Mother’s Day: Where this tradition come from and why is celebration observed in over 40 countries worldwide? Many things that we took for granted are a long tradition and history hidden behind them. Perhaps if we knew about that will appreciate them better and Mother’s is one of them.

This article is to help you have a better understanding of the mother’s as tradition. And holiday as a religious activity and a social symbolic behavior in this modern society.

Mother’s Day is specific day choosing each year to organize a celebration during 24 hours honoring the mother of the family, as well as motherhood as the backbone of the society, matriarchal ancestral culture, and the influence of mothers in society.

Mother’Day celebrated on various days in many countries all over the world. Most commonly in the months of March or May. It complements similar celebrations honoring family members, such as Father’s Day, Siblings Day, and Grandparents Day.

Earliest History of Mother’s Day:

The earliest history of Mother’s Day dates back to the ancient annual spring festival the Greeks dedicated to maternal goddesses. The Greeks used the occasion to honor Rhea, wife of Cronus and the mother of many deities of Greek mythology.

Ancient Romans, too, celebrated a spring festival, called Hilaria dedicated to Cybele, a mother goddess. It is noted that ceremonies in honor of Cybele began some 250 years before Christ was born. The celebration made on the Ides of March by making offerings in the temple of Cybele. Lasted for three days and included parades, games, and masquerades.

The celebrations were notorious enough that followers of Cybele were banished from Rome. Early Christians celebrated a Mother’s Day of sorts during the festival on the fourth Sunday. Of lent in honor of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Christ. In England, the holiday expanded to include all mothers. It then called Mothering Sunday.

Contemporary History of Mother’s Day Sunday:

The more recent history of Mother’s Day dates back to 1600s in England. Here a Mothering Sunday celebrated annually. On the fourth Sunday of Lent the 40 day period leading up to Easter to honor mothers. After a prayer service in church to honor the Virgin Mary. Children brought gifts and flowers to pay tribute to their own mothers.

On the occasion, servants, apprentices and other employees staying away from their homes. We’re encouraged by their employers to visit their mothers and honor them. Traditionally children brought with them gifts and a special fruit cake or fruit-filled pastry called a simnel. Yugoslavs and people in other nations have observed similar days.

The custom of celebrating Mothering Sunday died out almost completely by the 19th century. However, the day came to be celebrated again after World War II. When American servicemen brought the custom and commercial enterprises used it as an occasion for sales.

History of the modern Mother’s holiday:

Modern Mother’s Day holiday was first celebrated in 1908 when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother at St Andrew’s Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia. St Andrew’s Methodist Church now holds the International Mother’s Day Shrine.

Her campaign to make Mother’s Day a recognized holiday in the United States began in 1905, the year her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, died. Ann Jarvis had been a peace activist who cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War and created Mother’s Day Work Clubs to address public health issues.

Anna Jarvis wanted to honor her mother by continuing the work. She started and to set aside a day to honor all mothers. Because she believed a mother is “the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world”.

In 1908, the U.S. Congress rejected a proposal to make Mother’s Day an official holiday, joking that they would also have to proclaim a “Mother-in-law’s Day”. However, owing to the efforts of Anna Jarvis, by 1911 all U.S. states observed the holiday.

With some of them officially recognizing Mother’s Day as a local holiday the first being West Virginia, Jarvis’ home state, in 1910. In 1914, Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation designating Mother’s Day. Held on the second Sunday in May, as a national holiday to honor mothers.

History of the commercial Mother’s that we see today:

Although Jarvis was successful in founding Mother’s Day, she became resentful of the commercialization of the holiday. By the early 1920s, Hallmark Cards and other companies had started selling Mother’s Day cards. Jarvis believed that the companies had misinterpreted and exploited the idea of Mother’s Day. And that the emphasis of the holiday was on sentiment, not profit.

As a result, she organized boycotts of Mother’s Day and threatened to issue lawsuits against the companies involved. Jarvis argued that people should appreciate and honor their mothers through handwritten letters expressing their love and gratitude, instead of buying gifts and pre-made cards.

Jarvis protested at a candy makers convention in Philadelphia in 1923, and at a meeting of American War Mothers in 1925. By this time, carnations had become associated with Mother’s Day, and the selling of carnations by the American War Mothers to raise money angered Jarvis, who was arrested for disturbing the peace.

How Mother’s Day is celebrating in the United States:

Mother’s Day in the United States annually held on the second Sunday of May. It celebrates motherhood and it is a time to appreciate mothers and mother figures. Many people give gifts, cards, flowers, candy, a meal in a restaurant or other treats to their mother and mother figures, including grandmothers, great-grandmothers, stepmothers, and foster mothers.

What Do People Do?

Many people send cards or gifts to their mother or mother figure or make a special effort to visit her. Common Mother’s Day gifts are flowers, chocolate, candy, clothing, jewelry and treats, such as a beauty treatment or trip to a spa.

Some families organize an outing for all of their members or hold a special meal at home or in a restaurant. In the days and weeks before Mother’s Day, many schools help their pupils to prepare a handmade card or small gift for their mothers.

Public Life

Mother’s Day is not a federal holiday. Organizations, businesses, and stores are open or closed, just as they are on any other Sunday in the year. Public transit systems run to their normal Sunday schedules. Restaurants may be busier than usual, as some people take their mothers out for a treat.

How much Mother’s Day cost an average low-income American?

Today, of course, Mother’s Day continues to roll on as an engine of consumerism. According to the National Retail Federation, Americans will spend an average of $162.94 on mom this year, down from a survey high of $168.94 last year. Total spending expected to reach $19.9 billion. The U.S. National Restaurant Association reports that Mother’s Day is the year’s most popular holiday for dining out.

As for Mother’s Day is a Hallmark holiday, there’s no denying it, strictly speaking. Hallmark Cards itself, which sold its first Mother’s Day cards in the early 1920s, reports that Mother’s Day is the number three holiday for card exchange in the United States, behind Christmas and Valentine’s Day another apparent affront to the memory of the mother of Mother’s Day.

About 133 million Mother’s Day cards are exchanged annually, according to Hallmark. After Christmas, it’s the second most popular holiday for giving gifts.

Mother’s Day Gone Global

The holiday Anna Jarvis launched has spread around much of the world, though it’s celebrated with varying enthusiasm, in various ways, and on various days through more often than not on the second Sunday in May. But the most plausible theory of the expansion mother’s around the globe has exported by the American Christian church missionaries all over the world by spreading the mother’s traditional in more than 40 countries where they established their mission. They also make sure that they bring the American consumers culture of spending with them too. That’s made nowadays mothers has become a worldwide spending day for many citizens around the world that even can afford this bad habit, but I am wondering they even know or remember mother is the synonym of love pure love with passion and protection without any material interest. What is the Good Part of Mother’s Day Mothers naturally love their own children and any other kids living in society with the same purpose, they want to make them become an excellent humankind, a better being, an exemplary citizen, an attending wife or husband in the future, a respectful person in society, a performant manager, a professional worker, an honest man or woman, and the list continue infinitely. Can one day people will be able to celebrate a real Mother’s to show the same type of love for the mothers, on the Mother’s Day. Instead of buying stupid materials thing to your mom or any other mothers around of you. The best gift you can offer to any female mother or not because all women are mothers even they have children or not, they will take care of somebody kids it is in their human nature to provide love and to the best they can to make the world a better place for us. Women never started a war, they never alimented conflict around the world, they offering love and protection to anyone who is in need, so the best gift you can offer them on a Mother’s Day shows them more respect and much more love, not in one day but every day. If you do so we will be living in a better world. Happy Mother’s Day.

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