Community Corner

Happy Mother's Day, Mom; the History of Celebrating Mom

A personal look at Derrick's Mother's Day memories, along with his favorite facts: What do you know about Mother's Day? Some trivia and ways to make your Mother's Day even more special.

By a stroke of luck, I (your editor) was given two moms to be thankful for on Mother's Day.

There's my mom, Ricki, who dealt with Lego's all over the floor, behind furniture and in her curio cabinet, for more than a decade until I hit my athletic years. Then I simply swapped out Lego's for sunflower seeds—you know, the kind that kids munch on at Little League because they make us seem more like a big-leaguer even though we don't have the coordination to squirrel 40 seeds in our cheeks and crack open a seed, eat it, and spit out the husk without losing 14 or 15 unopened seeds at the same time. Yeah, those. Well, we're not sure how, but mom was finding seeds well into hockey season. Behind doors, under dressers ...and she still gave me hugs and kisses. A Saint, that one.

Then there's my step-mother, Donna, who had to deal with me living with dad through college. Not just four years. No, I was a super-senior. She got six years of me, rent free, while I expanded my education and learned to write columns like this. Probably shouldn't have taken quite so long. She dealt with me thinking I was smarter than I am, arguing the merits of rules, such as having to keep my door open when I had girls over. "But I'm 23, mom!" Hated that rule ... but step-mom did my laundry, cooked me food, supported me no matter what, and loved me as though I were her's. She's just as much a mom as my mom is.

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I have an immeasurable amount of gratitude for both of the amazing moms in my life.

Mom-mom: I love and miss you and think of you every day. Happy Mother's Day.

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Step-mom-mom: I love you and am thankful every day that you care for me like you do your own children. I'm very lucky. Happy Mother's day.

Now ... you all know I'm a passionate trivia and history nut. So here's some fun Mother's Day facts for you to share at brunch.

While mothers have frequently been praised in literature and art, the first official Mother's Day was not observed until the late 19th century.

The first American Mother's Day was in 1870, created by suffragist and abolitionist Julia Ward Howe.

Howe is most remembered for writing The Battle Hymn of the Republic, but after witnessing the continuing horrors of the Civil War, she called on women to work towards peace:

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...

With no political power, and very little sway in commerce, Howe hoped to use women's role as mothers—considered at the time the moral center of the family and the nation—to put an end to killing of their husbands and sons. 

Mother's Day became a nationally recognized holiday through the work of Anna Marie Jarvis. Her mother, Ann Jarvis, had also called for mothers to come together during the Civil War. She spent her life providing nursing and sanitation care to people on both sides of the conflict. Her "Mother's Friendship Day" efforts helped to reunite families separated by the war.

Following Ann's death in 1905, Anna wanted to continue the charitable work of her mother, as well as set aside a day when all mothers could be honored. She sought out the church where her mother taught Sunday school to set aside a special day to celebrate mothers, and used carnations—her mother's favorite flower—to mark the day: white to honor mothers who were deceased and red to honor those who were living.

This time the holiday took hold. By 1914 it was an official United States holiday, but it had also become commercialized. Anna was not pleased:

I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not profit.

She opposed the selling of flowers and also the use of greeting cards:

A poor excuse for the letter you are too lazy to write.

Today, moms are not only remembering the origins of the holiday but using it to work towards the betterment of our communities and the lives of mothers the world over.

In many places motherhood is a dangerous prospect. According to the World Health Organization, 1,000 women die every day because of complications due to pregnancy and birth. Maternal and infant deaths, or debilitating lifelong ailments, often happen because of a lack of basic medical supplies.

Every Mother Counts works to bring an end to these often-preventable deaths all year long. This year they are calling for No Mother's Day, asking moms to be silent to bring attention to the women and girls who have been lost, or to ask their families to donate to help lower maternal mortality rather than buying them gifts.

Bloggers for Birth Kits asks for help assembling simple and inexpensive kits to be sent to Papua New Guinea, where one in seven mothers dies in childbirth.

The Birthing Kit Foundation provides kits the world over. You can make a donation in honor of a mother in your life and they will send a handwritten card telling the recipient how the gift is helping.

At Amnesty International you can send cards to world leaders, including our own, asking them to make reducing maternal mortality a priority. 

Please keep in mind the many ways mothers can work together to make the world and the lives of other mothers and their children better.

This fact-piece of this column first appeared on Alameda Patch.


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