happy mother’s day, women
Happy Mother’s Day, one and all, but especially to my Wacky Mom, my two sweet mother-in-laws (see you this summer!), and my Incredibly Wacky Grandma!
Zip, i love you.
And now, a couple or re-runs worth repeating.
wm
from May, 2006
“This week, Salary.com announced that a stay-at-home mom’s work is worth $134,121 a year. But the check is not in the mail.”
– Ellen Goodman
…………………………………
Mother’s Day was originally started after the Civil War, as a protest to the carnage of that war, by women who had lost their sons. Here is the original Mother’s Day Proclamation from 1870, followed by a bit of “herstory”:
“Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!
Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says “Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.
In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.”
Julia Ward Howe
Boston
1870
, 
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Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; A mother’s secret hope outlives them all.
– Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)
Lubbies too WM!
May 13th, 2007 | #
Hope you had a fabulous Mother’s Day.
Thats a rather random figure for stay at home mom’s salary – it should be more like 1 billion dollars…although I guess it doesn’t matter if the check’s not in the mail :)
May 14th, 2007 | #
I don’t think that Julia was envisioning a Hallmark holiday when she was proposing her day of women coming together. Is it me? Or is she basically saying that women are the voice of reason?
Happy Mother’s Day, good luck on the job hunting. Please do keep going to PTA meetings even if it’s just to piss off the other parents, keep them on their toes.
May 14th, 2007 | #
I LOVE that! I’d never read it before. Awesome. Thanks for sharing.
Oh how pitiful that now Mother’s Day is just a Hallmark holiday, call your mom, send flowers/choc/go out for brunch, etc.
Thanks for sharing.
May 18th, 2007 | #
omigosh… I had not read that before, but thought it was amazingly beautiful & (obviously) timeless. I’m not sure if it is encouraging or exasperating that nearly 140 years later, mothers are saying the same thing. What’s even more frustrating is that somehow her (our) requests have been translated into “don’t forget cut flowers and hallmark cards for Mom.”
May 23rd, 2007 | #