To Mothers Across the World . . .

Saciido Sheik Yacquub, 34, poses for a picture with her daughter Faadumo Subeer Mohamed, 13, at their home in Hodan district IDP camp in Mogadishu February 11, 2014. Saciido, who runs a small business, wanted to be a business woman when she was a child. She studied until she was 20. She hopes that Faadumo will become a doctor. Faadumo will finish school in 2017 and hopes to be a doctor when she grows up. (REUTERS/Feisal Omar)

 



The Original Mother’s Day Proclamation
A Mother's Day Reading
Julia Ward Howe
Posted Wednesday, May 07, 2014 in Plough Quarterly

While countries around the world celebrate their own Mother’s Day at different times throughout the year, several countries, including the United States, Italy, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, and Turkey celebrate it on the second Sunday of May.

In the United States, the origins of the official holiday go back to 1870, when Julia Ward Howe – an abolitionist best remembered as the poet who wrote “Battle Hymn of the Republic” – worked to establish a Mother’s Peace Day. Howe dedicated the celebration to the eradication of war, and organized festivities in Boston for years.

In 1907, Anna Jarvis, of Philadelphia, began the campaign to have Mother’s Day officially recognized, and in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson did this, proclaiming it a national holiday and a “public expression of our love and reverence for all mothers.”

Today’s commercialized celebration of candy, flowers, gift certificates, and lavish meals at restaurants bears little resemblance to Howe’s original idea. There is nothing wrong with that. But here, for the record’s sake, is the proclamation she wrote in 1870, which explains, in her own impassioned words, the goals of the original holiday.
 
 


 

  Oumou Ndiaye, 30, and her daughter Aissata Golfa, 9, pose for a picture in their house in Bamako, Mali February 20, 2014. Oumou, who is a housewife, did not go to school. As a child she hoped to marry a local businessman. She hopes her daughter will marry someone from their ethnic group when she grows up, and that she will stay in education until she is 20 years old. Aissata says that she will finish school when she is 18, and hopes to be a schoolteacher when she grows up. (REUTERS/Joe Penney)

 
 
Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, our husbands shall 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 women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
 
From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says, “Disarm, disarm! The sword is not the balance of justice.” Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
 
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each learning after his own time, the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.
 
In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.
 

 

Tadjroshan, 40, poses for a photograph with her daughter Ayman, 12, at their house in a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad February 4, 2014. Tadjroshan said that she only went to school for two years, just long enough to learn to read the Koran, she then continued to practice reading at home. She now teaches the Koran to local girls. She would like her daughter to fulfill her dream and go to university. Ayman wants to become a doctor, and hopes that her parents will fund her study. She will need to study for 17 more years to become a general practitioner. (REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra)

 

 

 

Susana Maria Cardona, 33, and her daughter Alejandra Ruby Cardona, 12, pose for a photograph inside their home in Tegucigalpa February 20, 2014. Susana Maria, who is a housewife, finished school at 17. Her ambition was to become a lawyer. She hopes that her daughter will become a doctor. Alejandra Ruby will finish education in 11 years and hopes to be an agronomist. (REUTERS/Jorge Cabrera)

 

 

Denise Arthur, 52, and her daughter Linnaea Thibedeau, 13, pose for a photograph at their home near Blackhawk, Colorado February 20, 2014. Denise Arthur is a restoration ecologist. She has a Ph.D and finished her education at age 34. Her ambition as a child was to be an animal behaviourist. Denise hopes her daughter Linnaea will become a biologist when she grows up. Linnaea would like to get a Ph.D and become a marine biologist. (REUTERS/Rick Wilking)