Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you wonderful mom's out there!!! What is Mother's Day anyway? A day for mom's to feel guilty because we were not the "perfect' mother? A day for mom's to feel sad because our children neglected to contact us to wish us a Happy Mother's Day? NO, No, No!!! Did you know that Mother's Day started out as a religious holiday? I decided to find out just how Mother's Day came to be!!! In my older years I have found that history really intrigues me and I want to learn. Having the internet really helps in this area, as we can find just about anything on the internet!!! Gone are the days of those cumbersome encyclopedias!!! Thank goodness!!!

My thoughts wander....so to get back on track.....Mother's Day started as a religious holiday.

The history of Mother's Day is centuries old and the earliest Mother's Day celebrations can be traced back to the spring celebrations of ancient Greece in honor of Rhea, the Mother of the Gods. In the early 1600s, the early Christians in England celebrated a day to honor of Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ. By a religious order, the holiday was later expanded to include all mothers and was named as "The Mothering Sunday." As Christianity spread throughout Europe, the celebration changed to honor the "Mother Church". Over time, the church festival blended with the Mothering Sunday celebration. People began honoring their mothers as well as the church.

So the, how did Mother's Day get so commercialized? In the United States, the early settlers let the tradition slide and the celebration ended because the colonists were so busy. Julia Ward Howe (she wrote the words to the Battle Hymn of the Republic), an activist, started a movement to get "Mother's Day for Peace" to be recognized and celebrated on June 2nd, mainly intended to unite women against war.

Howe's idea was influenced by Anne Marie Reeves Jarvis, a young Appalachian homemaker who, starting in 1858, had attempted to improve sanitation through what she called "Mothers Friendship Day." Jarvis was active in trying to get better sanitation conditions during the Civil War. She was instrumental in saving thousands of lives by teaching women in her Mothers Friendship Clubs the basics of nursing and sanitation.

It was Jarvis' daughter, Anna Jarvis, who finally succeeded in introducing Mother's Day in the sense as we celebrate it today. After attending college and teaching for some time, she spent many years looking after her ailing mother. After her mother died, Anna missed her greatly. Anna felt that children often neglected to appreciate their mothers enough while the mother was still alive. Two years after her mother's death, she shared with friends her desire to establish a day for children to honor their mothers...living or dead. She hoped that Mother's Day would increase respect for parents and strengthen family bonds.

As a result of her efforts, the first Mother's Day in the U.S. was observed on May 10, 1908 by a churce service honoring the late Mrs. Reece Jarvis in the Andrews Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia. Grafton is now the home of the International Mother's Day Shrine. The first Mother's Day Proclamation was issued by the governor of West Virginia in 1910. By 1911, every state in the union celebrated Mother's Day. The House of Representatives in May 1913 unanimously adopted a resolution requesting the President, his cabinet, the members of both Houses and all officials in the federal government to wear a white carnation on Mother's Day. (The late Mrs. Jarvis was fond of carnations.) On May 7, 1914, it was resolved that the second Sunday of May be celebrated as Mother's Day.

"Now, Therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the said Joint Resolution, do hereby direct the government officials to display the United States flag on all government buildings and do invite the people of the United States to display the flag at their homes or other suitable places on the second Sunday in May as a public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country."

Nine years after the first official Mother's Day, commercialiasion became so rampant that Anna Jarvis herself became a major opponent of what the holiday had become. As the observance of Mother's Day enjoyed increasing popularity, this made Anna Jarvis disillusioned with her own creation. Though the original spirit of honoring the mothers remained the same, what began as a religious service expanded quickly into a more secular observance leading to giving of cards, gifts, flowers. Anna could not cope with this changing mode of expression.

Today, Mother's Day is a day of honoring mothers. It is a day when you acknowledge your mother's contribution in your life and pay tribute to her, often with flowers and gifts.