We celebrated Mother’s Day on Sunday. I started writing this blog to highlight the statistics of Mother’s Day. Fast Facts on Mother’s Day was released and I saw it on my RSS feed from ResourceShelf, an amazing site that provides highlights of studies, data, and news that one may not always see elsewhere.
At anyrate, for your viewing pleasure, here are some statistics I retrieved from ResourceShelf on Mother’s Day:
How did Mother’s Day get started? Anna Jarvis organized observances in Grafton, W.Va., and Philadelphia on May 10, 1908. As the annual celebration became popular around the country, Jarvis asked members of Congress to set aside a day to honor mothers. She finally succeeded in 1914, when Congress designated the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
82.8 million: Estimated number of mothers in the United States in 2004
81%: Percentage of women 40 to 44 who are mothers. In 1976, 90 percent of women in that age group were mothers
21,135: Number of florist establishments nationwide in 2005. The 101,861 employees in floral shops across our nation will be especially busy preparing, selling and delivering floral arrangements for Mother’s Day.
5.6 million: Number of stay-at-home moms in 2006. Millions of us participated in a day that is part of our culture and has been since 1914. And that started me thinking, especially in light of what my mom did on Mother’s Day.
1914 was the year my mother was born, in a little town called Kolk, in Poland. Alot has happened since then. She was a daughter, the sixth in a line of 8 children born to Russian-Polish immigrants who migrated to Montreal Canada. She married my father, a US soldier who fought in WWII. After marrying him, they moved to Baltimore. During and after the war, they had a total of 3 children, I was the only girl, and the youngest.
Our lives have not always been easy. My Dad died when I was 10 and my Mom went to work in a bakery to help pay for our household and raising 3 kids. She did good; we all grew up, went to college, married and had our own children. Now I am a daughter and a mother, and a grandmother.
Sometimes, as those of you who have followed this blog know, sometimes I feel like I am also the mother to my mother who lives in a small apartment in a “senior” friendly housing. With short term memory loss, my brother and I, along with a nursing assistent (part-time) share giving her her medicines. She eats mostly prepared foods I purchase for her weekly. She wants to continue to live in her apartment where her friends are even though she rarely participates in activities. She is adament about this.
So my mother’s activity following mother’s day was to call 911. She does this occasionally, and once the front door had to be broken down because she fell asleep and did not hear the door bell. She is also hard of hearing but refuses to wear a hearing aid. When 911 came this time, they did not find anything wrong with her and she told them she felt better than when she called (10 minutes prior) and decided she did not need them.
My brother and I had a long talk with her about calling 911 and the need for her to call us first. We also talked to her about the fact that if she was feeling badly, we could take her to her doctor or, if she felt bad everyday or often, maybe it was time to move into an assisted living. Her response: I am not going anywhere. This is my home and I am staying here.
She is lucid. She wants to remain in control of her destiny. This has been a struggle. What is best for her and are we, her children, the best deciders of what is best for her? Is moving her into an assissted living the best for her, or for us? Frankly, I don’t know the answer to that. And what right do we have to make decisions for her at this stage? I know many of you are also sandwich generation or caregivers, or whatever you want to call us. So, what do you do? How do you do it?
