Mother's Day Already?

I take a very practical view of raising children.

I put a  sign in each of their rooms: "Checkout Time is 18 years."

~Erma Bombeck

May 13, 2012

Yep, that's when Mother's Day is this year, (on a Sunday for those that don't know,...it always falls on a Sunday), so that's a little over two weeks from now. No doubt every mother on the planet is wondering what this year's Mother's Day will bring, (whether they'll admit it or not). Some mothers will be over-flowing with giddy anticipation, day-dreaming about what sweet surprises their children have up their sleeves while other mothers approach the day with dread and resignation, afraid to find out how her offspring will blow her off, leaving her all alone or worst yet, show up and devastate another Mother's Day by way of being selfish, stupid or spiteful.


 Most of us will greet the day with a grin and pull our selves up by the boot straps and take part in the day with a fair degree of sentimentality attached to it. We all have a mother, (somewhere, either here or,..well,..not here), and then some of us ARE mothers, even grandmothers! I'm a mom  and now, at 55, I'm a Proud Grandmother, (but no 'Proud Grandma' plaques and coffee mugs yet) . I have 5 children and 3 grandchildren, which I love and cherish dearly. Years ago, when I was knee deep and sweatin in the trenches of being one of those caped hit the floor runnin, hands on, no time for a break mother, I just couldn't understand why all the "older" grandma aged mothers got the royal treatment on Mother's Day. I figured us moms who were scrambling after naked toddlers, breaking up sibling smack downs and negotiating loan terms with lazy, yet sly teens trying to rob the already too generous "Bank Of Mom" were, oh, so much more entitled to the red carpet pampering!. I mean after all, WE were the ones in active battle on the front lines fending off pre-teen explosions, dodging insult over injury while wolfing down stone cold rations like a starved POW.
How come we weren't the special ones?


But the days did pass and I found myself spending less and less time in the trenches and finally, peace arrived. The kids grew up and out of the nest allowing me more time to ponder life and situations, such as why Grandmothers had it so darn good on Mother's Day. Call it wisdom gleaned from years of living, combined with time off the harried battlefield, but it didn't take me long to figure it out. It was suddenly crystal clear to me -  us older, more seasoned moms are gifted with the honors for one perfectly sound reason - WE DESERVE THEM!!!! 

Some folks view Mother's Day as nothing more than one of those sappy holidays created solely for the sake of commercialism - a money maker for gift shops and florists . Well, after a bit of investigating I discovered that isn't the case, (I looked it up on the net).


  Mother's Day has quite the interesting and even hostile past. I won't go into tedious detail, but I found it rather interesting to learn that we basically took the tradition from the Brits. In the 1600's England came up with "Mothering Day", an especially compassionate holiday toward the working classes of England. Just a sweet, sentimental Sunday where servants and trade workers were allowed to travel back to their towns of origin to visit their families. Mothering Day also provided a one-day reprieve from the fasting and penance of Lent so that families across England could enjoy a family feast—Mother was the guest of honor, of course, and lovingly presented with cakes and flowers, as well as a visit from their beloved and distant children. Nothing hostile or stressed out there. No, the unrest wouldn't raise it's ugly head for awhile.  When the first English settlers came to America, they discontinued the tradition of Mothering Day, leaving it back in their British homeland where it would live on as a simple, precious tribute to mothers while the American Mother’s Day would be invented, (of course),—with an entirely new history—centuries later.


 The first North American Mother’s Day was conceptualized with Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation in 1870. Despite having penned The Battle Hymn of the Republic 12 years earlier, Howe had become so distraught by the death and carnage of the Civil War that she called on Mother’s from all around to come together and protest what she saw as the futility of their Sons killing the Sons of other Mothers. Julia Ward Howe called for an international Mother's Day celebrating peace and motherhood.
I knew a war had to be involved in it somehow, some way,..
At one point Howe even proposed converting July 4th into Mother’s Day, in order to dedicate the nation’s anniversary to peace, but her proposal was rejected and eventually June 2nd was designated for the celebration.

 In 1873 women’s groups in 18 North American cities observed this new Mother’s holiday. Howe initially funded many of these celebrations, but most of them died out once she stopped footing the bill. The city of Boston, however, would continue celebrating Howe’s holiday for 10 more years. Despite the decided failure of her holiday, Howe had nevertheless planted the seed that would blossom into what we know as Mother’s Day today. 
Thank You Julia Ward Howe!


