What is the story/ history behind mother’s day celebration

Mother’s day is a day allocated to celebrate any woman that has either put to birth or catered for a child it equally celebrates the unconditional love and sacrifices mothers make for their children. Celebrating mothers “specially” is not a thing that started today, it goes way back to the 19th century and beyond.

Before the 19th century, the Greeks and Romans organized festivals in honor of the mother goddesses, Rhea & Cybele whom they revered. However it was limited to customs and religion of those who practiced not yet global. Celebrating Mother’s day nationally began in the early 1900.

According to the American achieves, Anna Jarvis started the tradition in 1907 when she decided to specially mark her mother’s death. She had died during the American civil war after fighting hard. Anna Jarvis then organized the first official Mother’s day celebration in May 1908, Grafton at West Virginia to give a proper goodbye to her mom. Jarvis found this successful and decided to make it a national affair.

Anna Jarvis, inventor of mother’s day celebration.

Apart from giving her mom a respectful send off, Jarvis found that a lot of nationally celebrated days in America revolved around men and she was determined to change that to suite the female domain.

Woodrow Wilson, then the president of America publicly legalized the celebration of mothers’ day in 1914 and it spread across the world.

Today, 8th May is celebrated globally as Mother’s day. It is a nationally celebrated day however it isn’t a general public holiday. Mothers across Africa are celebrated yearly on this day.