If there is a day I dread every year, it is Mother’s Day. Throughout my life, on that
particular day in May, it has felt like somebody was holding a gun to my head, forcing
me to honor the woman who gave birth to me. Honestly, I always wished whoever that
someone was would hurry up and pull the trigger, putting me out of my misery. Then
again, I would reason, Mother’s Day is only one day. For one day a year, I can pretend
to honor the woman who gave birth to me.
My mother died three years ago. This May, I would love to have the opportunity to honor
her one more time. I have allowed enough healing to happen in my life that I now know
how difficult life was for her. I can honestly state that I love my mother despite all her
faults. But while I honor her memory, I also understand that Mother’s Day is about
paying tribute to the women who uphold us all and striving to be honorable women
ourselves.
Wanting to understand how the Mother’s Day tradition started, I researched. While not
surprised to discover the growing commercialization of the holiday over the span of
time, I was amazed to learn that the day of tribute began with one person, Anna Jarvis,
wanting to honor her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis. 1
Known as “Mother Jarvis,” Ann Reeves Jarvis was a lifelong activist who, in the mid-
1800s, organized “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” in West Virginia in an effort to overcome
unsanitary living conditions. Hoping to reduce the high infant mortality rate, she worked
to educate and help mothers.
Mother Jarvis also organized women’s brigades during the Civil War. Her hallmark was
that she encouraged women to work together without regard to the side their men were
fighting for. After the war, she further promoted peace between Union and Confederate
families by proposing a Mothers’ Friendship Day.
Mother Jarvis sounds like an amazing woman!
Wishing to memorialize her mother after her death, Anna Jarvis campaigned for a
national day to honor all mothers. “I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found
a memorial mother’s day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to
humanity in every field of life.”
Mother Jarvis died in 1905, and Mother’s Day was proclaimed a national holiday in
1914.
Although her goal of instituting Mother’s Day was realized, Anna Jarvis became
dismayed that the heart of what she was trying to implement as a memorial to her
mother in recognition of her service to all humanity soon became exploited and overly
commercialized.
When I read about Mother Jarvis, I think about how hard some women work to improve
conditions for all humanity. One name that comes to my mind is Mother Theresa—who
clearly earned the title “mother.” Those she and Mother Jarvis took care of and poured
their hearts into were not their blood-related children but people who needed to be
cared for. People who were lost in the mire of everyday life. Overmatched by their
circumstances. Who needed someone to care.
Are you capable of giving someone a hand? Everyone needs to be lifted up at some
point in their lives.
This Mother’s Day, besides honoring your birth mother—whether that is easy or difficult
in your world—will you look to honor those women who have spent their lives upholding
others? And will you take time to look around and see who you can be a mother to?
This May (without a gun to my head!) I sincerely wish you and yours a Happy Mother’s
Day.
- Laurie Stuart, “Mother’s Day began…”, Riverreporter.com, May 8, 2024;
https://riverreporter.com/stories/mothers-day-began,146839#: ↩︎
