IN A DAY

In three days it will be Mother's Day. A day set aside nationally to celebrate mothers everywhere. Julia Ward was one of the early calls to celebrate Mother's Day in the United States. Written in 1870, Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation was a pacifist reaction to the carnage of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. The Proclamation was tied to Howe's feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level. Later, as in 1912, Anna Jarvis would begin the process to make Mother's Day the second Sunday in May.

In the UK, it is called Mothering Day. Countries all over the world celebrate this day, although it isn't always at the same time. Many countries link it to their religion.

For those of us who were in elementary school in the fifties, we are reminded of craft projects as gifts for our Mom's special day. In sixth grade, we had little boards on which we glued alphabet letters and stickers. The slogan was:

In all the world there is no other
To take the place of my dear mother.

You would remember it too, if you searched all that macaroni looking for the right letters for your project. They were pretty ugly.

Yet, getting a gift from a child, regardless of age needs to be a celebration of them extending themselves to you.