Family Talk: Happy Mother's Day

This article was written by Liliana De Jesus.

It’s Mother’s Day! Do all you moms have your white, pink or red carnations on?  

I admit, before researching the history of Mother’s Day, I would not have known what that meant either.  

The national holiday we’ve all come to know as a day where we buy and receive flowers and cards or go out for brunches or dinners has a history steeped in social action, peace activism, and, of course, honoring mothers and motherhood.  

Honoring mothers can be dated back to the ancient Romans and Greeks with festivals celebrating goddesses.  

Cybele was the goddess of nature and fertility and was considered the mother of all gods by ancient Romans.  

Similarly, Rhea was also considered to be the mother of all gods by ancient Greeks, but is also known as the goddess of motherhood and fertility.  

Globally, Mother’s Day is celebrated on different dates, with varying traditions. From gifts and outings to festivals and celebrations, the day is widespread one of honoring mothers as well as women who fulfill the duties associated with motherhood.  

The national holiday we are familiar with in the U.S. has its beginnings in the mid 1850s with the start of “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” by Ann Reeves Jarvis, as referenced by History.  

Jarvis worked to lower the infant mortality rate by hosting clubs where women shared information surrounding proper care of infants and “by fighting disease and curbing milk contamination,” according to National Geographic.  

The clubs also assisted with treating wounded Civil War soldiers. While Mother’s Day in the U.S. would not become a national holiday for approximately another 60 years, the social work Jarvis’ clubs engaged in during the mid 19th Century laid the foundation.  

After the Civil War, Jarvis continued with her use of mothers to complete socially conscious work by coordinating various Mother's Friendship Day events to advance peace between former war adversaries.  

Further pushing for mothers’ involvement in inciting peace, Julia Ward Howe wrote the “Mother's Day Proclamation” in 1870.  

While Ann Reeves Jarvis saw the potential that mothers had in causing positive social change, it would be her daughter, Anna Jarvis, who would highlight the need for a day when mothers are praised for their work.  

After her mother’s passing, Anna Jarvis organized a Mother’s Day celebration at a church with the financial help of business owner John Wanamaker.  

Following the event’s success, Jarvis created the Mother’s Day International Association, to petition Mother’s Day becoming a national holiday.  

Jarvis realized her dreams for her mother and all other mothers throughout the nation when Woodrow Wilson signed a bill, which made Mother’s Day an official holiday in 1914.  

In the last years of her life, Jarvis worked to dissolve Mother’s Day as a national holiday, due to her disdain with the direction of the celebration.  

The commercialization of the holiday left Jarvis “disgusted” as the focus was no longer on exalting one’s mother, but became a machine for consumerism, according to both History and National Geographic.  

Keeping in line with Jarvis’ vision, remember to focus on what the day really was meant to be, one for honoring mothers.  

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, “although Jarvis had promoted the wearing of a white carnation as a tribute to one’s mother, the custom developed of wearing a red or pink carnation to represent a living mother or a white carnation for a mother who was deceased.”  

So, don’t forget your carnation this Mother’s Day.