 A West Virginia women’s group led by Anna Reeves Jarvis began to celebrate an adaptation of Howe’s holiday. In order to re-unite families and neighbors that had been divided between the Union and Confederate sides of the Civil War, the group held a Mother’s Friendship Day. After Anna Reeves Jarvis died, her daughter Anna M. Jarvis campaigned for the creation of an official Mother’s Day in remembrance of her mother and in honor of peace. In 1908, Anna petitioned the superintendent of the church where her Mother had spent over 20 years teaching Sunday School. Her request was honored, and on May 10, 1908, the first official Mother's Day celebration took place at Andrew's Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia and a church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Whew! Guess Mother's Day wasn't dreamed up by store owners and when you know the depth of dedication these women carried and then rallied for, ya can't help but have a little more respect for Mother's Day.

But wait, there's more!

It was Anna Jarvis who created the tradition of presenting carnations to mothers on their special day. She chose white carnations—her Mother’s favorite flower—to adorn the patrons. Two carnations were given to every Mother in attendance. Today, white carnations are used to honor deceased Mothers, while pink or red carnations pay tribute to Mothers who are still alive. In 1908 a U.S. Senator from Nebraska, Elmer Burkett, proposed making Mother's Day a national holiday at the request of the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA). The proposal was defeated, but by 1909 forty-six states were holding Mother's Day services as well as parts of Canada and Mexico. Anna Jarvis quit working and devoted herself full time to the creation of Mother's Day, endlessly petitioning state governments, business leaders, women groups, churches and other institutions and organizations. She finally convinced the World's Sunday School Association to back her, a key influence over state legislators and congress. In 1912 West Virginia became the first state to officially recognize Mother's Day, and in 1914 Woodrow Wilson signed it into national observance, declaring the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.
Way To Go ANNA!!!!!

And it doesn't end there,...

The holiday flourished in the United States and flowers, especially white carnations, became very popular. One business journal, Florists Review, went so far as to print, “This was a holiday that could be exploited.” But the budding commercialization of Mother's Day greatly disturbed Jarvis, so she vociferously opposed what she perceived as a misuse of the holiday.


In 1923 she sued to stop a Mother’s Day event, and in the 1930's she was arrested for disturbing the peace at the American War Mothers group while she was protesting their sale of flowers. In the 1930’s Jarvis also petitioned against the postage stamp featuring her Mother, a vase of white carnations and the word “Mother’s Day.” Jarvis was able to have the words “Mother’s Day” removed but the flowers remained. In 1938, Time Magazine ran an article about Jarvis's fight to copyright Mother's Day, but by then it was already too late to change the commercial trend. In opposition to the flower industry’s exploitation of the holiday, Jarvis wrote, “What will you do to route charlatans, bandits, pirates, racketeers, kidnappers and other termites that would undermine with their greed one of the finest, noblest and truest movements and celebrations?” Despite her efforts, flower sales on Mother's Day continued to grow. Florist's Review wrote, “Miss Jarvis was completely squelched.”

Anna Jarvis died in 1948, blind, poor and childless.
Jarvis would never know that it was, ironically, The Florist's Exchange that had anonymously paid for her care. By the time of Anna M. Jarvis's death, over 40 countries observed the Mother’s Day, and today that number exceeds 70.

History Of Mother's Day

It wasn't my intention to add quite so much in regard to the history of Mother's Day, but the story intrigued me and I just had to share.  Interesting how such a sweet and innocent English celebration known as "Mothering Day" could end up as such a scandalous mess once it got over here, (but not surprising). My heart aches for Anna Jarvis.  She stood stern to her beliefs so valiantly only to end up alone, poverty stricken and without children of her own gathered around her when her time on this earth was finished. I don't know about you, but for every Mother's Day that I'm blessed with I'll think fondly of Anna Jarvis and send up a little prayer of gratitude in her honor for all she sacrificed in order for us mothers to have our very own holiday. Sad though, that as soon as that sweet Mothering Day seed from England sprouted into an idea for us, it was saddled up and slapped into battle. I do find it rather fitting though, that the women who were so instrumental in creating Mother's Day rallied with the spirit and tenacity of an Army General to gain the attention of the people. A woman's spine is made of surgical steel and once she gets her back up about something she's passionate towards, watch out and step back, she knows NOT the meaning of retreat!


Every Mother
Whether it be that you are a mother, grandmother, step-mom, aunt, sister, close friend, nanny or just a woman that tends to and loves unconditionally the folks most precious to your heart, Mother's Day was created in YOUR honor and I salute you for the dedication and generous labor of love you've bestowed upon your family. 


