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The Story of Mother's Day
During this time many of the England's poor worked as servants for the wealthy. As most jobs were located far from their homes, the servants would live at the houses of their employers. On Mothering Sunday the servants would have the day off and were encouraged to return home and spend the day with their mothers. A special cake, called the mothering cake, was often brought along to provide a festive touch.
In 1907 Ana Jarvis, from Philadelphia, began a campaign to establish a national Mother's Day. Ms. Jarvis persuaded her mother's church in Grafton, West Virginia to celebrate Mother's Day on the second anniversary of her mother's death, the 2nd Sunday of May. By the next year Mother's Day was also celebrated in Philadelphia.
Ms. Jarvis and her supporters began to write to ministers, businessman, and politicians in their quest to establish a national Mother's Day. It was successful as by 1911 Mother's Day was celebrated in almost every state. President Woodrow Wilson, in 1914, made the official announcement proclaiming Mother's Day as a national holiday that was to be held each year on the 2nd Sunday of May.
While many countries of the world celebrate their own Mother's Day at different times throughout the year, there are some countries such as Denmark, Finland, Italy, Turkey, Australia, and Belgium which also celebrate Mother's Day on the second Sunday of May.
Celebrating Mother's Day
Begin Mother's Day with breakfast in bed. Dad you and the Kids let mom sleep late and go into the kitchen and fix breakfast. Don't worry if you burn the toast...make lumpy grits or scramble the eggs too hard!! She will savor every bite because she knows it was prepared with love!!
Make a special Mother's Day dinner or take mom out to her favorite restaurant for a meal. This is your big chance to let your mom relax and let her see what a wonderful family she has.
M - O - T - H - E - R
Put them all together, they spell "MOTHER," A word that means the world to me. Howard Johnson (c. 1915)
Women have strengths that amaze men. They carry children, they carry hardships, they carry burdens ... but they hold happiness, love, and joy. They smile when they want to scream. They sing when they want to cry. They cry when they are happy and laugh when they are nervous...Women wait by the phone for a "safe at home call" from a friend after a snowy drive home. Woman friends keep secrets you told them years ago and never bring it up again. Women have special qualities about them. They volunteer for good causes. They are pink ladies in Hospitals, they bring food to shut ins. They are childcare workers, executives, attorneys, stay-at-home moms, biker babes and your neighbors. They wear suits, they wear jeans, they wear uniforms. Women fight for what they believe in. They stand up for injustice. They are in the front row at PTA meetings. They vote for the person that will do the best job for family issues. They walk and talk the extra mile to get their children in the right schools and for getting their family the right health care. They write to the editor, their congressmen and to "the powers that be" for things that make for a better life. They don't take "no" for an answer when they believe there is a better solution.
Love is Being a Mother!!
Love is scaring away monsters in the middle of the night, then again at 1:00 a.m., 2:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m
Love is putting peanut butter on anything as long as they'll eat it!
Love is knowing how to disguise vegetables 30 different ways.
Love is reading the same bedtime story for the 999th time.
Love is a hug around the knees.
Love is watching Mr. Rogers instead of All My Children.
Love is cutting off the crusts.
Love is a refrigerator covered with creative works of art.
Love is standing in line for 2 hours for Raffi tickets.
Love is not grimacing through the dirtiest of diapers.
Love is trading in the Camero for a station wagon.
Love is the magic kiss that heals all owies.
Love is a cuddly kid in a blanket sleeper.
Love is the first kick, first smile, first laugh, first step, first anything.
Love is your child pointing to a picture of Christie Brinkley and saying"mama".
Love is your child sound asleep,any child sound asleep.
Love is a macaroni necklace.
Love is wearing the macaroni necklace to church with
pride.
Love is a peanut butter kiss, a syrup kiss, a chocolate kiss, any kind of kiss.
Love is when Bert & Ernie replace Robert Redford & Tom Selleck as your most admired men.
Love is not worrying about those few extra pounds cuz they make you more cuddly.
Love is knowing how to get out amoxicillin stains.
Love is a bouquet of dandelions.
Love is the smell of a baby's neck.
Love is saying no at the right times when it is easier to say yes.
Love is saying yes at the right times when it's easier to say
Love is being a mother and knowing all of these things!
"Do you know what you and I are?" she demanded.
Before I could answer - and I didn't really have one handy - she blurted out the reason for her question. It seemed she had just returned from renewing her driver's license at the County Clerk's
office. Asked by the woman recorder to state her "occupation," Emily had hesitated, uncertain how to classify herself.
"What I mean is," explained the recorder, "Do you have a job, or are you just a ......?"
"Of course I have a job," snapped Emily. "I'm a mother."
"We don't list "mother" as an occupation..."housewife" covers it," said the recorder emphatically.
I forgot all about her story until one day I found myself in the same situation, this time at our own Town Hall. The Clerk was obviously a career woman, poised, efficient, and possessed of a high-sounding title, like "Official Interrogator" or "Town Registrar." "And what is your occupation?" she probed.
What made me say it, I do not know. The words simply popped out. "I'm....a Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human Relations." The clerk paused, ball-point pen frozen in mid-air, and looked up as though she had not heard right. I repeated the title slowly, emphasizing the most significant words. Then I stared with wonder as my pompous pronouncement
was written in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire.
"Might I ask," said the clerk with new interest, "just what you do in your field?"
Cooly, without any trace of fluster in my voice, I heard myself reply, "I have a continuing program of research (what mother doesn't) in the laboratory and in the field (normally I would have said indoors and out). I'm working for my Masters (the whole darned family) and already have four credits (all daughters).
Of course, the job is one of the most demanding in the humanities (any mother care to disagree?) and I often work 14 hours a day (24 is more like it). But the job is more challenging than
most run-of-the-mill careers and the rewards are in satisfaction rather than just money."
There was an increasing note of respect in the clerk's voice as she completed the form, stood up, and personally ushered me to the door.
As I drove into our driveway buoyed up by my glamorous new career, I was greeted by my lab assistants---age 13, 7, and 3. And upstairs, I could hear our new experimental model (six months) in the child-development program, testing out a new vocal pattern. I felt triumphant. I had scored a beat on bureaucracy. And I had gone down on the official records as someone more distinguished and indispensable to mankind than
"just another......"
Home...what a glorious career. Especially when there's a title on the door. (author unknown)
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The earliest Mother's Day celebrations can be traced back to the spring celebrations of ancient Greece in honor of Rhea, the Mother of the Gods. During the 1600's, England celebrated a day called "Mothering Sunday". Celebrated on the 4th Sunday of Lent (the 40 day period leading up to Easter*), "Mothering Sunday" honored the mothers of England.
As Christianity spread throughout Europe the celebration changed to honor the "Mother Church" - the spiritual power that gave them life and protected them from harm. Over time the church festival blended with the Mothering Sunday celebration . People began honoring their mothers as well as the church.
In the United States Mother's Day was first suggested in 1872 by Julia Ward Howe (who wrote the words to the Battle hymn of the Republic) as a day dedicated to peace. Ms. Howe would hold organized Mother's Day meetings in Boston, Mass ever year.
One the best way to celebrate Mother's Day is to give your mom the day off.
Don't forget to add a vase with a single flower. One the children have picked will please her much more than expensive store bought rose!! Carry the tray up to her bedroom....don't forget to fluff her pillows behind her back!! Children tell dad you want to make mom's cards!! Hallmark is great but simple colored paper with crayon verses from your heart will be so much more special!!
is for the million things she gave me,
means only that she's growing old,
is for the tears she shed to save me,
is for her heart of purest gold;
is for her eyes, with love-light shining,
means right, and right she'll always be,
