Mother’s Day is often a tricky one to get right and usually it consists of perfume and chocolates. Are you sure this is what your Mother wants? As Mothers we love our children, we chose to bring them into the world and we should not require thanks for this role. Or perhaps I’m being naïve here and may be a token gift from your child to show you that they respect you and are grateful for giving them your all is something that should be done?
Should we just accept that we have been lucky enough to have happy, healthy children? Should we require a gift of thanks? As well as a Mother, I’m also a daughter and I always like to spoil my Mother on her day – I love her, of course I want to indulge her. But why do I only do this on one day of the year? A day that has been dictated to me over generations; when Mother’s Day was first created by Julia Ward Howe, an activist and founder of the suffragist magazine the ‘Woman’s Journal’. She declared that Mother’s Day should be recognised as a day of peace. It was Anna Jarvis who then took the mantle as creator for the Mother’s Day that we have now, as an act of honouring her own Mother. She lobbied for Mothering Sunday to be seen as a National Holiday and in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared that the second Sunday in May would be known as Mother’s Day. However, Anna was saddened by the snowballing over commercialisation of the day itself.
It might be worth just having a long think about what your Mother may believe is a suitable gift – One Mother was not impressed! This letter that was penned for her child on her blog, ‘Dear Son…’ it is most definitely guaranteed to make him wince! However, would you go this far? http://www.floraqueen.com/blog/
Does this attitude prove that Mother’s Day has made us lose all sight of what it means to be a Mother? Little tokens of love, a cuddle, spending a few moments out of our hectic daily lives to be with your Mother or with your child is surely a more compelling use of a day.
Still, I will be bringing my Mother a bouquet and as my children are quite small, I will be happy with a school-made card and a cuddle.
Which side of the fence do you sit on? Does the ‘Dear Son’ letter sum up your inner feelings or will you be happy to let the day pass and relish the fact that you have a loving family?
I know what I will be doing… and it certainly won’t involve putting pen to paper.
Image Credit:
http://www.musingmonika.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/nationalharbor-com.jpg
