Mother’s Day is a holiday observed annually all over the world celebrating the importance and accomplishments of countless moms and mother figures, and giving their children, godchildren, and grandchildren a golden opportunity to show them how much they care. In the United States, Mother’s Day falls on the second Sunday in May. Check out our previous articles on Mother’s Day for more information on the holiday’s history and common customs in the U.S.
Flowers are among the most popular gifts to give Mom on Mother’s Day, to the point that the holiday is by far the busiest time of the year for flower shops. However, there is one flower that was pushed into popular culture as being the ideal Mother’s Day flower: carnations. The carnation flower’s connection with Mother’s Day began in the early twentieth century with Anna Jarvis, who founded the American incarnation of the holiday in honor of her own beloved mother. Carnations were Jarvis’ mother’s favorite flower, and Jarvis would send deliveries of carnations to memorial services at the church her mother had once taught at as a tribute to her, and had them distributed at the earliest Mother’s Day celebrations.
As Mother’s Day became more commercialized, with companies pushing consumers to buy more and more gifts to prove they care (much to the despair of Anna Jarvis, who believed that the spirit of the holiday was being lost, and that people were simply “too lazy” to offer their mothers more sincere shows of affection), carnations became a part of the advertising. Marketing campaigns would repeat that people should wear carnations to honor their mothers on the big day: red ones if their mother was alive, and white ones if she had died, as if it were already tradition.
In the English language of flowers, carnations can have several meanings depending on their color. White carnations typically symbolize purity and innocence, which Anna Jarvis cited among her reasons for choosing the color to represent Mother’s Day, while pink ones symbolize gratitude and red ones symbolize love and affection.
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