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Reserving the second Sunday of May, Mother’s Day is meant to be a day for reflection on and showing appreciation for all of the things that a mother provides for her family: husband, sons and daughters. Many different civilizations recognized and honored the work done by mothers in a variety of different ways in the past. Reaching as far back as times of the ancient Greeks, honoring mothers was already a concept of great importance as the god of Rhea and Cybele represented the Mother of gods.
The English held a custom as early as the 1600’s, very closely resembling that of our American Mother’s Day. Reserving the fourth Sunday of the Lent season, this day was called Mothering Sunday and was a day in which all servants were excused from their duties so they could travel home and pay their respects to their mothers. Tradition often included the gift of a cake for the celebration. With such a long history, it to no surprise that America also adopted such a holiday.
Anna Jarvis of Grafton West Virginia pushed for the national recognition of all mothers after her mother had passed away on May 10th, 1908. Held locally at first, the campaign spread to the political limelight through the businessmen and politicians of the time. Finally successful in 1914, Woodrow Wilson declared Mother’s Day as a national holiday and reserved the second Sunday in the month of May to honor them on. Although it is nice to declare such a day, mothers of American deserve such respect everyday. The cooking and cleaning and caring that is extended by mothers is both exhausting and rewarding, but the rewards are more easily gleaned from the context of of the daily hustle and bustle when acknowledgement and appreciation is noted on a regular basis.
Mother’s Day, as with many holidays, holds in addition to the recognition the day is designed an even larger economic importance. Not to be taken lightly, some claim this holiday to have surpassed the sales of the Easter traditions, making it of the second highest sales market related to holiday seasons.
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