Mother’s Day is the day we highlight appreciation towards our mothers and our mother figures. Mother figures may include stepmothers, relatives, mothers-in-law, a guardian (e.g. a foster parent), or a family friend.
The modern Mother's Day is celebrated on various days in many parts of the world, most commonly in March, April, or May as a day to honor mothers and motherhood. In the UK and Ireland, it follows the old traditions of Mothering Sunday, celebrated in March/April.
What do we do?
There are many different ways
we celebrate Mother’s Day, including but not limited to :
- Giving cards, flowers, baskets or cakes.
- Personal phone calls, particularly if we live away from our mothers and/or mother figures.
- Family gatherings or visits.
- Family breakfasts, brunches, lunches, and dinners either at home, at a café or at a restaurant.
- Gifts of chocolate, jewelry, accessories, beauty, clothing, baby, books, hobby equipment or tools, handmade items, or gift vouchers
.
- Mother’s Day poems
and messages.
- Going out together to movies, theaters, walks picnics and other entertainment activities.
Historical considerations
Mother’s Day may have 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 Europe there were several long standing traditions where a specific Sunday was set aside to honor motherhood and mothers such as Mothering Sunday. Mothering Sunday celebrations are part of the liturgical calendar in several Christian denominations, including Anglicans, and in the Catholic calendar is marked as Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent to honour the Virgin Mary and your "mother" church (the main church of the area).
One of the early calls to celebrate Mother's Day in the United States was the "Mother's Day Proclamation" written in 1870 by Julia Ward Howe. It was a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The Proclamation was tied to Howe'sfeminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level.
International Women's Day was celebrated for the first time in 28 February 1909, in the US, by which time Anna Jarvis had already begun her national campaign in the US. It is now celebrated in many countries on March 8. In 1912, Anna Jarvis created the Mother's Day International Association.
International
As the US holiday was adopted by other countries and cultures, the date was changed to fit already existing celebrations honouring motherhood, like Mothering Sunday in the UK or the Orthodox celebration of Jesus in the temple in Greece. In some countries it was changed to dates that were significant to the majority religion, like the Virgin Mary day in Catholic countries, or the birthday of the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad in Islamic countries. Other countries changed it to historical dates related to remarkable women activities.
(c. 1915)