I read a post the other day about a mom’s opinion on the horribleness of Mother’s Day. She posted about this holiday was so horrible because it hurt and excluded women everywhere who either were not mothers or had lost their mothers… and she claimed this holiday benefited no one but Hallmark and that it was just another Hallmark Holiday.

However, here is the history of Mother’s Day…

The modern American holiday of Mother’s Day was first celebrated in 1908, when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother in Grafton, West Virginia. Her campaign to make “Mother’s Day” a recognized holiday in the United States began in 1905, the year her beloved mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, died. Anna’s mission was to honor her own mother by continuing work she had started and to set aside a day to honor mothers, “the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world.” Anna’s mother, Ann Jarvis, was a peace activist who had cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the Civil War and created Mother’s Day Work Clubs to address public health issues.

Due to the campaign efforts of Anna Jarvis, several states officially recognized Mother’s Day, the first in 1910 being West Virginia, Jarvis’ home state. In 1914 Woodrow Wilson signed the proclamation creating Mother’s Day, the second Sunday in May, as a national holiday to honor mothers. In a thank-you note to Wilson, Jarvis wrote of a “great Home Day of our country for sons and daughters to honor their mothers and fathers and homes in a way that will perpetuate family ties and give emphasis to true home life.”
~ Wikipedia

That’s right. The campaign for Mother’s Day was campaigned for in 1905 by a woman who had lost her mother and wanted to honor this woman who was no longer with her in this life. It was not until 1914 that this became an official US Holiday.

(And by the way, Hallmark didn’t start making Mother’s Day cards until the 192o’s and they weren’t even Hallmark then… it was 1954 before the name Hallmark was issued.)

This year is the 100th anniversary of Mother’s Day… all because one woman loved her mother and wanted to see her memory and life honored and wanted to make sure that other’s realized the value of the women in their lives who served as their mothers.

So this rant…

But Mother’s Day celebrates a huge lie about the value of women: that mothers are superior beings, that they have done more with their lives and chosen a more difficult path. Ha! Every woman’s path is difficult, and many mothers were as equipped to raise children as wire monkey mothers. I say that without judgment: It is, sadly, true. An unhealthy mother’s love is withering.

The illusion is that mothers are automatically happier, more fulfilled and complete. But the craziest, grimmest people this Sunday will be the mothers themselves, stuck herding their own mothers and weeping children and husbands’ mothers into seats at restaurants. These mothers do not want a box of chocolate. These mothers are on a diet.

I hate the way the holiday makes all non-mothers, and the daughters of dead mothers, and the mothers of dead or severely damaged children, feel the deepest kind of grief and failure. The non-mothers must sit in their churches, temples, mosques, recovery rooms and pretend to feel good about the day while they are excluded from a holiday that benefits no one but Hallmark

is ridiculous.

I am a mother and this holiday has never made… I repeat NEVER made me feel superior to anyone. What it has done has taken this woman who feels like a failure EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE feel for one day that there is a glimmer of hope that maybe just maybe I have done something right and have not scarred my children for life. Maybe just maybe, thirty years from now they won’t be laying on a leather couch one day telling some counselor how I am the cause of their instability to exist somewhat normally in society.

This holiday makes me appreciate all the more that I still have my mother here with me… when so many don’t. Since when is a day set aside to do what God has commanded us to do anyway horrible. Have you ever done a word study on the word “mother” in the Scriptures?

Here you go, I’ll make it easy for you: mother

In the NASB the word mother is used 304 times… It was through a Mother that God sent the Savior to the world. Your Savior and mine.

I don’t know about you, but I know many times… MANY MANY MANY times… my mother has provided my “salvation” from things in this life.

What I know in my own life… my personal opinion and lessons learned… is that I had no clue what my mother meant when she said she loved me until the day I delivered my daughter and held her in my arms… I did not realize my heart was capable of that… and I think I have spent the last thirteen years in repentance for what I put my own mother through in my days of selfish rebellion.

As a matter of fact God says…

‘Cursed is he who dishonors his father or mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

Deuteronomy 27:16

There are many holidays I can see that might justify a rant, but not Mother’s Day and not Father’s Day. If you got them, or if you had them, or if you so badly want to be them. It’s a day to remember, and a day to hope, and yes… a day to grieve if needed.

Since when did grief become a dirty word anyway?

I have never felt forced to buy my mother an expensive gift, nor have I felt I deserved them… but let me tell you when I have the opportunity to put into words my thankfulness for my mom and tell her that I love her with no side request attached… I take it.

The fact that this day purposely allows that time to cause me to stop and breathe and do that… Yes.

In my house and in my family thankful arms and sincere eyes have always been enough. What I see when my children have looked at me and shouted their Happy Mother’s Day is that they are just as excited to say it as I am to hear it.

And if they bring me chocolates… it’s one day… even if I am on a diet, I will eat at least one and share the rest with a grateful heart. And so what if I drag kids in all grimmy on Sunday morning to commemorate this day… that’s life… is that any different from any other Sunday? Nope… except today I get to actually hear that it’s okay that I am covered in spit up, pancake syrup, and my morning coffee, and forgot to shave my other leg in the shower.

And if you get the chance to go see Moms Night Out… go for it.