Mothers Day

Mother’s Day is fast approaching so I thought it would be fitting to do a Mother’s Day post.

I thought it would be interesting to look into the history of Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day celebrations can be traced back to the ancient Greeks who honored Rhea, the Mother of the Gods. Mother’s Day or Mothering Sunday started in the 1600’s by the early Christians in England. It was originally a day to honor Mary, the mother of Christ the holiday was later expanded to include all mothers, and named as the Mothering Sunday. It is celebrated on the 4th Sunday of Lent and honours the mothers of England. Now you might be saying to yourself, wait we celebrate Mother’s Day in May. In North America we have Anna Jarvis to thank for that. Anna spent most of her life looking after her mother and felt that people don’t appreciate their mothers enough and wanted to start Mother’s Day as a way to honour and say thank you to our mothers. Anna’s dream came true when on May 9, 1914, the Presidential proclamation declared the 2nd Sunday of May to be observed as Mother’s Day to honor the mothers.

So there you have it, a short history of Mother’s Day. If you want to learn more check out some of the great Mother’s Day books we have here at the library. We have everything from picture books to great craft books, but hurry they will go out fast!

*The History of Mother’s Day http://www.theholidayspot.com/mothersday/history.htm