Editorial Staff
Today is mother’s day when we honor motherhood and mothers – the ones who made life possible on earth. Even if we try expressing our gratitude every single day towards maternal bonds, mothers and their influence on the society, it won’t be enough. Most parts of the world observe this day during spring. This day is complemented by other days such as father’s day and the sibling days. The mother’s day was first observed in United states in the early part of 20th century.
Over 1000s of years, world has observed many celebrations honoring motherhood such as hiliaria – roman festival, Christian Mothering Sunday and Cybele – Greek festival etc. in 1908 at Grafton, West Virginia, Anna Jarvis held a celebration in memory of her mother. In 1905, when her mother Ann Jarvis died she started a campaign for recognization of the mother’s day as a holiday. Anna being a peace activist established Mother’s day Work clubs for taking care of the issues concerning public health and for addressing the wounded soldiers during the civil war. West Virginia was the first state to officially recognize Mother’s day.
However many companies started using this holiday as means of commercialization by selling mother’s day card and other gifts which made resentful of this and she protested against it. According to her this was a day meant for sentiments and not about making profit. Later other countries adopted this holiday and it is now celebrated worldwide with the intention of honoring and appreciating mothers with a handwritten personal letter mentioning love and gratitude. A great variance can be seen in the celebration of the mother’s day. Some countries mark it as offensive if mother’s day is not observed while in other countries, only few and immigrants celebrate it. For our country, it has now been assimilated into our culture and we observe it on second Sunday of May.
Zainab Asif
Damodar Kalyan
