Call Your Mother, The New York Times

May 5, 2011, 2:59 PM NYtimes
Call Your Mother
By LISA BELKIN
Will you be spending Mother’s Day with your mother? If not, will you be giving her a call?

There's Still Time to Make Mom's Day

(Let me take a pause here to say that writing posts this time of year makes me uncomfortable; every word makes me think of those who no longer have their mother to call. I know Father’s Day has taken on a different meaning for me since my dad passed away seven years ago this month. I don’t wish for posts like these to cause pain.)

Sunday is the day to honor Mom in the United States, but what if yours is someplace else entirely?

If your mother lives in Norway, you should have called her on the second Sunday in February. In Britain, Ireland and Nigeria, that day would be the Fourth Sunday of Lent. May is by far the most common month for this celebration, and the second Sunday in May is by far the most common day (you can click here for a handy chart) but you have until June if your mother is in Mongolia, Luxembourg or Kenya; until August if she is in Thailand or Costa Rica; until October for Belarus, Argentina and Malawi; November for Russia; and December in Panama and Indonesia.

And you DO call your mother on the day SHE celebrates … right?

VIP Communications, a provider of international calling services, has measured exactly how much you love your mom; umm, I mean, how likely you are to call. They just released their “Mother’s Day Calling Trends Report,” in which they measure the number of calls placed by 30,000 expat customers back to their 100 home countries on their native Mother’s Day, as well as the number of minutes spent on the phone.

And it turns out we are logging more such calls. VIP compared calls home during the most recent national Mother’s Day with those made the year before, finding a global increase of nearly 40 percent over a normal day this most recent year, compared with a 21 percent increase the prior year. I suppose when the world is an uncertain place, it’s particularly important to talk to Mom. Mother’s Day is not the biggest international calling day, however. That would be Christmas (an 81 percent increase) and New Year’s Eve (61 percent.)

So, which nation’s children love, er, call, their mothers the most? Ghanians placed 98 percent more calls home last Mother’s Day (which is the same date as in the U.S.) than on an average day; this was the highest rate in the world. At the other end of the scale, expats from Eritrea (March 8), Jamaica (second Sunday in May) and Zambia (also the second Sunday in May) are the least likely to call, with an average 14 percent decrease over (under?) a typical day.

The numbers hint not only at which cultures value Mom, but also at where she stands relative to other relationships. The worldwide call spike for Father’s Day is only 23 percent, the report says (though it was 160 percent in Costa Rica and 121 percent in Belgium), and the conversations with Dad are shorter. And in Italy (this Sunday), France (first Sunday in June) and Spain (first Sunday in May) there is no increase in calls on Mother’s Day, but all those countries saw a significant increase (up to 144 percent, compared with a 15 percent increase worldwide) on Valentine’s Day.

How often do you talk to your mother? Do you plan to call her on Sunday?

There's Still Time to Make Mom's Day
Mother's Day is this Sunday, May 8. Shop our selection of last-minute Mother's Day gift ideas, including Amazon.com Gift Cardsand Magazine Subscriptions .


Some Reader comments:

claiborne ray
brooklyn, ny
May 6th, 2011
5:19 am
My mother always said Mother's Day was a "greeting card holiday" and not to worry if we missed it. That's probably why I called her almost every day until she recently forgot how to answer the phone without help.

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Mama Ellen
Westchester New York
May 6th, 2011
5:20 am
When my son was in college, he studied at Oxford University his junior year. One Saturday night in early spring I came home to find a beautiful basket of flowers and a lovely note from him thanking me for being such a great mom.

Wow, I thought. How cool is THAT? Flowers and a nice card for no reason whatsoever! The next day he called from England to wish me a Happy Mother's Day. Problem was it wouldn't be Mother's Day for another month!

He explained that he had been seeing Mother's DAy reminders all over Britain for the past several weeks and had felt so proud about getting his act together to remember Mother's Day even though he was far away in Europe. We laughed and I told him I was impressed!

When Mother's Day really did roll around, I called HIM and thanked him again for his kind and thoughtful gesture. That's one Mother's Day present I won't ever forget!

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