I hope this Mother's Day gifts you with a chance to sit back, put your feet up and bask in the joy as the hugs come your way!

All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.

~Abraham Lincoln

Face Places and All Those Other Silly Spaces

I used to do Facebook but you get a little too wrapped up in that stuff.

 It's more distracting than anything so I don't any more.

 I left it behind. I detoxed!

~Emma Stone

Who Knew?

I got my first computer in the late 90's, actually it was a gift from my Mother, (God bless her sweet soul!) And I took to the Internet like a duck to water -  I'd found my "place"! Trouble was that I had no computer skills whatsoever. I had to teach myself and it was a lot of trial and error, (to say the least). Another big problem was that I got addicted to my "Little Box" super quick. I got swept up onto that Internet Highway and the hours would literally fly by as I learned how to master this new interest of mine. Sorry to report that my obsession with my computer took a toll on my marriage, but it did. 

But that's not what I want to write about today. 

What is on my mind is this love affair folks are having with Facebook, Twitter and similar places like them.  When I first got online, (which I was on AOL for a lot of years),  there weren't many places to communicate with the masses. Ya had the notorious chat rooms, complicaTED message boards and basic email - that was about it.

I remember when I began "online journaling" people thought I was really strange to put an internet diary out there for the whole world to read, (which in reality only a couple of my online friends made time to read it). Then a couple years later along comes the infamous B-L-O-G! 

Suddenly everyone thought it was cool and had to jump on the blog-wagon. 

Go figure,...

I still think blogging is one of the better aspects of the Internet and wish I had more time and opportunity to devote to my blog. Blogging on library or other people's computers is a pain. But I remain hopeful that the day will come when I'm in a place and have a computer again, (mother board fried in my old one).

High Tech Bubbles

As much as I support, (and enjoy), the "Computer Age", I find it alarming to witness the extent of where we have gone and are continuing to go when it comes to our fascination/addiction with high tech gizmo's and gadgets. We've gone far beyond just having computers on a desk. We have cell phones, ipods, kindles, notepads, laptops and ipads. I can't keep up with it anymore - seems like yesterday my oldest child was begging me to get him a beeper!

The whole texting phenomenon is something I never expected. Yes, I have a cell phone, (who doesn't these days?), but I rarely text, (try not to anyway).  Yes, our high tech toys enable us to be in instant contact with each other and it doesn't matter where we are or what we're doing, we can toss out our most mundane and trivial thoughts to the whole world to read in a matter of seconds. Do we really have that much to say that we have to be "tuned" in 24/7? Seems to me that we're so preoccupied with texting/Twittering that we're oblivious to the real people around us like neighbors, co-workers and the folks we rub elbows with in general. Our eyes and attention are cast downward and we aren't even able to meet another person's face and exchange smiles. Our High Tech Bubbles are cutting us off from the outside world and that is not a good thing. It's especially detrimental in regard to our kids/teens. They already have issues with paying attention to people, they certainly don't need to be plugged in to their high tech gadgets to distract them more.


 There was a time when we were totally cool without having the ability to have instant communication at our fingertips, (literally), and if we got a busy signal when we called a friend it was no big deal, we'd get a hold of them sooner of later. And friends were actual people that we'd chat face to face with outside the grocery store, along the backyard fence or over a game of Canasta, not sitting at a little box typing impersonal quips and  barbs to pop off to some "Face Place" where the only evidence of having friends is if they are so inclined to casually click a  "Like" button . 


Hopelessly Addicted? 
Have we become a society so severely addicted to high tech socializing that we have lost the ability to meet another human being's face and form intelligent words that shape a good, old fashioned conversation? Have we lost interest in the intimate spontinaity of the in-person, up close and personal meet and greet with real folks out there in the world?
If so, then we are sacrificing one of the most precious gifts in life - eye to eye, hand-in-hand friendship. The kind that treasured memories are created from.


We need to take a break, power down and unplug.
Call it old fashioned, but it can all wait, the Twittering, the Facebooking and all that trivial texting. Close your eyes and just listen and those footsteps you hear? That is a real life person walking by and all you have to do is smile and say hello!

What troubles me is the Internet and the electronic technology revolution.

 Shyness is fueled in part by so many people spending huge amounts of time alone, isolated on e-mail, in chat rooms, which reduces their face-to-face contact with other people.

~Philip Zimbardo