Mothering Sunday and Smothering Monday

Did you know?

In days of yore, Mothering Sunday - celebrated today in certain parts of the world - was often followed by Smothering Monday.

Mothers are of course the fabric of society, the "social anchors" of any community.

But until the seventeenth century, mothers who had raised all of their surviving babies to at least their teenage years were regarded as a burden and strain on the village. 

These women had served their purpose, so their "just-reareds" (as their teens were called) would feign respect for their mothers with a Mother's Day celebration. 

The following morning, however, the teens would either drown these "social anchors" - who were dragging the rest of the village down, through their burdensome infirmities - in the nearby river, or suffocate them at home.

Mother's Day was regarded as a celebration in the same way that the fattening of the turkey is at Christmas, or the lamb at Easter. Hundreds of thousands of mothers died in this fashion. 

You might ask how they never learned of the practice themselves, or how they didn't know to flee the village once they had successfully raised their turncoat children? 

The trick to the whole thing is: They did know!

You have to remember that throughout history, mothers in western culture are primarily very similar. 

How do the mothers of today not know when they're going to be put into an old folk's home, where the nursing staff can slap them and force them to soil themselves, by refusing to assist them to the bathroom?

You know the nursing homes, in the documentaries? 

The ones that are like the childcare facilities from the other documentaries, where the kids are strapped into their high chairs and seats for hours at a time? And shouted and screamed at?

How do these mothers not know where they're going? They DO

know. It's all part of the "respect-for-the-elders" culture that the West is now introducing across the entire world, like all of its other great exports!

So this Mother's Day, play some nice music, like, you know, the song Cats in the Cradle, or The Living Years, except about mothers. Because I can't be bothered thinking about a song for mothers. And have a great Smothering Monday!