How Mother’s Day Started

Mother’s Day is a holiday that celebrates motherhood and is observed in different forms throughout the world. The wonderful day was created by a lady named Anna Jarvis all the way back in 1908, but it didn’t catch on and become a holiday until 6 years later in 1914. Even though Anna created the overall holiday, she would later go on to denounce the holiday’s commercialisation and spent the remainder of her life trying to remove it from the calendar. While the day is different in all countries of the world, everyone celebrates in the same way with flowers, cards and more.

The celebration of mothers and motherhood can be tracked backwards all the way to ancient Greeks and Romans who always held festivals in honour of the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele, however, nowadays the celebrations are known as Mothering Sunday.

Mother’s Day always falls on the fourth Sunday in Lent and was originally seen as a time when people would return home to their “mother church” for a special and unique service. Over the past few years though, this has changed into a day where children would present their mother or mothers with flowers and other gifts as a token of appreciation.

Anna Jarvis, who is the daughter of Ann Reeves Jarvis, began this tradition following her mother’s death in 1905 by honouring the sacrifices that were made by mothers for their children. She also requested financial backup, which was granted by a Philadelphia department store owner named John Wanamaker in May 1908 where she organised and help the first official Mother’s Day celebration at a Methodist Church in West Virginia.

Everyone spends their Mother’s Day differently, what do you have planned for yours? Let us know!