The Surprising Origin of Mothers' Day

Some scholars try to trace our modern celebration of Mother’s Day to ancient Greece when celebrants presented honey-cakes, flowers, and drinks to Rhea, the “mother of the gods” at dawn on a certain date, but there is no indication that the ritual was designed to honor motherhood in general. The earliest specific recognition of mothers about which we know began in England during the 17th century. The fourth Sunday in Lent was called Mothering Sunday and was a day to thank mothers for their love and care, partly in remembrance of the Virgin Mary’s love and care of Jesus during His earthly life. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, it was customary for household servants to have the day off so they could return to their mothers and celebrate the day with them. Flowers, particularly roses, are given to this day in England, along with an almond cake called Simnel Cake. Spain continues a similar tradition on December 8. In France, Mothering Sunday began to be celebrated on the last Sunday of May, and the gift of choice there is a cake made out of flower petals.

In America, it is more accurate to think of Mother’s Day has having two mothers. The first was Julia Ward Howe, better known as the composer of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Her original push for a “Mother’s Day” was actually politically motivated. In a fascinating irony for the woman who wrote a song associated with military endeavors, she became a fierce pacifist later in life. Disgusted by the carnage inflicted on young men by the American Civil War and Europe’s Franco-Prussian War, in 1870, Howe called for an officially sanctioned “Mothers’ Day” during which mothers from around the world would meet for the purpose of opposing war in any form. The idea caught on, and in 1872 “Mothers’ Peace Day” observances began to be held in various communities on the second Sunday in June. These continued for many years. The modern Mother’s Day celebration with flowers and gifts, obviously bears little resemblance to Howe’s original idea, although it can be said that Howe’s emphasis on mothers’ influence paved the way for the modern celebration.

A generation after Howe, Anna Jarvis wished to honor her own mother, and she proposed a day to celebrate the influence of mothers in the lives of their children. The first Mother’s Day was celebrated May 10, 1908. West Virginia and Pennsylvania were the first states to recognize the day. Mother’s Day was declared formally in America as the second Sunday of May in 1914. Originally Jarvis envisioned a day of quiet prayers and small hand-made tokens of remembrances akin to England’s Mothering Sunday. Later, she became disillusioned with what she deemed the over-commercialization of Mother’s Day and even filed a lawsuit to stop the many greeting cards and extravagant advertising schemes associated with the day. The lawsuit failed. Jarvis was responsible for establishing red carnations as the flower of the day. In floriology (the meanings of flowers), red carnations symbolize love and affection. White carnations, Jarvis’ mother’s favorite flower, are often worn in respect for a mother no longer living.

The song most often associated with the holiday is “M-O-T-H-E-R,” whose lyrics (the second line being in questionable taste) are as follows:

M is for the million things she gave me,
O means only that she’s growing old.
T is for the tears she shed to save me.
H is for her heart of purest gold.
E is for her eyes with lovelight shining.
M means right, and right and right she’ll always be.
Put them all together, they spell Mother,
A word that means the world to me!

In case you are wondering, the median age of women giving birth for the first time is now 24.8 years. The 1997 Guinness book of Records records that the mother who gave birth to the most children was the wife of Russian Fedor Vassilyey. She delivered 69 children, which included 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets.

This year, be sure to celebrate the women in your life who have acted like mothers to you!