“The influence of a mother in the lives of her children is beyond calculation.” - James E. Faust Anna Jarvis created Mother’s Day in the early 1900s. Her mother, who died in 1905 and during her lifetime had organized groups of women to promote friendship and health, was the inspiration of the holiday, which is meant to honor the sacrifices mothers have made for their children.
Jarvis argued that American holidays were biased towards males and their achievements.
On May 10, 1908, she held what is considered to be the first Mother’s Day Celebration, at a church in Grafton, West Virginia. She made sure to get financial backing from a department store and thousands of people attended a mother’s day event at a retail store.
Anna sent five hundred white carnations to her late mother’s church, the flower which would become the symbol of the holiday.
She began a massive letter writing campaign to newspapers and those with prominent positions, urging them to adopt a special day honoring motherhood. Many states, towns, and churches adopted the annual holiday by 1912. To further promote her cause, she established the Mother’s Day International Association. The same year, President Woodrow Wilson signed a measure which officially established the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
With the success of this holiday that Jarvis had wanted to be a day of personal celebration between mothers and their families, wearing white carnations as a badge, visiting their mother, and attending church services, it began to change. Florists, card companies, and other merchants capitalized on the popularity of this national holiday. Disgusted by the commercialization of the holiday, Jarvis began to denounce it and urged the people to stop buying mother’s day flowers, cards, and candies. She even went as far as to open a campaign against mother’s day profiteers, speaking out against it and creating countless lawsuits against groups that used the name “Mother’s Day,” which led to her spending most of her own money on legal fees.
Jarvis stayed unmarried and childless and by the time she died in 1948, she had disowned the holiday altogether, urging the government to remove it from the American calendar.
As Cynthia Ozick said, “We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.”
Every day we take for granted the things our mother does for us. We tend to just expect her to do these things, as it is the mother’s job. We especially see it as that during our teenage years. However, constantly cleaning and cooking should not be something the mother does alone or has to ask for help with. Our mother does everything for most of us till we are eighteen, or even older, giving her less time for herself.
She rarely gets thanked for all that she does and if we thank her, its only because it is a special holiday or a birthday. And on those occasions, we may only buy her a few things and not take the time to do things, buy her something special or talk to her. Exactly what Anna Jarvis did not want.
We should instead be sure to thank her for her years of slaving away on our behalf and all the things she has and will continue to do for us, not simply buying her something, but doing stuff for her as well, allowing her to have a day to herself (which she may not have had in many years) or a day to do stuff with her family, free of chores, because that is the least we could do.
If we were to write a list of all the things she has done for us and all that we are grateful for thanks to her, wouldn’t it be long enough to create a book?
Three things I very much appreciate about my mother is how she has taught me to be organized, independent, and love learning.
She fostered my love for reading and writing. Before I was old enough to go to school, she would be sure to read books to me daily and even teaching me things students learn in kindergarten and first grade, such as the English and math, helping me to love learning, especially things grades ahead of me.
So, I thank my mother for all she has done and continues to do, which helps me now and will most certainly help me as an adult. I owe it to her for who I am today.
'Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.” Proverbs 31:31