Mother’s Day for Peace

Mother’s Day started as Advocacy for Peace.

Mother’s Day started as Advocacy for Peace.
Ann Reeves Jarvis started to organize women in 1850 to help improve sanitary conditions, fight disease, infant mortality and improve women’s life by helping each other.

They also helped wounded soldiers from both sides during the Civil War from 1861 to 1865.

After the war, Ann Jarvis and other women organized Mother’s Friendship Day picnics. During the picnics and other events, they promoted peace and to come together as women for a common cause.

In 1870, Julia Ward Howe issued a “Mother’s Day Proclamation.” She asked women to become active in politics and to promote peace.

Anna Jarvis, the daughter of Ann Reeves Jarvis, was inspired by the death of her mother in 1905 to organize a Mother’s Day observation. In 1908, she had organized the first observation.

The intention was to thank your own mother for all she has done.

Quickly, Mother’s Day turned into Mothers Day – another day to spend money and feel obligated to do so.

Anna Jarvis spent her fortune and all her efforts to fight this interpretation of Mother’s Day.

She died in poverty in a sanitarium.

Let’s bring Mother’s Day back to being  meaningful

Let’s bring Mother’s Day back to being a meaningful and impactful day in the year.

Let’s help a mother in need of help. Let’s put our efforts to creating peace in the world. Let’s honor our mothers who put great effort into raising us.

But let’s stop making this a day of obligation and spending lots of money.

And do not buy mom a new kitchen gadget!!!!!

Let’s go for a walk instead.

Better yet, le’s make every day a day on which we are aware of the contributions mothers make to the world. Of course, we all are aware of the family level – the hugs, countless books read, meals made and clothes washed.

But the impact goes way beyond that. Mothers are raising the next generation of adults who will be the inventors, politicians, and world leaders.

The women who have chosen to make motherhood their full-time career will be statistically speaking much more likely to end their life in poverty.

Mothers who are working outside the home are still for the most part carrying a much bigger load of the work that needs to be done to keep a household afloat.

Let’s figure out how we can change this!

Maybe it is time to reinvent Mother’s Day.

Sources: National Geographic

Wikipedia and other sources

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