Mother's Day was unofficially started right down the road in Grafton, West Virginia by a Sunday school teacher named Anna Jarvis. Apparently it was her dream to have a nationally-recognized day set aside for everyone to appreciate the woman who gave them life by sending her flowers and a coupon for a one hour session at reasonably priced day spa. Jarvis organized the first Mother's Day service in 1905, three years after her own mother passed away. In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson signed what I can only assume was titled "The Mom Doctrine" and made it an official US holiday.

 

Before you knew it the holiday had exploded; cards, presents and hugs were all being exchanged in the name of mothers on a global scale. Over the past 100 or so years, Mother's Day has become a commercial success and billions of dollars are spent every year this weekend in May. Crazy, right? Wrong. We haven't even gotten to the crazy part.

 

As is the case with most holidays, people accused Mother's Day a "Hallmark Holiday" suggesting that it was too commercial and all about large companies (see: Hallmark) generating profits from human emotion. Blah, blah, blah. One of these outspoken ne'er-do-wells was ANNA JARVIS, the woman who spent a sizeable portion of her life creating and promoting Mother's Day. Jarvis despised the way the holiday had been turned into a cash cow, and saw cards and gifts as a lazy way to show appreciation to the woman who gave you life. She spent the rest of her life and all of her inheritance trying to put a stop to motherly love. But wait, it gets better: in 1948 Jarvis was protesting a Mother's Day celebration in New York and was arrested for disturbing the peace. She spent her life in equal parts creating and trying to destroy Mother's Day, and ended up passing away childless in 1948.

 

I'm not a mother, but I think Mother's Day is fine the way it is. Flowers and cards? Why not?

 

That's my two cents, what's yours?