Anna Maria Jarvis never married or had children of her own. But in 1908, three years after her mother’s death, she organized the first official Mother’s Day observance to honor the woman whose life had shaped her own.
Over 100 years later, Mother’s Day is a tradition officially recognized and celebrated in over 90 countries. But despite the joy it brings to many, it can also be painful for women grieving infertility or childlessness, women who have lost children, and those with wounded relationships with their own mothers.
In recent years, I’ve seen many calls from Latter-day Saints to avoid Mother’s Day talks in sacrament meeting, or even eliminate acknowledgment of Mother’s Day in Sunday gatherings and in church media altogether, out of sensitivity for these women.
I empathize with this concern, but what if instead of making Mother’s Day smaller, we made it more generous and inclusive?
At its best, Mother’s Day invites all of us to honor the women whose sacrifice, care and love have made our lives possible. When we see Mother’s Day as an opportunity to love, recognize and serve the women who have mothered us — or the women we see mothering in our communities — it becomes a day in which we can all participate, regardless of our current family situations.
Consider a little more about Jarvis and her mother.
Ann Reeves Jarvis, Anna’s mother, was the first to envision a day for mothers. She and her husband, Granville Jarvis, were rural shop owners and the parents of 13 children. They lived in Appalachian Virginia, where disease was commonplace, and only four of their children survived to adulthood — most taken by measles, typhoid fever and diphtheria.
Inspired by the loss of her own children and many children in her community, and aided by her physician brother, Ann formed “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” in her own and neighboring towns to campaign for better health and sanitary conditions. The clubs raised money for medicine, supported families affected by disease and educated poor families about how to improve sanitary conditions in their homes.
When the Civil War broke out, Virginia was at the border of the conflict. Ann insisted that her Mothers’ Day clubs care for soldiers on both sides. When the war ended, she organized community events to bring together neighbors and families who had fought on opposite sides, hoping to begin healing.
As you can see, the earliest vision of Mother’s Day was not sentimental or self-focused. It was rooted in women’s sacrifice and service.
After Ann Reeves Jarvis died in 1905, Anna worked to establish a day that would honor her mother’s life and sacrifice. This began as a celebration of her own mother at their local Methodist church. Anna called it “Mother’s Day,” using the singular possessive to emphasize that each person should honor his or her own mother.
Anna spent the ensuing years campaigning for the wide adoption of Mother’s Day, and in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed it a national holiday.
Even though Anna never bore children of her own and ultimately lamented the commercialization of the holiday, she was, at heart, a daughter who understood that her life had been shaped by a mother’s devotion. She had also seen the expansive power of a mother’s love.
If a mother’s love is expansive, perhaps our observance of Mother’s Day should be expansive, too.
Sister Sheri Dew, then-first counselor in the General Relief Society, spoke about the expansiveness of motherhood in her 2001 general conference address, “Are We Not All Mothers?”
“While we tend to equate motherhood solely with maternity,” she taught, “in the Lord’s language, the word ‘mother’ has layers of meaning. Of all the words they could have chosen to define her role and her essence, both God the Father and Adam called Eve ‘the mother of all living’ — and they did so before she ever bore a child. Like Eve, our motherhood began before we were born.”
In the gospel of Jesus Christ, motherhood is not just a fact of biology. Nor is it simply a role women may experience in their own lives. It’s something more universal.
“Few of us,” Sister Dew taught, “will reach our potential without the nurturing of both the mother who bore us and the mothers who bear with us.”
Most of us can name such women. Like Abraham Lincoln, I truly believe “all that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.” But I have also been buoyed up at different times by extraordinary teachers, mentors, leaders, neighbors, friends and relatives who have mothered me in moments when I needed encouragement, support, correction or love.
This is why, for Latter-day Saints, speaking reverently about motherhood does not need to distract from Jesus Christ. At its best, mothering reflects Him — as the late apostle Jeffrey R. Holland taught so poignantly.
“No love in mortality comes closer to approximating the pure love of Jesus Christ than the selfless love a devoted mother has for her child.”
Instead of focusing primarily on our own feelings, we could ask this Mother’s Day: Who has mothered me? And who around me needs support in the work of mothering?
I think of young mothers I know whose husbands travel for weeks at a time for work, leaving them to shoulder the relentless work of small children largely alone. I think of single mothers trying to keep toddlers reverent in church by themselves; grandmothers raising grandchildren; foster mothers living with constant uncertainty; and mothers of children with disabilities, whose exhaustion is not always visible.
I also think of those for whom Mother’s Day might be particularly tender, like those who have experienced miscarriage or loss of a child or those who are struggling through infertility.
These women may appreciate kind words, flowers or a piece of chocolate. But they may also need dinner, childcare, a ride, help in the pew, an invitation to join another family for Sunday dinner or a friend who notices that the load is heavy.
Instead of focusing primarily on our own feelings, we could ask this Mother’s Day: Who has mothered me? And who around me needs support in the work of mothering?
Honoring motherhood should mean more than praising sacrifice from a distance. It should mean helping carry it. If bothered in the past by narrow or sentimental Mother’s Day observance, the answer is not less observance. It is better observance.
Those of us who are blessed with our own children can still enjoy the treats, the precious homemade cards and — hopefully, if we’re lucky — maybe a bubble bath, too. I love to feel loved by my children, and I love to see the joy it brings them to bring me a breakfast in bed of Go-Gurt and pancakes with far too many chocolate chips.
But Mother’s Day becomes richer when I remember that it is not only a day to be celebrated. It is a day to celebrate, to thank and to serve. It is a day to remember the women who bore us, the women who bear with us and the women around us who could use someone to bear with them now.