in America.

But more important than Mother?s Day is the impact that working moms now have on our economy. In the 1950s less than 20 per- cent of mothers with minor children joined the workforce in some capacity. Today that figure is almost 70 percent. Working mothers now earn an estimated $480 billion annually. They are entrepreneurs and teachers, CEOs and part-time workers, physicians and community volunteers.

All women are mothers in my eyes; they care for husbands, children, and friends and help bring peace and happiness for every- one. And they are so vital to the strength and resilience of our economy. So blessings to each woman who is reading this piece. And to those who may not have sent flowers or a card to mom ? it?s never too late! Spring is here in beau- tiful Northern Michigan. It was wise of Anna Jarvis to choose this season for such a wonder- ful, meaningful, and important commemora- tion.

 
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