Mother's Day is celebrated in a variety of  ways and on different days throughtout the world. In the United States Mother's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday in May.  Mother's Day became an officially proclaimed day by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914, nine-years after the first celebration on May 10, 1908 and after a succession of failures by earlier attempts to officially recognize mothers.  It was Anna Jarvis, who is credited with a desire to recognize her own mother Ann Jarvis, as paving the way for official recognition.

Inspired by Ann Jarvis, mother of Anna Jarvis, Julia Ward Howe who wrote the Mother's Day Proclamation of 1870 as a call for peace and diarmament in an attempt to get official recognition of Morther's Day for Peace. Ultimately her attempt at recognition of mothers failed.  Ann Jarvis was a tireless crusader of women whom she organized throught the latter 1800's in attempts to improve sanitary conditons during the Civil War.

Mother's Day customs vary throughout the United States. Some of the more tradionally minded people still hold to the wearing of a red carnation to signify a living mother and white to signify that one's mother has passed. In some areas of the South it is stall a practiced observance of Mother's Day to plant tomatoes after Mother's Day. It is sometimes practiced that a mother who has lost her son in war will fly the Flag on Mother's Day.

Mother's Day has become a highly successful commercial holiday. In fact, Anna Jarvis, who originally worked for the declaration of a memorial day for mothers ended up becoming a major opponent of the holiday because of the commercialization. Unfortunately, Ms. Jarvis failed to recognize the the holiday was commercially successful not because of the efforts of merchants but because of the love of mother.

Today, Mother's Day is one of the most commercially successful holidays there is. It is certainly not because of the efforts of merchants as those efforts have not had the ground swell in other holidays. Truly, Mother's Day remains a reflection on the life-giver, an appreciation of the one who holds us close to her heart in tireless dedication.

Though never perfect, she is Mother