The Story of Mother's Day | Explained in Under 10 Minutes

Mother's Day is celebrated in over 50 countries — but most people don't know it started as an act of grief, and ended as a cautionary tale about commercialisation eating its own origins.Niamh leads the team through the full sweep of the story: from ancient Greek festivals honouring Rhea, mother of the gods, to the Roman festival of Hilaria, to British Mothering Sunday where servants walked home carrying wildflowers picked from hedgerows. Then comes Anna Jarvis — the woman who single-handedly lobbied the US government into declaring Mother's Day a national holiday in 1914, and then spent the rest of her life trying to undo it. She died penniless in a sanitarium, her bills quietly paid by the greeting card industry she'd devoted her final years to fighting.The team also explore the science of matrescence — how a mother's brain physically rewires during pregnancy — and the cultural differences in how motherhood is honoured around the world, from the Māori concept of whānau to the Hindu principle that places the mother above even the divine.And for those who find this day complicated — who are grieving, estranged, or carrying something heavy — this episode sits with that too.Have a topic you'd love us to explain? Send your suggestions to [email protected] — we read every one!