Once again we arrive at the one annual observance, which transcends race, gender, nationality, socioeconomic, religious, political and every other man-made divide.
Although Mother’s Day has been celebrated differently through the centuries by different people on different days due to different circumstances the observance has taken on new dimensions since its inception in the United States through an English version copied by social activist Julian Ward Howe. Her attempt to unite women against war following the American Civil War (Mother’s Day for Peace) was influenced by Ann Jarvis, a young Appalachian homemaker who in 1858 had attempted to initiate Mother’s Work Days. However, Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870 calling for peace and disarmament failed. When Ann Jarvis died her daughter Anna started the crusade to found a memorial day for women.
The first such Mother’s Day was celebrated on May 10, 1908 in Grafton, West Virginia home of the International Mother’s Day Shrine. The holiday was declared officially by some states in 1912, and in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother’s Day as a day for Americans to show the flag in honor of mothers whose sons had died in war.
In today’s mercenary, high tech society the role of motherhood is thrust into prominence as never before. The mother remains the child’s first teacher, regardless of the lessons taught. Contrary to generations past, today’s mothers are mostly younger, single, or one of a 2-working parent household. The mothers of yesteryear, however, seldom worked outside of the home in early childhood of their offspring, no matter how low the family income. This placed them in a better position to provide the loving personal nurturing so critical, not only for their own but also for the children of the entire neighborhood.
How vast the contrast in the mothers of today who increasingly place more emphasis on expensive clothing, hair and nail fashions and outward fads and trends heavily influenced by television commercials, sitcoms and videos rather than by any admirable examples within their real world at home or amid the strong influence of their peers.
Therefore the challenge to mothers of today has never been greater to see that their children as well as those of others receive essential spiritual as well as physical and mental development in a world so laden with moral and societal dangers to which they are constantly exposed through the internet, under the guise of entertainment and other unbridled freedoms.
The word mother remains synonymous with love in every other species of nature, a selfless love for which that mother will jeopardize her own life to protect her young from danger of any magnitude. Only humankind, the crowning touch of all creation, freely exercises the volition to abandon its young for selfish, misplaced priorities.
This Sunday, as we honor mothers of the past and present, may we be keenly aware of the dire need of many young mothers of today for a helping hand in the mental and especially the spiritual as well as physical development of every child to fullest individual potential regardless of race, religion, nationality or the neighborhood from which they come. These are the hands in which we will too soon fall- as young parents, as local, state, national and international legislators and leaders. We owe it to our mothers, to our children, to the world and especially to our Creator, who still grants us the freedom to make such choices.
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!
