Mother's Day

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Mother's Day 2009 is Sunday, May 10.

The only mothers it is safe to forget on Mother's Day are the good ones. — Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

If you think Mother's Day is too commercialized, you're not alone. The woman called "the mother of Mother's Day," Anna Jarvis — the person who did the most to make Mother's Day a national holiday — thought so, too. She considered the printed greeting card "a poor excuse for the letter you are too lazy to write" and in fact ended up spending her inheritance campaigning against the holiday she had helped to popularize.

But that was later. Her personal PR campaign for Mother's Day kicked off in May 1907 in Grafton, West Virginia (called the birthplace of Mother's Day), when she held a memorial for her mother in her church. The service took the form of an appreciation of her mother and those of all the attendees. The idea went statewide two years later and nationwide in 1914, when President Woodrow Wilson established Mother's Day as a national holiday.

One could say it was in Anna Jarvis's blood. Her mother, also called Anna Jarvis, was an early proponent of Mother's Day activities. At that time, after the Civil War, the day was less about showing appreciation for the woman at home and more about promoting pacifism and social activism.

If the two Mrs. Jarvises were the adoptive mothers and caregivers of Mother's Day, its birth mother was Julia Ward Howe, an abolitionist, feminist and poet who was the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1870, she issued her Mother's Day Proclamation, which begins:

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

The proclamation then calls for women to "now leave all that may be left of home" to attend an international "general congress" whose purpose is:

To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

As Ms. Howe later put it: "Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters, to prevent the waste of that human life of which they alone bear and know the cost?" So, ironically, the original Mother's Day was about urging women to put on hold their caring for hearth and home, husband and children, and work instead on making the world a better, safer place.

If your mother wonders why she, who gave of her life to you in so many ways, didn't get anything gift-wrapped this Mother's Day, feel free to present her with a printout of this essay. OR, consider the list above right.

Keep in mind:
Surveys suggest that what mothers want most is a visit or phone call from each of their children, so do try to deliver your gift in person!