Mothers Day/Fathers Day.

On sunday we shall have what used to be known as Mothering Sunday and is now known as Mothers Day. When I was young this day was celebrated simply by children brining bunches of flowers to their mothers, but now, largely due to the greeting card industry, it has turned into a major event on the calender with fortunes being spent on cards and local hostelries being booked solid for family meals in celebration of the day of motherhood.

Later in the year, we now have Fathers Day, a more recent invention designed to get the cardmakers some more income celebrating fatherhood. The two days though are celebrated differently. Fathers tend to get beermugs and CDs rather then being taken outr for a meal and its interesting to speculate why. Do men still not have the culinary skills that they can cook a meal on Mothers Day rather then going out for one, or is it that Mothers Day is a far more established family celebration. On the other side of the equation, do women still feel inhibited about taking men out for a meal and paying for it, or do men still find being taken out by a woman problematic, or do women still not have the economic clout to take the family out.

One for the sociologists to ponder on.