Archive for 2007

The US Census Bureau recently compiled a 4 page PDF report about moms and Mother’s Day. Here are some of the highlights:

Motherhood and Children:

• 80.5 million number of mothers in the United States
• 55% percent of 15 to 44 year olds who are mothers
• 81% perecent of 40 to 44 year olds who are mothers. In 1976 this number was 90%.
• 2.1 the number of children women have in their lifetime. In Utah the number is 2.5, and in many northeast states the number is as low as 1.7.
• 10.4 million the number of single moms with children under 18. 3.4 million in 1970
• 61% & 81% percentage of children of maried couples under 6 who eat breakfast and dinner with their mothers every day
• 4.1 million the number of 2005 births in the US. 414,406 were from teen mothers, while 111,190 were from mothers above 40.
• 25.2 the average age of women giving their first child
• 40% percentage of births that are the first child. 32% second, 17% third, 11% fourth or more
• 35,578 the number of 2004 births outside hospitals
• 1:31 the odds of delivering twins

Working and Raising Children:

• 5.6 million the number of stay at home moms in 2006
• 55% percentage of moms with infant children in the work force in 2004. Down from an all time high of 59% in 1998.
• 729,040 number of child care centers across the US

Shopping for Mom:

• 21,667 the number of florist establishments in the US in 2004
• 12,454 number of perfume, comsetics, and beauty supplies stores in the US in 2004
• 28,772 number of US jewelry stores in 2004

CartoonChurch’s Dave Walker recently updated his cute cartoon for Mother’s Day.

You can find more of his cool cartoons at Cartoon Church and We Blog Cartoons.

We recently finished our article about the history of Mother’s Day. It is a fascinating read if you wanted to know more about how Mother’s Day came into being.

The popular growing Australian run for breast cancer occures in exactly one month. If you are in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth, or Sydney on Sunday the 13th of May consider walking or running to help raise funds for the National Breast Cancer Foundation. If you can’t make the event consider sponsoring someone who is going. More details at the official site.

A head teacher in a Carmarthen, West Wales school has decided to ban the making of Mother’s Day cards:

“More than five per cent of children here are separated from their birth mother and have either no contact or no regular contact with their mother,” she said.

Surely it is sad to know parental ties have been broken for some children, but it doesn’t make sense to go out of our way to break them for all children. Everyone is a minority if you inspect them hard enough, but we shouldn’t make everyone suffer for it. How is that politically correct?

Anyone who thinks that being different is a bad thing or something that everyone should give up freedoms for should read about how bad that world would be if we were all the same in Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron.

What do you do if your mom once lived in the United States but moved to the United Kingdom? Do you celebrate both Mothering Day and Mother’s Day?

From Mother’s Day Dilemma:

I love my mother, but for the last 15 years I’ve had a dilemma – when to celebrate Mother’s Day. In the UK, Mother’s Day is the last Sunday in March; in the rest of the world (or at least in Barbados and the US, where my mother spends much of her time), it’s the first Sunday in May. So what to do?

Assuming distance and travel costs do not prevent it, I think you should celebrate whichever holiday is core to your memory of your mother and her bring you up through your childhood. On the other day that it would be best to have a nice visit or chat on phone. What do you think?