May. The month of spring, rainstorms, and growth. For Mexican mothers, the month also marks a time of celebration. Unlike in the United States, where Mother’s Day falls on the second Sunday of May, Mexican Mother’s Day remains on May 10th–no matter the day of the week. 

So, like all good Latina daughters know. We must plan the brunch, coordinate the gifts, and make sure Mom feels appreciated and loved. Because one thing is certain: Mother’s Day is meant to honor the invisible labor that keeps families running: the appointments scheduled during lunch breaks, the house that stays clean somehow, the birthday celebrations, and all while working, because providing is also part of loving. 

Mother’s Day isn’t just a date. It’s a reckoning. A reminder that we must recognize not only what moms do, but what they need to truly thrive in our society. Because care and celebration have always carried an economic cost. And I am not just talking about the ways we honor moms: sometimes with flowers, meals, gifts, and, in my case, last year, even a mariachi band. I am talking about something heavier: the rising price of care itself, and the systemic underappreciation of the women who keep the care economy running. 

When Mexico officially established Mother’s Day on May 10, 1922, the date was chosen with practicality in mind: it coincided with a common workers’ payday. By selecting the 10th of the month, the government ensured that working families would have the means to celebrate mothers.

Two decades later, in 1942, the Mexican government made another symbolic Mother’s Day gesture by returning pawned sewing machines to mothers without requiring repayment of the loans. The act recognized mothers’ economic importance while leaving the labor itself, the unpaid care work of clothing and caring for their families, largely invisible.

In 1922, the concern was whether families had enough cash on May 10th to buy flowers. In 2026, the question is whether families can afford to work at all. Let’s take a look at the numbers. It’s no secret that childcare is expensive. Some families pay up to 30% of their income on child care, making it unaffordable almost everywhere in the U.S.

Yet the system survives because of an underpaid workforce made up largely of women, especially Black and Latina women, who often earn less than $15 an hour. 

Latina providers make up roughly 23% of the child care workforce, but face disproportionately high poverty rates, and Black and Latina women are especially concentrated in low-paid home-based care work.

And yes, women’s economic participation has grown dramatically since 1922. Latinas alone contributed an estimated $1.3 trillion to the U.S. economy in 2021, with their economic output growing faster than that of non-Hispanic women over the last decade.

But even as women’s paid labor has become increasingly essential to economic growth, the care work that makes that labor possible remains underpaid and undervalued.

These consequences ripple far beyond individual households. Rising child care costs push mothers out of the workforce, reducing labor force participation and costing the U.S. economy an estimated $172 billion annually. One report found that if we had more accessible childcare, it could collectively boost women’s income over their lifetimes by $130 billion.

When caregivers, particularly Black, brown, and low-income women, are forced out of paid work, communities lose income, businesses lose productivity, and families lose stability.

That’s why, on May 11th, parents and providers across the country will participate in the fifth annual Day Without Child Care. 

Parents and providers are demanding what Mexican mothers were indirectly fighting for in 1922 and 1942: recognition that care work is the foundation of the economy, not a private burden to be absorbed by individual families, but a public good that sustains the entire economy.

History always leaves lessons behind, and like usual, women and mothers are carrying that torch all the way to the finish line. The question is no longer whether we can afford to invest in childcare. It is whether we can afford not to.