Who knew there was so much to know about Mother's Day? Until now, I was under the impression all I ever needed to know about it was it should more aptly be named Mother's Day Off, as generally what mothers want on Mother's Day is to not do any actual mothering for a day - plus presents, of course.
But then, in my childlike way, I wondered "where does Mother's Day come from?" and before I knew it, literally minutes of research on the internet had opened up to me a whole world of motherly information. Of course, being internet-based research, most of it is, at best, unreliable and very likely completely bogus. But that is not important because it was a fun way to pass the time.
Of course there were, and in some quarters probably still are, a whole bunch of Greek and Roman festivals celebrating maternal goddesses like Cybele and Rhea and Mater Idaea. But I was more interested in the Mother's Day of here and now, in this earthly realm, where it is more about a cup of tea in bed than making sacrifices and praying the womenfolk will be fertile.
Fast-forward a few thousand years and something approaching the information I was seeking appears in the form of Anna Jarvis, an American woman who never married and who never had children but clearly loved her own mother a lot. For yonks she campaigned and lobbied the (male) politicians for a national day to celebrate mothers everywhere. And as any man worth his salt knows, when a woman campaigns for something it is pretty much a done deal. Thus, once Anna set her mind to it, it was only a matter of time before, on May 8 1914, US President Woodrow Wilson caved in and declared the second Sunday in May to be Mother's Day, thus leaving the men-folk alone to do more manly things, like World War I.
In the US, Mother's Day is a national holiday. In Mexico it is an unofficial holiday - though how this differs from most any day in Mexico is unclear. In Bulgaria it is celebrated on March 8, as part of International Women's Day, which on one hand seems quite an efficient way of celebrating all things feminine, but rather lumps mothers in with the rest of the non-breeding crowd, which kind of takes away some of the special magic of Mother's Day.
