Hey all you moms...Instead of breakfast in bed, flowers, and a nice dinner out on the town, wouldn't it be fun to spend "Mother's Day" working for better sanitary conditions and rallying for peace?! Ooohhww...You mean that's what you ALREADY do everyday in a house full of kids? Alright, scratch that idea for the modern day, but those concepts are actually what inspired the first ideas of designating a day for mothers in the United States.

The idea of mother worship is not new. The ancient Greeks held a spring festival in honor of Rhea (known as mother of the Olympian gods and goddesses) and the ancient Romans worshipped Cybele (Mother of Gods) during the Ides of March. Christians also had a festival to honor one mother in particular, Mary, the mother to Christ. It was this Christian holiday, held on the fourth Sunday of Lent, that was eventually secularized and expanded in England to include all mothers, then becoming known as Mothering Sunday. The idea of reserving a day for mothers in the United States is thought to be loosely based on the practice in Britain but the two are not directly connected.

In 1858 in America, an Appalachian homemaker named Anna Reeves Jarvis created what she referred to as Mothers' Day Work Clubs. Her goal was to improve sanitation in her community and she felt the best candidates to get the job done where mothers. Originally envisioned as a way to clean up her own town, Jarvis expanded the scope of Mothers' Work Days during the Civil War when she organized groups of women from both the North and South to work towards improving sanitary conditions for all.

Inspired by Jarvis' work with women, Julia Ward Howe, a Boston poet and suffragist wrote the Mother's Day Proclamation as a call to women to rally for peace. Also known for authoring the words to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic", Howe put great effort in 1872 in to promoting the idea of a June 2nd "Mother's Day for Peace" and gained some support nationally with peace gatherings being held in 18 cities a year later. But the celebrations died out after Howe stopped footing most of the bills for them and she was not successful in establishing a formally recognized day for mothers and peace.

Years later, upon the death of Anna Reeves Jarvis in 1907, her daughter (also named Anna Jarvis) set out to create a day of recognition for women in honor of her mother. The first Mother's Day organized by the daughter Jarvis was held May 10th, 1908 at her mother's church in Grafton, West Virginia. She passed out a white carnation (her mom's favorite) to every mother at the service. This time the day caught on and gained widespread popularity in the United States. By 1912, some states officially recognized Mother's Day and in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill designating it a national holiday.

But the success of Mother's Day turned out to be a bitter pill for Anna Jarvis the daughter. During her lifetime, the practice of gift-giving steadily increased in association with the day, serving to tick off Jarvis to no end. She became so enraged in thinking the sentiment of the day had been lost amongst the commercialization and presents that she ended up a vocal opponent to the day she had originally lobbied so hard for. Jarvis became jaded to the point that she went so far as to file a lawsuit against New York Governor Al Smith in an attempt to stop a Mother's Day celebration. The suit was thrown out and Jarvis was arrested for disturbing the peace after she staged a public protest. Jarvis died in 1948 and at the end of her life had been quoted as saying she regretted every starting Mother's Day.

It's probably a good thing Jarvis isn't around today to see the holiday she started since it would surely send her over the edge! Today, Mother's Day in the United States (held on the second Sunday in May) is the most popular day to dine out at a restaurant, according to the National Restaurant Association, and one of the most commercially successful of all holidays. Children customarily give their mothers cards and flowers on this day, both of which things Jarvis vehemently opposed. The carnation is now a world-wide symbol used to signify Mother's Day. As with the rose and Father's Day, red is for the living and white for the deceased. Many countries have adopted western concepts and have created Mother's Days closely related to the British or American versions. While most states reserve a day to honor women and mothers, not all fall on the same dates as the holidays in the United Kingdom or United States. May 10th is popular for holding Mother's Day and countries such as Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Pakistan, and Malaysia observe his date as the one honoring moms. An even larger group of countries (which includes Canada, Turkey, Hong Kong, Australia, Italy, India, South Africa, and Taiwan) celebrate Mother's Day along with the United States on the second Sunday in May.