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You know I can’t help myself, right? I’m simply a master at how to “win friends and influence people.” Alas, I am compelled to share the truth about Mother’s Day, thereby wilting the flowers at all those mother-daughter teas and destroying precious moments for families everywhere.
Apologies, as usual…
Mother’s Day in America actually began with Anna Jarvis in 1905, who wished to create a holiday in honor of her own mother, who had worked tirelessly to nurse wounded Civil War soldiers on both sides of the battle. She had created mother’s work parties to address public health issues and to minister to the needs of the poor.
Anna Jarvis campaigned for this national day of recognition of her own mother amid great resistance. Many people thought it was an absurd idea, but eventually in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson signed the first Mother’s Day Proclamation.
Immediately Anna Jarvis began to regret her campaign. The holiday was quickly commercialized and rather than a day of mothers gathering together to work and improve their communities as her own mother had done, it became a sentimental thing. Hallmark got in on the action and started selling preprinted cards with endearing comments on them, florists and candy makers soon followed suit.
Anna Jarvis was furious and began to campaign to get Mother’s Day rescinded. She organized boycotts and threatened lawsuits. She crashed the candymakers convention in Philadelphia. She got herself arrested for protesting the selling of carnations.
“A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother—and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment.” -Anna Jarvis
Anna Jarvis dedicated her entire life and every dime she had to trying to get what she had once campaigned so hard for, rescinded. She never married and she never had children. She was forced to go live with her sister and was eventually placed in an asylum until her death.
That is the tragic tale of mother’s day, a pandora’s box of a holiday whose very founder went broke and drove herself mad trying to stop it.
Excellent; I had no idea. That’s what I call ironic. Also, I know the commercialized hallmark sugar-dripping stuff doesn’t really resonate with people who had, er, far less than idea experiences early on. Thanks for sharing this bit of history.
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p.s. that’s ‘ideal’ …
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Reblogged this on myatheistlife and commented:
Sometimes learning the history of our customs reveals a lesson that we should by now have learned yet have not.
Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Jarvis
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I wish I would have known all that during the years I worked for Wal Mart
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How interesting!!!
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On a positive note IB this story stands as a testament about how much humans wish to celebrate (or on how commercialized we make everything). The story really is rather sad – thank you for sharing it. And Happy Mother’s Day! i’d get you card but how cruel would that be?
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Just out of curiosity have you (as a good open-minded right-on Christian) heard of Motherimg Sunday?
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Yes. Constance Adelaide Smith was so inspired by Anna Jarvis, she set herself to work and wrote a pamphlet called “The Revival of Mothering Sunday.”
Mothering Sunday was already recognized in some quarters as a day to let the servants off work so they could return to their mother church, but that 4th Sunday of Lent is now pretty much a holiday just like Mother’s Day with sentimental cards, flowers, and candy for your mother.
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Except even when I was a child, and I doubt our ages are hugely different, I knew the origin of the day, and to some extent it was still called Mothering Sunday where I grew up, rather than Mother’s Day.
FWIW, I didn’t buy into the Mother’s Day thing. It’s somewhat like Valentine’s Day. I hoped I showed my mother enough love on the other 364 days of the year. Without needing to buy overpriced flowers for the sake of it.
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I’ve known the actual story of Mother’s day for some time now. What’s interesting there however, is how in the US, attempts have been made to rewrite history. So Julia Ward Howe’s antiwar/ women’s liberation poem becomes the mantra for Mother’s Day and Anna Jarvis is all but forgotten.
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Different countries, different cultures I guess. Mothering Sunday wasn’t a lot different to Boxing Day. The servants, a slight notch up from slaves, get to go home for a day. Religion and scoiety blur together.
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so interesting!
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Your first two sentences just killed me. Thanks for the laugh!
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Reblogged this on cornfedcontessa and commented:
Interesting read.
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Interesting history about Mothers Day, IB. I always did think there was something smarmy and fake about it, especially if your mother, like mine, is a malignant narcissist who only hurt you. So hard to even find a Mothers Day card that isn’t phoney as hell. How tragic that Anna Jarvis’s day was turned into something she never intended it to become. Alas, Mothers Day is here to stay, candy, sappy cards and all the rest.
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That is very interesting. Thanks for diving this up.
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Pingback: Many Shades of Motherhood… | Magnanimous Word
Oh dang – that’s RIGHT – it’s Mother’s Day today !
Gotta run to the store or I’ll be disowned…
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