Reflecting on Mother’s Day by Jan Slakov
It’s fascinating to look at how Mother’s Day morphed over the years. It can be traced back to Ann Reeves Jarvis, who organized Mothers’ Day Work Clubs to improve health and sanitation. (Imagine how it must have been for her to lose most of her children to disease; presumably her efforts helped her deal with those tragic losses.) During and after the US Civil War, Ann worked to overcome the animosity of the opposing sides and eventually organized a “Mothers Friendship Day” for soldiers and their families from both sides. It was during this period that Julia Ward Howe spear-headed the movement to honour Mother’s Day as a day to resist militarism and to work for peace. (Read more here and here)
Ann’s daughter Anna built on her mother’s vision, and lobbied the US government to declare a special day to honour mothers, which it did, in 1914. But it wasn’t long after that that commercial interests realized this was a holiday they could exploit. Anna Jarvis was appalled at the commercialization and trivialization and eventually created a petition to rescind the holiday; near the end of her life she reportedly said she “…wished she would have never started the day because it became so out of control …”
Reading about this history gives rise to reflections on what people hold sacred, be it health, peace and reconciliation, motherly love or making money. Isn’t it amazing to see how the world we create is so much determined by our thoughts and the culture we create?
We know that we’re in the middle of a crisis much more threatening than the pandemic – the threat of ecological, also social unravelling. Our economy rewards actions that worsen the crisis and our media and political parties are largely controlled by those who cannot or will not see how other healthier economic options are feasible. Maybe Mother’s Day can be a portal to ways of overcoming these obstacles.
It turns out May 10th is also #BearWitnessDay, a day to uphold “Jordan’s principle”, the idea that all children should have equal access to essential services, whether they live on reserves or in wealthy neighbourhoods. What a coincidence that this effort to improve children’s health falls on Mother’s Day, which was, originally also focused on improving family health. The First Nations Child and Family Caring Society website describes several COVID-19 safe ways to honour this day and further Truth and Reconciliation Committee calls to action.
The coincidence or serendipity extend further; to honour the origins of Mother’s Day as a day for peace and justice, we are called to be peace-builders. Like Julia Ward Howe, we may choose to denounce “great nations [exhausting] themselves in mutual murder” (war). We do need to recognize the ways that war and militarism undermine our thinking and ultimately our chances for survival. But over the years my peace activism has been inspired by what I’ve learned about how many indigenous societies have dealt with conflict. A less judgemental worldview, more focused on listening, gratitude and appreciation of the natural world, is at the root of peace-building. The simple, yet profoundly powerful technology of talking circles can help us build understanding and connection across the many things that divide us.
In our slowed down COVID world, taking time to reflect on the history of Mother’s Day, and how we can build on its roots, laid down over two centuries ago, may help us build a future worthy of our children.
MOTHER’S DAY MESSAGES: PROTECT THE CHILDREN
By: Lyn Adamson (Co-Chair)
Last week Houston. This week Fort McMurray. Next week: where on earth?
The climate crisis knows no bounds and its hallmark is unpredictability. We know the general trends, as the carbon dioxide levels rise in the atmosphere, but we don’t know exactly when the impacts of extreme weather on human communities and ecosystems will happen next.
As a mother, I am distressed that we are handing on to our children a world descending into climate chaos. As a mother, I am distressed by the impact armed conflict is having on communities in the middle east and beyond, and by the trillions of dollars going into the military and ‘defense’ while the real threats to future survival are not addressed.
We are quick to judge a parent who does not provide the necessities of life to a child, even when their intentions are the best, as was the case for a couple devoted to natural healing when their child died of meningitis. Yet we are the collective parent of the next generation, and generations to follow. As a collective parent, what are our responsibilities to ensure the necessities of life for those who will live on planet Earth in the latter decades of the 21st century? Do we wish this to be the last few decades when human life on Earth can flourish? Do we wish to allow ecosystems in the oceans, in forests, to collapse?
It doesn’t matter that our intentions may be for the best. If we are not ensuring that the conditions for humanity to survive and thrive stay in place for future generations – then we are negligent. It doesn’t matter that it is complicated to solve the many interconnected problems that we face: overconsumption, ocean acidification, sea rise, droughts, floods and famine… if we fail we are truly failing our children and grandchildren.
As a settler in this land I am grateful for the wisdom of indigenous communities who understand that money is not the measure of wealth, that true abundance is in our connections to ‘all our relations’ human and animal, plants, the ocean, and the earth itself. As a mother I am thankful for the wisdom of looking seven generations ahead when making decisions, and for the strength of the land defenders who speak for the water, the air, and the land. Those who feel and express deep connection to the natural world and the circle of life that we are all part of. I am dismayed at the dominance of corporations and the power of the profit motive. Deliberate corporate betrayal of our collective future fills me with anger. Why would the people running fossil fuel companies hide the truth of the damage these fossil fuels cause when burned? Whatever would possess them to put immediate profit ahead of long term sustainability?
It doesn’t need to be this way. Together we can make the shift from fossil fuel energy to renewables. We can make the shift from war-makers to peacebuilders. Together we can make the shift from consumers to active citizens. Just think how much more satisfying it will be to leave a planet that is alive to our children – not one that is dying. We can do this, and yet time is running out to do this.
