Mothers Day

Mothers Day is a day honoring mothers, celebrated on various days in many places around the world.

Different countries celebrate Mothers Day on various days of the year because the day has a number of different origins.

History

One school of thought claims Mothers Day emerged from a custom of mother worship in ancient Greece, which kept a festival to Cybele, a great mother of Greek gods. This festival was held around the Vernal Equinox around Asia Minor and eventually in Rome itself from the Ides of March (15 March) to 18 March.

The ancient Romans also had another holiday, Matronalia, that was dedicated to Juno, though mothers were usually given gifts on this day.

In some countries Mothers Day began not as a celebration for individual mothers but rather for Christians.

Mothering Sunday in Britain and Ireland

Mothering Sunday, also called "Mothers Day"in the United Kingdom and Ireland, falls on the fourth Sunday of Lent (exactly three weeks before Easter Sunday).

It is believed to have originated from the 16th century Christian practice of visiting ones mother church annually, which meant that most mothers would be reunited with their children on this day.

Most historians believe that young apprentices and young women in servitude were released by their masters that weekend in order to visit their families.

As a result of secularization, it is now principally used to celebrate and give thanks for mothers, although it is still recognised in the historical sense by some churches, with attention paid to Mary the mother of Jesus as well as the traditional concept Mother Church.

Mothering Sunday can fall at earliest on March 1st (in years when Easter Day falls on March 22nd) and at latest on April 4th (when Easter Day falls on April 25th).

Mothers Day in the United States

The United States celebrates Mothers Day on the second Sunday in May.

In the United States, Mothers Day was loosely inspired by the British day and was imported by social activist Julia Ward Howe after the American Civil War. Howe'ver, it was intended as a call to unite women against war. In 1870, she wrote the Mothers Day Proclamation as a call for peace and disarmament.

Howe failed in her attempt to get formal recognition of a Mothers Day for Peace. Her idea was influenced by Ann Jarvis, a young Appalachian homemaker who, starting in 1858, had attempted to improve sanitation through what she called Mothers Work Days.

She organized women throughout the Civil War to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides, and in 1868 she began work to reconcile Union and Confederate neighbors. In parts of the United States it is customary to plant tomatoes outdoors after Mothers Day (and not before).

When Jarvis died in 1907, her daughter, named Anna Jarvis, started the crusade to found a memorial day for women. The first such Mothers Day was celebrated in Grafton, West Virginia, on 10 May 1908, in the church where the elder Ann Jarvis had taught Sunday School.

Originally the Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church, this building is now the International Mothers Day Shrine (a National Historic Landmark). From there, the custom caught on - spreading eventually to 45 states. The holiday was declared officially by some states beginning in 1912.

In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mothers Day, as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war.

Nine years after the first official Mothers Day, commercialization of the U.S. holiday became so rampant that Anna Jarvis herself became a major opponent of what the holiday had become.

Mothers Day continues to this day to be one of the most commercially successful U.S. occasions. According to the National Restaurant Association, Mothers Day is now the most popular day of the year to dine out at a restaurant in the United States.

Mothers Day in various parts of the world

In most countries, Mothers Day is a new concept copied from western civilization.

In many African countries, the idea of one Mothers Day has its origins in copying the British concept, although there are many festivals and events celebrating mothers within the many diverse cultures on the African continent that have been there centuries before the colonials arrived.

In most of East Asia, Mothers Day is a heavily marketed and commercialized concept copied straight from Mothers Day in the USA.

Mothers Day is celebrated on different days throughout the world. Examining the trends in Google searches for the term "mothers day"shows two major blips, the smaller one on the fourth Sunday in Lent (it is also called ladies day and womens day), and the larger one on the second Sunday in May.