History Behind the Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all...

I love the old saying that says, God cannot be all the places at the same time so he created the mother. Today all the children of the most of the parts of the world got chance to pay homage to the entity second to God only. Yes mother's day is the chance for the children to say thank you for all the love and care she had given to the child and to say sorry for every misbehavior towards her. So, let me first greet all the mothers in the world Happy Mother's Day.

If one writes emotionally about the mother than all the pages in the world won't be enough. So I decided to say somewhat unknown aspect of Mother's Day. Its history and significance. The Mother’s Day is not the brainchild of the modern world it has been in the history of the world in different form at different parts of the world. The ancient Greeks used to celebrate this day as a part of Cybele in honor of the mountain mother or Mother Earth. The ancient Romans also used to celebrate this festival as a Hilaria which is related to Greek Cybele cult as well. If we want to trace the roots of this festival in the modern times than we have to go back to the American Poetess Julia Ward Howe. The "Mother's Day Proclamation" written by her was  one of the early calls to celebrate a Mother's Day in the United States. Written in 1870, it was a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The Proclamation was tied to Howe's feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level. International was celebrated for the first time in 28 February 1909, in the US, by which time Anna Jarvis had already begun her national campaign in the US. It is now celebrated in many countries on March 8. The tradition to celebrate mother’s day on the second Sunday of May was first spelt by Anna Jarvis in 1912, this step trademarked the phrases "second Sunday in May" and "Mother's Day", and created the Mother's Day International Association. The U.S. President Woodrow Wilson used this spelling in the law making official the holiday in the U.S., by the U.S. Congress on bills, and by other U.S. presidents on their declarations.

The Mother’s Day is celebrated around the globe but on different days and in honor of different deities. In most of the Roman Catholic countries it is associated with the Virgin Marry and in Islamic world it is associated with the birth date of the daughter of the Prophet Mohammad, in Hindu tradition also Mother’s day is celebrated in different form like Navaratris in the honor of nine forms of Devi Durga, Baisakhi in the Punjab in the honor of mother earth.

So, all over the world the purpose, the deities and the days might be different but the one thing is common in the celebration of this festival, which is Love and honor of the Mother. I feel that is what really matters!