The first American "Mother's Day" concept arose in 1870 by the suffragette's promoting world peace. One of the suffragette's daughters named Anna Jarvis conceived of Mother’s Day as a way of honoring the sacrifices mothers made for their children. In 1908 she held a Mother's day Celebration in the Methodist church and in 1914 it became an official holiday. Ultimately Anna decried how commercial the holiday turned into and disowned it. Around the world various cultures over time have had holidays honoring motherhood and women.
It should come as no surprise that Mother's Day is a tricky holiday. I personally have a friend whose mother died 5 years ago from ALS and every mother's day she is reminded of how much the loss of her mother hurts. Another friend was disowned by her mother and has no contact with her even though she is still living, she mourns this day as well. There are people who find pain in mother's day because they have lost a child, or cannot have a child. Then people like me who have the most wonderful mom on the face of the planet and finds joy in celebrating her. However, I am also a single woman who is keenly aware that at age 38 the window of opportunity to actually bear a child is closing so rapidly it makes my heart ache. Then there are mothers who have multiple children and suffer on mother's day because they feel they are never enough. And finally, there are the men, the father's and sons and husbands who might also be lead to believe on this day that they fall short and feel their efforts to honor the woman in their lives will never be good enough either. All of these of course are wicked tactics that the Adversary uses to distract us from the divinity of the role womanhood/motherhood. Satan can turn anything good into sadness if we let him. He is after all the great deceiver. My three year old niece, unprompted, told her mom yesterday, “you have to share with me for Mother’s Day mom. Cuz all the mother’s are girls, and I’m a girl”. How wise is she! (Her thought totally pulled me out of my Woe is me attitude about to today.)
So why with all the hurt do I think this day has redeeming value? As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I believe that there are actual divine roles inherit in woman and men. In today's world that belief is becoming more and more radical. We are living in a society that is becoming more acceptive of the philosophy that gender is fluid. We all have a varying degree of the divine gift to nurture, and both men and woman can nurture. However I strongly believe that gender is part of our eternal identify, who we were as spirits, who we are, and will be. Eve was called a mother before she had children. "Eve was given the identity of 'the mother of all living'...before she ever bore a child. It would appear that her motherhood preceded her maternity, just as surely as the perfection of the Garden preceded the struggles of mortality. I believe mother is one of those very chosen words, one of those rich words- with meaning after meaning after meaning. We must not, at all cost, let that word divide us. I believe with all my heart that it is first and foremost a statement about nature, not a head count of our children." ("One thing Needful: Becoming Women of Greater Faith in Christ", Ensign Oct 1987, 33).
Celebrating Mother's day from a religious perspective is not just a day to say thank you. It's not about a single trinket rose to say you are important. If we celebrate it all in church, it's not about the cheesecake (I'll get back to why the cheesecake is important). It is a day to honor the divine role of woman. Celebrating Mother's day in the church should mean saying we recognize the important roles that women play in the plan of Salvation. It means we recognize that a woman will often default to thinking she is never enough, but she is enough and more. Her nature precedes the head count of her children. The use of cheesecake, or chocolate, or anything else tasty on Mother's day is not about giving a gift, but it should be about giving the woman a chance to gather together, be lifted up in their womanhood, and to be reminded over and over again that they are indeed enough because of their divine identity. Otherwise, it just as Anna Jarvis mourned, another commercial holiday meant to make money by businesses, and make despair by the Adversary.
