Mother's Day History

Tracing The Roots Of The Celebration Of Motherly Love

When the second Sunday of May approaches, we all get this feeling of anticipation and excitement. Of course, we would; it’s the Mother’s Day, after all. Cherishing our mothers is an activity we very casually forget every other day of the year. On this one day we try to take time to catalogue our mother’s likes and dislikes, try to remember if there was anything she had expressed to want in particular, but not yet got. Then we pick all of that and go see her; there she would be standing with warm smiles and our favorite goodies. Mothers always know us best.

Ancient Traces before Christ

The Romans and Greeks dedicated days to their goddesses who were known to bestow fertility and prosperity. Cybele was a goddess who was a mountain mother goddess, depicted as a pregnant woman sitting on a lion throne, and was worshipped by the Romans as the “Great Mother,” and had many festivals such as Megalesia in April, the Holy Week in March and other minor festivals. Greeks already worshipped Rhea as the Mother Deity, as she was a mother to many deities, and had days set aside for celebration in her name, as well.

Christian Celebrations

The Early Christians introduced their own religious holiday to commemorate the Virgin Mary. On this day, they held special prayers and the children were encouraged to offer gifts of flowers and sweets to their mothers. The date chosen for this was the fourth Sunday of Lent, before Easter. In England, they included all the mothers and named it the Mothering Sunday. Beyond the usual gifting by the children, servants and staff were allowed to visit their mothers. This was a day incorporated so that mothers would be thanked for their efforts, but it lost its significance around the 19^th century. The practice was resurrected after the World War II.

Modern beginnings

The modern Mother’s Day celebrations can find their roots emerging from the strong feministic revolutionaries. The idea was suggested by the eminent poet Julia Ward Howe, who is most remembered for her poem “the Battle Hymn of the Republic” and her Mother’s Day proclamation. She suggested that there should be a day when the mothers irrelevant of ages, status and nationalities be joined together to fight the ravages of war and teach their children to promote peace. Though her ideas never came into fruition, her vision was firmly entrenched in the fertile minds of the next generation of women revolutionaries.

Modern Day Celebrations

The Mother of Mother’s Day was Anna Jarvis, who decided that it was a worthwhile cause to fulfill her mother’s wish to found a day to honor the efforts of all the mothers across the world for all their sacrifices and love. She organized the first Mother’s Day in 1908 when she distributed 100 white carnations, her mother’s favorite flowers, to the congregation at the Methodist Church she was part of. Then as just fruits of her endeavors, President Wilson declared the second Sunday of May every year to be the Mother’s Day for all.

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