Dear Mama,
Mother’s Day has never been one of my favorite holidays, it always seemed so saccharine sweet or if you’re more granola-y stevia sweet (yum yum ;o) and made up by the Hallmark Cards corporation.
I always felt that it should have more meaning behind it, activism and action. Sure the love, but also the focus- the World Changing aspect. A mother is not someone who perches on a pedastal one day a year, she’s in the trenches of life and should be treated with respect. (and flowers and candy, of course if you feel so inspired)
So, I feel especially gladdened by some of the new motherhood movements out there in the world, it gives me hope and I share them because I love you and hope your day is full of life-changing purpose!
Standing Women (thanks for the heads up Cathy L. and Robyn C.)
Mothers Acting Up!
and for some fun the venerable women in pink: code pink: Mother’s Day is for Peace!
This was one of my favorite named groups! radical activist mother and baby league (rambl) I think they might not be very active anymore, but hey, you can start a local chapter right?
and Riane Eisler (of the Chalice and the Blade) on What’s a Mother Worth?
and this that I post every year…
a Mothers’ Day Proclamation:
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
