Mothers Day As You’ve Never Known It

Many may not realize that the beginnings of “Mothers Day” in the United States was NOT to honor mothers, but rather to bring mothers together to protest war.

(The early settlers had abandoned a British tradition of “Mothering Day.”)

The American Founder was a remarkable woman who created the Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870.

The story and proclamation are reprinted below.

Despite having penned The Battle Hymn of the Republic 12 years earlier, Julia Ward Howe had become so distraught by the death and carnage of the Civil War that she called on Mother’s to come together and protest what she saw as the futility of their Sons killing the Sons of other Mothers. With the following, she called for an international Mother’s Day celebrating peace and motherhood:

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears
Say firmly:

“We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of 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 out dishonor
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have of ten 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 his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and 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.

A rocky path for Mothers Day as it was originally intended followed until 1914 when Woodrow Wilson assigned the second Sunday in May as an observance in honor of mothers. From that day forward, Mothers Day became mostly about commercialism.

My family enjoyed attending a Unitarian Fellowship this morning that celebrated in a way that would make Julia Ward Howe proud.

Peace.