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MOTHER’S DAY

May 11, 2007 – 9:58 am

Motherhood is an honored and exalted state in life, and most countries all over the world have their own customs in celebrating motherhood and showing how much the work of mothers as the bringers and nurturers of life are appreciated. This day for commemorating the work of mothers is generally known as Mother’s Day.

Mother’s Day has been observed in one form or another since ancient times. The Greeks of the classical era held festivals to the goddess Cybele, the mother of the Greek pantheon and the wife of Cronus, the god of time, on the day of the vernal equinox. The Romans, on the other hand, had the Matronalia, which is a festival dedicated to Juno, the goddess of the hearth and home and wife of Jupiter. The Matronalia was celebrated on the first day of March.

The modern Mother’s Day, as most of the western world knows it, started out as a call for peace and disarmament in the United States in 1870. The proclamation for this Mother’s Day was first made by Julia Ward Howe, who urged for the annual observance in the United States of what was called then as the Mother’s Day for Peace. During that time, the American Civil War has just ended. Julia Howe’s proclamation was a reaction to the hardships the war has brought to the mothers who were left behind.

In making her proclamation, Julia Howe was said to have been inspired by Ann Jarvis, a woman from the state now known as West Virginia, who organized women to attempt to improve worker sanitation and safety concerns, as well as to tend to the needs of wounded soldiers, both Confederate and Union, during the Civil War. Ann Jarvis, herself an active figure in support of the call for an annual and national observance of Mother’s Day, was also active in trying to promote peace and reconciliation among her neighbors who sided with differing factions during the war.

Julia Howe, however, failed in her attempt to get Mother’s Day recognized; on May 9, 1905, Ann Jarvis died. Two years later, Ann Jarvis’ daughter Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother and took on the quest to get Mother’s Day proclaimed and officially recognized. The memorial that Anna Jarvis held for her mother drew in 407 people with their mothers, and it was held at the Andrews Methodist Episcopalian Church in Grafton. This site is now recognized as the International Mother’s Day Shrine. The vision that was Mother’s Day came to fruition when then United States President Woodrow Wilson designated the second Sunday of May as Mother’s Day in 1910.

As the custom of celebrating Mother’s Day spread throughout the country, what was first envisioned to be a day of pacifism became a general day for appreciating mothers. Ironically, Anna Jarvis herself became disillusioned by the commercialized way Mother’s Day came to be celebrated by the 1920s that she actively protested against it.

Today, Mother’s Day has become an international celebration in honor of mothers. Not all countries in the world, however, observe Mother’s Day on the second Sunday of May. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, for instance, they have Mothering Sunday, held on the fourth Sunday of the Lenten season. In Thailand, Mother’s Day is celebrated on August 12, the birthday of Queen Sirikit Kitiyakara.

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