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Welcome to familywisdom.com, a website dedicated to informing and inspiring couples and families. Each week you will find a new article, story or essay about parenting, marriage or life. Suggestions for articles and questions to Ellen Terich are welcome. You can contact her at e.terich1@verizon.net |
REFLECTIONS ON MOTHER'S DAY 2007-05-03 Another Mother's Day is just around the corner and millions of small and fully grown "children" will select a card or some token of appreciation as a way of honoring mom and thanking her for all her hard work in taking care of them. It's a nice thing to have a day to remember mom, take her out to dinner, or call and have a nice conversation with her. It's the best day of the year for florists, I'm told, and greeting card companies and restaurants also do quite well. However, most mothers and children in the United States know little of the origins of Mothers Day in this country. Other cultures, of course, have honored mothers on special days. In the 17th century, for example, Great Britain, designated "Mothering Sunday" as a day when servants were given the day off to go home and visit their mothers. In the United States, Mother's Day began as part of a peace movement after the Civil War. Julia Ward Howe, appalled at the violence of the war that took so many lives and broke the hearts of so many mothers, called on women to unite against war and armament in a "Mother's Day for Peace." Her Motherhood Proclamation of 1870 says in part: In the United States, As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil At the summons of war, Let women now leave all that may be left of home For a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace, man as the brother of man, Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God – Howe's attempt to institute a national Mother's Day failed, but in 1907 a women named Anna Jarvis held a private celebration to honor her deceased mother Ann, an activist for peace and justice, and on May 10, 1908 held a larger celebration with 407 children and their mothers. In 1914, Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation making the second Sunday of May an official day of recognition of mothers. Interestingly, the campaign to establish an official Mother's Day was financed by a man considered the father of modern advertising, clothing merchant John Wannamaker. Today, we combine the advertising dreams of John Wannamaker with the British tradition of a day off to visit mother. We contribute to the gross national product in a big way, or a small way, as we spend some money to honor our mothers. Yesterday, I saw an ad on television reminding viewers to come in and get "a great gift for mom," at prices "sixty percent lower than Department Store prices." I was astonished! Stores are competing to get you to honor mom as cheaply as you can. It's not that I think sons and daughter should spend tons of money for Mother's Day. Actually I don't think money and spending is the best way to show our appreciation to our mothers. But I do object to the idea of Mother's Day bargains, and the commercialization of a day to thank mothers. Actually, most mothers I know would be much happier with a visit from their children, if they are grown, or a day of relaxation with their young children, rather than with an expensive or inexpensive gift. I've been thinking a lot about the needs of mothers these past few weeks, as I always do before Mother's Day. Like Julia Ward Howe, I've thought about all the mothers whose hearts have broken this past year because a son or daughter died in Iraq. There is no Mother's Day present that is adequate to honor their loss and sacrifice. I've also thought of all the daughters who, like Anna Jarvis a century ago, will not be able to celebrate Mother's Day with their mothers this year. For them, reminders of Mother's Day will be painful ones. I've also thought of my own daughter, who is the mother of three lovely children, but three very young children who sometimes tax her nearly beyond her limit. Recently, the children have all been competing for her attention at bedtime. She has always sung a variety of songs to them after she tucks them in, but since they are now divided into two separate rooms, she can't sing to them all at once. She has tried dividing the labor between herself and her husband, but the children do not appreciate their father's singing as much their mother's. Besides, this nighttime ritual is one that allows them special time with mom and they don't want to give it up. So she finds herself first singing to Sean, then going into Grace and Madeline's room and singing to them or vice versa. At the end of the day, after tending to children all day, fighting over meals, kissing boo boos, monitoring homework, refereeing sibling fights, giving baths etc., she sometimes runs out of energy at night and is in no mood for fights over who gets sung to first. (Sometimes, I suspect, she would prefer not singing at all.) I've thought that a nice mother's day present for her from her children would be for them to give her a night off from singing them to sleep, or perhaps even sing a few songs to her before they climb into bed and let daddy tuck them in. Those are the best kind of Mother's Day presents, the kind that let mom know we really appreciate just how much she sacrifices on a day to day basis, how much of her own comfort she has given up over the years, how much she has neglected her own needs and wants to fulfill those of her children. Because that is what most mothers do. They make sacrifices each and every day. They put others first and neglect their own needs. And, as Julia Ward Howe noted, they often get their hearts broken, in spite of all their good deeds and sacrifice. For all overwhelmed mothers of young children, for all mothers of grown children who have moved away, for all mothers who strive for peace and justice for all the world's children, and for all mothers whose hearts have been broken, I honor you for the sacrifices you make, and for the incredible loving and strong women that you are. I wish you a day of peace and comfort, surrounded by those you love. |