Mother's Day--A Historical Perspective Options

[JLY]

Mother's Day in the United States, the second Sunday of May, was first proclaimed around 1870 by Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation, and Howe called for it to be observed each year nationally in 1872. As originally envisioned, Howe's "Mother's Day" was a call for pacifism and disarmament by women. The original Mother's Day Proclamation was as follows:

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with 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, the 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 voice of a 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 our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough 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 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 someplace deemed most convenient
And 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.

[AMETHYST]

Thank you John For this thread - Happy Mother's Day ~

I have often wondered about the origins of specific holidays occurred. Unfortunately, it seems that these plea's written and fought for in 1870 and 1872 is still being heard today, allow our children to live on the merits of today. Same words, same hopes, just a different war and different year and a different society.

Thank you John for sharing this with us on this special day. A reminder that these holidays we often take for granted as flower giving days or what to receive, is often the seed to do something life effecting and is built on another's struggle.

Blessings Liz ... Happy Mothers' day to your family and to every family member on MM!

Hugs, Liz