The real Mother's Day

For many of us, when we think of Mothers' Day, we think of a day to honor our mothers for their great gift to us, the gift of life. Yet there is a story behind Mothers' Day that testifies to the desire for peace and justice in our world that has been with us since the beginning of time.

The story begins with Julia Ward Howe. Julia Ward Howe is most widely known as the author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Yet what is lesser-known is the fact that Julia Ward Howe was responsible for the creation of Mothers' Day.

During the Civil war, Julia worked with widows and orphans of soldiers on both sides. As she witnessed the horror of war, she began to question how any mother could willingly watch her son go off to battle. In 1870, at the start of the Franco-Prussian war, Julia called on all women to stand together in opposition to war. She issued this public proclamation:

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.

Julia began to hold peace conferences in the United States and Britain and, by 1872, she began proclaiming that June 2 of every year should be celebrated as a Mothers' Day for Peace. Forty years later, Congress declared Mothers' Day an official holiday.
Mothers' Day began as much more than a day when mothers got flowers and breakfast in bed. It began as a day for women to stand together and call for peace and justice in their world.

From Kucinich's website - a much more important beginning than what FTD or Hallmark envisions today.