Mother's Day in Devout America
#35 of Maverick Hotel side content
Just another in-universe report I made up, detailing the state of Mother's Day in my dystopian world of Maverick Hotel.
NOTE: To avoid shitposting and political ranting in the comments, let's all just agree that you're reading this because a) you're looking for some entertainment b) you want to read a dystopian furry story or c) the most likely of reasons, you want to read something that'll make you feel like a romantic horndog. Let's all just have fun. Alright? Alright.
Even before Devout America's founding, the holiday dedicated to honoring mothers has been a popular celebration for American families. Common ways to celebrate it include young furs cooking meals for their mother, bringing her to an event they enjoy, giving her flowers, a card, sweets, or even gathering at a favorite restaurant.
Mother's Day in American culture began when Anna Jarvis founded the holiday to honor her own mother, a beloved social activist, as well as motherhood in general. Congress established the holiday as taking place on the second Sunday of every May, beginning in 1914. However, Anna Jarvis eventually grew to hate the very holiday as commercialization enabled floral and greeting card companies to manipulate customers into buying the best products in order to prove their love for their respective mothers. Disgusted by this, the holiday's own founder led a charge to repeal Mother's Day over the course of three decades until 1943, when economic hardship, declining mental health, and efforts to organize a petition led to Anna Jarvis being placed in a sanitarium. She stayed there until dying five years later. It is now widely believed that the people who paid the bills keeping her locked in the sanatorium were, in fact, connected to the floral and greeting card companies profiting from Mother's Day.
(The paragraph you just read is not creative writing for alternate history. This all actually did happen to the real-life Anna Jarvis.)
Mother's Day changed very little in the years following the beginning of the Second American Civil War. However, there have been two noticeable developments regarding the Revenant Party's reappropriation of the holiday. Although commercialization remains strong, floral and greeting card companies are encouraged to produce cards promoting motherhood as an occupation for young girls to strive towards. It isn't uncommon for female furs to be pressured into marrying a male fur after high school or college through chaperoned courtship, then sire as many babies as they can possibly manage. It is unsurprising to learn the Quiverfull movement has exploded in membership since 1997, particularly in the South and in the Northeastern parts of New England.
In fact, most iconography of this message is often seen with a female fur and her husband surrounded by several cubs, a subtle hint that the Devout States government expects a larger population in the future. While there is not much stigma towards married women giving birth to no more than one cub in Devout America, many suspect the prejudicial attitudes to gradually rise with time, especially towards young women past the age of eighteen. Besides a few exceptions regarding income, background, or the type of degree being obtained, there has been evidence of some universities outright rejecting female applicants. One other noteworthy instance of this push for traditional family values happened between 1999-2006 when various Devout-based corporations began laying off female employees and/or having their salaries be placed in bank accounts belonging to their respective husbands. Any protests speaking out against such misogyny and patriarchal prejudice is either quickly stamped out or stricken from records.
Regardless, by the late 2010s, Mother's Day remains a popular holiday for the average Devout American family and is used by the government to enforce propaganda regarding motherhood, as well as what they believe is a female fur's destiny going into adulthood.