Happy Mother's Day

Even though this isn't really historically significant, I can't let Mother's Day pass without discussing it.

Well maybe it has a little bit of a history...the Ancient Greeks set aside a day in early spring to honor Cybele, one of the goddesses of motherhood. Once the Romans took over the world, celebrations on that day transferred to Juno, the queen of the gods. Since Juno was the protector of wives and mothers, people also began honoring their own mothers on Juno's day.

Flash forward to 1870 America...Julia Ward Howe wrote a "Mother's Day Proclamation" discussing how women should be honored as the peacemakers of the world (remember, this is a world coming out of the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War so a little peace was probably a good thing).

By the early 1900's, Mother's Day was seen as a holiday in the US. To Catholics, it has a religious significance because it is seen as a day to honor the Virgin Mary. However, to most other people, it has much more of a commercial significance. Greeting card companies were the first to jump on this bandwagon, marketing pre-printed Mother's Day cards in the 1940's. This didn't go over well with etiquette mavens who said that the use of such cards was irresponsible- a hand written letter was much more meaningful.

I'm thinking that they were right. According to 2008 data, Mother's rings constituted nearly 8% of all jewelry sales and people spent $2.6 billion on flowers, $1.5 billion on pampering gifts like spa treatments and at least $68 million on Mother's Day cards.

Regardless of the commercialization, as a mother myself, it is nice to have a day dedicated to me. Happy Mother's Day to all the mommies out there!