Consider this a global call to action in our local communities, through our governments and through international networks to make a living future possible. As a mother, I call all mothers, all parents, all aunts, uncles and cousins, all decision makers, all business owners, every member of the media… everyone… to make this our highest priority. This year lets us do everything in our power to create this green and peaceful future. I ask this of us all. As a mother.
Lyn is Co-Chair of Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, and is active in ClimateFast, Citizens Climate Lobby, and Toronto 350. She can be reached c/o info@vowpeace.org.
http://www.peace.ca/mothersdayproclamation.htm
Mothers’ Day Proclamation: Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870
Mother’s Day was originally started after the Civil War, as a protest to the carnage of that war, by women who had lost their
sons. Here is the original Mother’s Day Proclamation from 1870, followed by a bit of history (or should I say “herstory”):
………………………………..
Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts,
whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!
Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by
irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking
with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be
taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach
them of charity, mercy and patience.
We women of one country will be too tender of those of another
country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From
the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says “Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance
of justice.”
Blood does not wipe our dis-honor nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow 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 then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the
means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each
bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
but of God.
In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a
general congress of women without limit of nationality may be
appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at
the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the
alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement
of international questions, the great and general interests of
peace.
Julia Ward Howe
Boston
1870
Mother’s Day for Peace – by Ruth Rosen.
Honour Mother with Rallies in the Streets. The holiday
began in activism; it needs rescuing from commercialism
and platitudes.
Every year, people snipe at the shallow commercialism of Mother’s Day. But to ignore your mother on this holy holiday is unthinkable. And if you are a
mother, you’ll be devastated if your ingrates fail to honor you at least one
day of the year.
Mother’s Day wasn’t always like this. The women who conceived Mother’s Day would be bewildered by the ubiquitous ads that hound us to find that “perfect gift for Mom.” They would expect women to be marching in the streets, not eating with their families in restaurants. This is because Mother’s Day began as a holiday that commemorated women’s public activism, not as a celebration of a mother’s devotion to her family.
The story begins in 1858 when a community activist named Anna Reeves Jarvis organized Mothers’ Works Days in West Virginia. Her immediate goal was to improve sanitation in Appalachian communities. During the Civil War, Jarvis pried women from their families to care for the wounded on both sides. Afterward she convened meetings to persuade men to lay aside their hostilities.
In 1872, Juulia Ward Howe, author of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”,
proposed an annual Mother’s Day for Peace. Committed to abolishing war, Howe wrote: “Our husbands shall not come to us reeking with carnage… Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs”.
For the next 30 years, Americans celebrated Mothers’ Day for Peace on June 2.
Many middle-class women in the 19th century believed that they bore a special responsibility as actual or potential mothers to care for the casualties of society and to turn America into a more civilized nation. They played a leading role in the abolitionist movement to end slavery. In the following decades, they launched successful campaigns against lynching and consumer fraud and battled for improved working conditions for women and protection for children, public health services and social welfare assistance to the poor. To the activists, the connection between motherhood and the fight for social and economic justice seemed self-evident.
In 1913, Congress declared the second Sunday in May to be Mother’s Day. By then, the growing consumer culture had successfully redefined women as consumers for their families. Politicians and businessmen eagerly embraced the idea of celebrating the private sacrifices made by individual mothers. As the Florists’ Review, the industry’s trade journal, bluntly put it, “This was a holiday that could be exploited.”
The new advertising industry quickly taught Americans how to honor their
mothers – by buying flowers. Outraged by florists who were selling carnations for the exorbitant price of $1 a piece, Anna Jarvis’ daughter undertook a campaigning against those who “would undermine Mother’s Day with their greed.” But she fought a losing battle. Within a few years, the Florists’ Review triumphantly announced that it was “Miss Jarvis who was completely squelched.”
Since then, Mother’s Day has ballooned into a billion-dollar industry.
Americans may revere the idea of motherhood and love their own mothers, but not all mothers. Poor, unemployed mothers may enjoy flowers, but they also need child care, job training, health care, a higher minimum wage and paid parental leave. Working mothers may enjoy breakfast in bed, but they also need the kind of governmental assistance provided by every other
industrialized society.
With a little imagination, we could restore Mother’s Day as a holiday that
celebrates women’s political engagement in society. During the 1980’s, some peace groups gathered at nuclear test sites on Mother’s Day to protest the arms race. Today, our greatest threat is not from missiles but from our
indifference toward human welfare and the health of our planet. Imagine, if you can, an annual Million Mother March in the nation’s capital. Imagine a Mother’s Day filled with voices demanding social and economic justice and a sustainable future, rather than speeches studded with syrupy platitudes.
Some will think it insulting to alter our current way of celebrating Mother’s
Day. But public activism does not preclude private expressions of love and
gratitude. (Nor does it prevent people from expressing their appreciation all
year round.)
Nineteenth century women dared to dream of a day that honored women’s civil activism. We can do no less. We should honor their vision with civic
activism.
Ruth Rosen is a professor of history at UC Davis.
Reprinted with permission*************************************While looking for the article by Ruth Rosen, I found this one: http://www.purewatergazette.net/mothersday.htm