Mother’s Day is an international day for celebrating motherhood which is honored in various ways. Mother’s Day in the U. S. for 2022 will be on Sunday, May 8. Anna Jarvis founded the American version of Mother’s Day in 1908, and it established itself as an authorized US holiday in 1914.
Jarvis would eventually criticise the holiday’s commodification and spend the rest of her life attempting to get it removed from the official calendar.
Although the dates and ceremonies differ, custom-made or handcrafted Mother’s Day cards, flowers, and thoughtful Mothering Sunday presents are always appreciated. We provide some intriguing facts about how the festival developed to help you plan for Mother’s Day and possibly spark some Mother’s Day festivities.
History of Mother’s Day
The early Greeks and Romans celebrated the mother gods Rhea and Cybele with festivities, but the closest contemporary predecessor for Mother’s Day is the ancient Christian holiday recognized as “Mothering Sunday.”
This feast, which came just on the fourth Sunday in Lent and also was traditionally considered as a period when the devout would travel to their “mother church”—the leading church inside the region from where they belong— for a special ceremony, was formerly an important custom in the Great Britain and portions of mainland Europe.
Mothering Sunday evolved towards a more secular celebration throughout history, with kids giving flowers as well as other symbols of thanks to their moms. In the 1930s and 1940s, this ritual declined in prominence until combining into American Mother’s Day.
Role of Ann Reeves Jarvis and Julia Ward Howe
Mother’s Day as we know it now dates back to the nineteenth century in the United States. Ann Reeves Jarvis, a woman from West Virginia helped establish “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” to educate neighborhood women how to appropriately provide for and take care of their kids throughout the years leading up to the Civil War.
Eventually, these societies were a uniting power in a nation still split by the Civil War. Jarvis arranged “Mothers’ Friendship Day” in 1868, during which veteran Union and Confederate troops united with mothers to urge peace and an end to war.
Julia Ward Howe, an American abolitionist and activist, was another forerunner of Mother’s Day. In 1870, Howe issued the “Mother’s Day Proclamation,” a rallying cry for mothers to work together to promote global peace. Howe proposed a “Mother’s Peace Day” to be observed every June 2 in 1873.
Juliet Calhoun Blakely, a sobriety crusader who started a regional Mother’s Day in Albion, Michigan, during the 1870s, is another historical Mother’s Day forerunner. Throughout the late nineteenth and beginning of the 20th centuries, Mary Towles Sasseen and Frank Hering collaborated to arrange a Mothers’ Day proceeding. Hering has been dubbed “the father of Mother’s Day” by some.
How is Mother’s Day celebrated around the World?
While versions of Mother’s Day are celebrated worldwide, traditions vary depending on the country. In Thailand, for example, Mother’s Day is always celebrated in August on the birthday of the current queen, Sirikit.
Another alternate observance of Mother’s Day can be found in Ethiopia, where families gather each fall to sing songs and eat a large feast as part of Antrosht, a multi-day celebration honoring motherhood.
In the United States, Mother’s Day continues to be celebrated by presenting mothers and other women with gifts and flowers, and it has become one of the biggest holidays for consumer spending. Families also celebrate by giving mothers a day off from activities like cooking or other household chores.
Mother’s Day has occasionally been used to promote and stage social or feminist issues. In 1968, Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow, held a rally in favour of disadvantaged mothers and toddlers on Mother’s Day. Throughout the 1970s, women’s organisations utilised the occasion to emphasise the importance of equal opportunities and accessibility to children’s healthcare.
Mother’s Day Food Traditions
Mother’s Day is an opportunity to do anything special for your mom. Fixing up a meal for your mother is the most wholesome food tradition prevalent around the world for Mother’s Day. These easy-to-follow meals are suitable for people of all ages and ability levels, but if you have young children, most 10- or 11-year-olds with some cooking expertise can throw them in and prepare them easily with a tiny bit help from an adult. Even toddlers can help with stirring, pouring, cutting soft vegetables (with a dull-edged dinner knife or plastic knife) or decorating place cards for the table.
French Onion Grilled Cheese
She’s spent hours cooking you grilled-cheese burgers and sandwiches, so give her something special: a French onion variation with caramelised onions and Gruyère. Put it alongside a tangling of greens dressed in Dijon dressing.
Asparagus Fettuccine with Smoked Salmon
This exquisite pasta dish tastes so excellent and is so simple to prepare that it nearly seems like cheating. (However, it isn’t! In the kitchen, there is no such thing.) Mix fettuccine with smoked salmon thin slices in a sauce made with onions, butter, and cream. Avoid boiling the asparagus individually and put it together with the pasta over the last few moments of preparation to speed things up even further. If you want to use dry fettuccine, modify the cooking time appropriately.
Greek Chicken With Cucumber-Feta Salad
Owing to this clever approach of preserving the chicken in a portion of the garlic-yogurt sauce applied on the salad, a full lunch of crackling, pan-seared chicken with a chilly cucumber, tomato, and feta salad goes together for around 30 minutes. Rather than chopping the cucumbers, split them into bits to reveal extra flesh, allowing the sauce to snuggle further into nooks and crannies.
Crunchy Spring Iceberg Salad
Hetty McKinnon’s deliciously crispy and velvety salad features iceberg lettuce. White peas, sugar snap peas, or diced radish can be substituted for the peas and asparagus in this recipe. Feta, the salty powerhouse, balances out the brightness of the veggies.
Shrimp Piccata Spaghetti
Sweet peas and salty anchovies give Kay Chun’s fast seafood spaghetti a lively and zesty flavour. Rather than keeping the shrimp intact, chop them into bits to guarantee that they boil fast and uniformly.
