Why do we celebrate Mother's Day?

What is the origin of celebrating Mother's Day?

The origin of this festival goes back much further than we can imagine. It was in Ancient Egypt, in 2,100 BC, where they began to worship the goddess Isis as 'the great mother goddess' , although it was not until Ancient Greece when they began to worship Rhea, mother of Olympus . This tradition was also adopted by the Romans, who began to worship the goddess Cybele, the Mother goddess, for three days a year, to whom they brought flowers.

This date has not always been the date on which Mother's Day was celebrated, since in 1854, Pope Pius IX decided to establish December 8 as the day of tribute to the Virgin Mary, defining it as the well-known day of the Immaculate Conception and also as Mother's Day. The United States decided to move its tradition to the month of May, choosing the second Sunday of this month.

Mother's Day was promoted by activist Julia Ward Howe after a protest in Boston at the end of the 19th century, where she brought together mothers affected by the Civil War. In 1914, President Wilson Woodrow officially established Mother's Day to be celebrated on the second Sunday in May. This date coincided with the death of the mother of another defender of the day, Anna Jarvis, whom she honored every second Sunday in May.

Why is it celebrated on the first Sunday in May in Spain?

The custom of celebrating Mother's Day on the same date as the Day of the Immaculate Conception was rooted in Spain for centuries.

However, in 1925, a Post Office official named Julio Menéndez García proposed an initiative that was immediately spread by all national newspapers: the need for an exclusive day dedicated to "praising the love of the Mother." This is what he wrote in his poem Mother's Hymn.

The initiative was part of a project called Kindness Week, which would be celebrated the first week of October 1926 and which would reserve a special day for children to give bouquets of flowers to their mothers. This was the first official Mother's Day in Spain, although not the definitive one.

The following year, an article in the Nuevo Mundo newspaper proposed adhering to the US date, which was already catching on in other countries. This is how progressively some cities, such as Zaragoza or Malaga, began to celebrate Mother's Day in May, unofficially.

The penultimate change came with the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, who returned homage to its Christian date: December 8. However, due to the commercial interests that were related to the celebration, in 1965 the first Sunday in May was officially and definitively established as Mother's Day in Spain.

Whatever and whenever, we love celebrating this special day with our mothers. Admirable guides that inspire us daily.