How We Celebrate Mother's Day

Mother's Day was not created by cynical holiday card companies or florists. Julia Ward Howe created Mother's Day in reaction to a nation torn apart by The Civil War.

It's a common refrain, this time of year, that Mother's Day was created by Hallmark, or the phone company, as just another way to leech money from unsuspecting consumers. The truth, however, is that social activist Julia Ward Howe started Mother's Day back in 1870, as a way to bring women together to call for peace in the world. Her "Mother's Day Proclamation" demands the end of wars, saying in part:

"We will not have great questions decided 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 out sons to be trained to injure theirs."

Powerful words, written fifty years before women even got the right to vote. And in many ways, the meaning behind Mother's Day has changed. Mother's Day in the 21st century is celebrated with gift baskets full of bath salts and other at home spa treatments, gift certificates for massages at day spas, or boxes of chocolates, or even romantic weekend getaways without the kids. But this year - marked by more US soldier deaths in Iraq than ever before, with a media blackout so dark that even the mainstream news sources seem to have forgotten what it means to see our citizens come back in wooden boxes - let's remember Mother's Days' original purpose. A call to disarm, a call for peace: A call to bring our husbands and sons, our mothers and daughters, back home. American citizens back on American ground, safe and sound... I can't imagine a more appropriate, patriotic way to celebrate Mother's Day.