--- title: Mother's Day 2016: 7 Great TIME Stories About American Moms description: For Mother's Day, take a look back at how American ideas of motherhood have evolved over the course of nearly a century canonical: https://time.com/4307953/mothers-day-stories-archives/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-05-06T16:00:45.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:57:40.633Z article:section: History og:title: 7 Essential TIME Stories About Moms og:description: Put Mother's Day in context with help from the TIME archives og:url: https://time.com/4307953/mothers-day-stories-archives/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbdf20555f0d46c05/698890b7f887dcf760e959aa/mom.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Mother And Baby og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 7 Essential TIME Stories About Moms twitter:description: Put Mother's Day in context with help from the TIME archives twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbdf20555f0d46c05/698890b7f887dcf760e959aa/mom.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Evolution of the American Mom in 7 Stories > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. May 6, 2016 4:00 PM UTC  circa 1960: A mother feeds her baby a bottle. circa 1960: A mother feeds her baby a bottle. Hulton Archive / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. May 6, 2016 4:00 PM UTC Some aspects of being a mother never change. But, with Mother’s Day approaching this weekend, it’s worth remembering that society’s ideas of what made a newsworthy mother have shifted significantly over the years. With help from the TIME archives, here’s a look at the stories and trends that have made motherhood news over the decades: **1937:** [**…**](http://time.com/vault/issue/1937-05-31/page/62/)[**And How They Grew**](http://time.com/vault/issue/1937-05-31/page/62/) From the time of their birth in Canada in 1934, the Dionne Quintuplets captured the world’s attention. According to TIME’s initial [report](http://time.com/vault/issue/1934-06-11/page/47/), they were “the 31st authentically known quintuplet in 500 years” and, after five days, they were the first known set to have lived that long. In retrospect, however, their mother’s story is a shocking one. When TIME caught up with the quints in a cover story in 1937, it was clear that their mother Elzire Dionne had been nearly replaced by the doctors who monitored the children. She had borne six children (five surviving) before the quints, and gave birth to another within about two years of the quints. By the time of her death in 1986, she had given birth to 14 children. But after the birth, her role in the quintuplets’ lives was minimal: --- > “” --- [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter) **1942:** [**Women, Women Everywhere**](http://time.com/vault/issue/1942-10-19/page/22/) As war swept the world, the idealized 1940s woman could be found in the factory just as frequently as she was found at the family hearth. However, motherhood still usually meant an end to work outside the home: --- > “” --- **1960:** [**The Roots of Home**](http://time.com/vault/issue/1960-06-20/spread/16/) In a 1960 cover story about the suburban wife, TIME trained its lens at the rituals of family life in America at the close of the suburbia-embracing 1950s. And, in a world where fathers were expected to be away at work in the city, the magazine found that the mother was the center of daily suburban life. The picture of her routines reads as stereotypically retrograde today, all cooking and cleaning, but lurking below that pre-_Feminine Mystique_ picture of white American womanhood was an nod at her power: --- > “” --- **1971:** [**Single Motherhood**](http://time.com/vault/issue/1971-09-06/page/50/) Within a decade, much had changed. Among the options opened for women during the 1960s was the possibility of respectable single motherhood, and some women seized the chance: --- > “” --- **MORE:** [3 Historical Arguments Against Mother’s Day](http://time.com/3842561/mothers-day-history/) **1984:** [**The New Origins of Life**](http://time.com/vault/issue/1984-09-10/spread/50/) By the 1980s, the topic of motherhood—at least on the conception side—was fodder for the science section, as individuals eager to become parents turned to new technology to help make their dreams reality. In 1984, TIME took a look at the new “age of the test-tube baby” and why more and more women were making use of the new technology: --- > “” --- **2002:** [**Babies vs. Career**](http://time.com/vault/issue/2002-04-15/spread/54/) Around the turn of the millennium, the big topic in motherhood was the struggle with work-life balance. As shown by [a number](http://time.com/vault/issue/2004-03-22/page/1/) of TIME articles over the years, women were confronting the sometimes conflicting desires to be have both family and career. Though some women chose not to have children [on purpose](http://time.com/vault/issue/2013-08-12/page/1/), this 2002 cover story described what happened to those who found themselves approaching that situation with regret: --- > “” --- **MORE:** [Read the Original Mother’s Day Message](http://time.com/3850695/mothers-day-2015-origins/) **2003:** [**When Mom Goes to War**](http://time.com/vault/issue/2003-03-24/spread/28/) TIME caught up with the first-ever married American battalion commanders going into battle together, Lieut. Colonel Laura Richardson and Lieut. Colonial Jim Richardson. Though the Richardson’s situation was unique, the increasing number of women serving in the military meant that more and more women were, like Laura Richardson, confronting what it meant to be both mom and soldier: --- > “” --- ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4307953/mothers-day-stories-archives/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4307953/mothers-day-stories-archives/"},"headline":"The Evolution of the American Mom in 7 Stories","datePublished":"2016-05-06T16:00:45.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:57:40.633Z","description":"Put Mother's Day in context with help from the TIME archives","url":"https://time.com/4307953/mothers-day-stories-archives/","keywords":["Living","Family","Holidays"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbdf20555f0d46c05/698890b7f887dcf760e959aa/mom.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbdf20555f0d46c05/698890b7f887dcf760e959aa/mom.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Mother And Baby","caption":"Mother And Baby","creditText":"Hulton Archive / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4307953/mothers-day-stories-archives/","name":"The Evolution of the American Mom in 7 Stories"}}]}] ```