How the world celebrates Mothers Day
Mothers Day is one of Americas most popular holidays, with moms across the country annually showered with flowers, cards, candy, breakfast in bed, and dinners out. But the practice of honoring and celebrating mothers occurs in many other countries, from Argentina to New Zealand. In the U.S., Mothers Day falls on the second Sunday in May. The original holiday was established in 1914 by President Woodrow Wilson as a celebration of peace. Other countries also observe the holiday in the spring, probably dating back to the Roman celebration of Magna Mater (great mother) which fell in mid-March. Later, early Christians began to celebrate the holiday on the fourth Sunday of Lent as a way to honor the church in which they were baptized, known as their mother church. In the United Kingdom, the holiday became known as Mothering Sunday, and it quickly became a time for churchgoers to not only visit their home church but to celebrate with family. Today the U.K celebrates the day much as we do, with cards, cakes, and dinners for mom, along with flowers, especially violets. Other countries observe Mothers Day in the following ways: In India, a westernized version of Mothers Day is celebrated on May 10, but Hindus celebrate their divine mother, the goddess Durga, with a ten-day festival known as Durga Puja. Families spend weeks preparing special meals and gifts for friends and relatives. The Japanese call Mothers Day haha no hi. Japanese children draw pictures of their mothers, and the drawings are entered into a contest. The winning drawings are shown throughout Japan and other countries in a moving art exhibition. Many Japanese today, however celebrate a westernized holiday on the second Sunday of May. In Yugoslavia, Mothers Day is observed in December as part of a three-day series of holidays, starting with Childrens Day three days before Christmas. On this day, children are tied up and not released until they promise to be good. The following Sunday, Mothers Day, the mother is tied up, and she cannot get up until she gives her children treats and gifts. The next Sunday is Fathers Day where dad is also bound and must provide gifts that are usually the familys Christmas presents. France observes the National Day of Mothers in May where mothers are given cards, candy, flowers, perfume, and traditionally, a cake shaped to resemble a bouquet of flowers. In Mexico, Dia de las Madres, Mothers Day, is celebrated on May 10. It is widely celebrated, with sons and daughters coming to their mothers homes the night before, and then mom is serenaded the next morning and treated to a lavish family breakfast or brunch and homemade gifts, flowers, and cards.
Italians observe Mothers Day with a family feast and a cake made in the shape of a heart. Children bring presents to their mothers and help with chores and housework. In Finland, the whole family gets up and begins Mothers Day with a walk, picking spring flowers to make a bouquet for their mother. At home they present her with the bouquet along with breakfast in bed. This Mothers Day, trace your familys cultural heritage and discover which new tradition from around the world you might incorporate into your own celebration.
HISTORY of MOTHERs DAY
Like mothers themselves, the concept of Mothers Day has been around since ancient times. Greeks held an annual festival to Cymbele, a mother of their gods; Romans held an annual Matronalia celebration in honor of Juno. But believe it or not, a formal Mothers Day was not part of Americas calendar until 1914! This is not to say that mothers were never important to our nation. When John Adams was working on our Constitution, for example, his wife Abigail famously urged him to remember the ladies. And as the nineteenth century dawned, women were in the forefront of our nations expansion, whether speaking out for human rights or tending their families as they drove across an unmapped West. But in the hustle and push of these great movements, our nation never quite got around to marking a special time for a Mothers Day celebration. Until, that is, the turbulent second half of the nineteenth century, one of the most poignant chapters in American womens herstory. Indeed, our official holiday was inspired by Anna Jarvis, in honor of her mother, Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis, a homemaker from West Virginia and an unsung hero of the Civil War. The Mothers of Mothers Day In 1861, as the Civil War broke out, Ann Marie Jarvis and her husband were living in Grafton, West Virginia, a small town perched right on the border of North and South. Throughout the war, soldiers from both North and South came through town on the major railway lines that ran through it. An estimated 10,000 troops were encamped around Grafton, many of them in a field right across from the Jarvis home. For Ann Maries community, the conflict was even more complex because it was not unusual for neighbors and even close relatives to have sons fighting on different sides. In the midst of this crisis, Ann Marie, herself the mother of eleven children (only four of whom lived to adulthood), led Womens Friendship Clubs of fellow mothers who pledged to help every soldier, whether Blue or Gray, and saved thousands of lives by nursing wounded troops, and by teaching sanitation techniques which were still very new at that time. After the war, Ann Marie again stepped up to lead her community in a special daylong service to honor soldiers and their families from both sides. An Official Celebration
In 1907, two years after Ann Maries death, her daughter Anna began a crusade in her memory. The first official Mothers Day service was held on May 10, 1908, at the Jarvis familys longtime church, St. Andrews Methodist Episcopal in Grafton. Anna donated 500 white carnationssymbolic of the pure love in mothers heartsfor a day to brighten the lives of good mothers. To have them know we appreciate them, though we do not show it as often as we ought. Annas inspiration caught on quickly. By early 1914, a Mothers Day holiday had been declared in 46 states. On May 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson, honoring Ann Marie Jarvis and all the other women who had given so much to the nation, proclaimed it a national holiday. Our Modern Mothers Day Nowadays, Mothers Day is a bonanza for retailers: Americans spend an estimated $2.6 billion on flowers and $68 million on cards. According to the National Restaurant Association Mothers Day is the most popular day of the year to eat out! For Anna Jarvis, however, and for many other woman activists at the turn of the century, this commercialization would have been a disappointment. As early as 1870, the poet Julia Ward Howe, who also wrote the famous Battle Hymn of the Republic, proclaimed that Mothers Day should be a time for women to solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means/Whereby the great human family can live in peace. Anna Jarvis, who lived to 1948, spent the last years of her life railing. I wanted it to be a day, she said, of sentiment, not profit. So, parents, if youre planning to head out for brunch this Mothers Day, we certainly wouldnt urge you to cancel. But the spirit of the mothers of Mothers Day, we hope youll encourage your children to stop and take appreciative note of everything Moms do. Handmade gifts and cards are especially good ways for kids to slow down and celebrate. This is also a wonderful time to honor the many mothers who have come before ours, leaving a legacy of love, hope, and courage. As Supreme Court Justice and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, himself a survivor of the Civil War, wrote, [It is] mothers most of all, who carry the keys of our souls.
Source: http://www.education.com/magazine/article/History_of_Mothers_Day/?page=2
