The Origin of Mother’s Day
The second Sunday of May and 2 billion mothers. Last week, around 50 countries had their Sundays filled with one thing, Mother’s Day. A day where you spend time with the person you first saw, who gave you knowledge, and who cares for you till their very last moment. This iconic holiday celebrates one of the most important people in our lives, our mothers. So, I’m sure you’re wondering where it came from.
The earliest trace of maternal figure respect was actually in the Ancient Greeks and Romans. They celebrated the Mother Goddesses Rhea and Cybele. Rhea was the mother of the Roman Goddesses and a maternal figure while Cybele is also a Mother Goddess that represents a maternal figure. Cybele is usually associated with Rhea as they are both highly similar.
The modern roots of Mother’s Day began in the 19th Century with Ann Jarvis in West Virginia. She created a “Mother’s Day Work” Club, which taught women how to care for and raise their children well. When the civil war broke out, Ann changed the name to “Mother’s Friendship Day”, and the club was now for mothers to reconcile and find peace in these hard times. Around the same time in the 1870s, suffragette Julia Ward Howe wrote the “Mother’s Day Proclamation” to ask mothers to promote world peace. Howe even campaigned for there to be a “Mother’s Peace Day” on June 2 every year, a day where women come together and promote world peace.
The next step for Mother’s Day was initiated by none other than Ann Jarvis’s daughter, Anne Marie Jarvis. Jarvis was a peace activist and when Ann died in 1905, she planned a memorial for her in 1908. This memorial wouldn’t just be for Ann, it would be for everyone to remember the sacrifices that mothers have given in their lives. She gained financial backing from a Philadelphia department store owner, John Wanamaker, and with that, the first official Mother’s Day celebration commenced.
Anne’s efforts were seen by the community and the US government and Mother’s Day was seen as a holiday in most US states. The official date was given in 1914, with the second Sunday of May each year dedicated to mothers. This holiday soon became international, with 50 countries now recognising this holiday today.
Reading this, you might find it heartwarming to see how much a daughter cared for her mother and how she recognised the sacrifices she made, and you’re right. Mother’s Day helps us realise the importance of a maternal figure and how much we need to be cared for. But, as Jarvis started to see, Mother’s Day was becoming another holiday for businesses to profit off of instead of a holiday for gratitude.
Nowadays, when you see on your calendar that it’s Mother’s Day, you are expected to have gifts, a restaurant booked for dinner, and a card saying how much you love the mothers in your lives, but Jarvis’ intentions were far from this. In her mind, it was a day for a son or daughter to show their appreciation to their mother that they loved and knew, not a day to shower gifts on all the women you know of. Anne had a large emphasis on the fact that the “Mother” in “Mother’s Day” is singular, showing that you should care for the mother you care for the most, your own.
Anne wanted to regain control and shed some light on what the “real” Mother’s Day is meant to be. She fought against every business profiting off of gift buying for the holiday such as florists and confectioners, and spent much of her money filing numerous lawsuits towards groups using the name “Mother’s Day”.
Jarvis even went on to attack the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt as she had used Mother’s Day to raise money for a charity, causing Jarvis’ arrest. Jarvis even went on to disown and try to take down the holiday, which obviously didn’t work. She was put in an asylum until her death in 1948, buried right next to her mother.
Despite all of Anne’s attempts, Mother’s Day lives on and the commercialisation isn’t slowing down any time soon. Her wish for people to care for their mothers is fulfilled but not in the way she hoped. Americans spend $20 billion each year on Mother’s Day gifts, and that’s not counting the 49 other countries that celebrate Mother’s Day. But, do you think gift buying is a sign of respect to your mother or just a lazy way of getting the holiday over with?
