Mother's Day

Mother's Day is a holiday celebrated in honor of mothers in much of the world and on different dates of the year, depending on the country, culture and nation in which it is celebrated.

History

The first Mother's Day celebrations date back to ancient Greece, where Rhea, the mother of the gods Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, was honored. Later the Romans called this celebration Hilaria when they acquired it from the Greeks. It was celebrated on March 15 in the Cibeles temple and offerings were made for three days. With the arrival of Christianity, these celebrations were transformed to honor the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus.

In England around the 17th century, a similar event took place, also related to the Virgin, which was called Mother's Sunday. Children attended mass and returned home with gifts for their parents. In addition, since many people worked for wealthy people and did not have the opportunity to be at home, they were given the day off that Sunday to visit their families.

However, the contemporary origin of this celebration dates back to 1865, when the poet and activist Julia Ward Howe organized peaceful demonstrations and religious celebrations in Boston, in which mothers of families who were victims of the Civil War participated. She proposed establishing a special day as a way to reconcile the warring parties. Around the same time, Ann Jarvis, an activist from Virginia, seeing the success of Howe's calls, also organized meetings, where mothers met to exchange opinions on different current issues.

Mother's Day gatherings continued regularly for the next several years. Howe continued to work in other ways for women's rights and for peace.On May 12, 1905, Ann Jarvis died, her daughter Anna Jarvis organized a Mother's Day every second Sunday to commemorate her death every year. of May. In 1907 Jarvis began an active campaign for the date to have official recognition that was extended to the entire territory of the United States based on Howe's demand. Jarvis began writing to influential personalities of the time to get them to support her petition. Official recognition of Mother's Day was finally given in 1914, with the signature of President Woodrow Wilson.

Calendar by country

Official Declaration on Mothers Day of the United States Government in 1914.

The days corresponding to the celebrations are shown according to the Gregorian calendar.

International Women's Day or International Women's Day is celebrated on March 8 and coincides with Mother's Day and a national holiday in some countries.

Day of celebration	Country
Second Sunday of February	Norway
Fourth Sunday of Lent	Ireland, United Kingdom (Mothering Sunday) the Lent is raised to pay tribute to the woman who is a mother. Nigeria
3 March	Georgia
8 March (International Women ' s Day)	Albania, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Some countries that belonged to the USSR
21 March (Day of spring)	Saudi Arabia Baréin, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria
7 April	Armenia
10 May	Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico
First Sunday of May	Andorra, Angola, Spain (the celebration was moved in 1965 from 8 December to the first Sunday of May), Hungary, Lithuania, Portugal, South Africa
Second Sunday of May	Germany, Australia, Austria, Bangladés, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Ukraine, Ecuador, Colombia (except Norte de Santander) Peru, United States of America Croatia, Cuba, Denmark, Estonia, Philippines, Finland, Greece, Honduras, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam
8 May (Day of the Fathers)	South Korea
14 May	Suriname
17 May	Belize, Catar, United Arab Emirates, India, Oman, Pakistan, Singapore
12 May	Samoa
15 May	Paraguay (in the Paraguayan case it is because this date is that of the "Day of Independence", and they consider their homeland as Motherland)
26 May	Poland
27 May	Bolivia
30 May	Nicaragua
Last Sunday of May	North of Santander, Colombia, France (first Sunday of June if it matches Pentecost), Algeria, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Sweden, Tunisia
12 August	Thailand, Queen Sirikit Kitiyakara
August 15, Assumption Day	Antwerp, Belgium Costa Rica
Third Sunday of October	Argentina.
14 October	Belarus
16 November	North Korea
Last Sunday of November	Russia
December 8, Day of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin	Panama
22 December	Indonesia

In Germany

In Germany, Mother's Day takes place on the second Sunday of May each year. It began in 1922 and 1923 as a commercial and non-political celebration at the initiative of German florists, who encouraged honoring mothers by giving them flowers. During National Socialism this celebration was related to mothers and maternity and is strongly linked to the idea of the Germanic race, showing women with a large number of children as heroes of the people, since they helped to spread the Aryan race. In 1933 Mother's Day became an official holiday and in 1938 the Cross of Honor of the German Mother was introduced. During the GDR period, Mother's Day was not celebrated. Instead they celebrated only International Women's Day, as is done today in Russia, Albania and Kazakhstan, among other countries. May 8, 1949 was the second Sunday in May and in Allied-occupied Germany ("Trizone") Mother's Day is celebrated. On May 23 of that same year, the current German constitution was approved, thus establishing the Federal Republic of Germany. From then on, this date would be celebrated again in Germany. Although it is not an official holiday, when it falls on a Sunday it is usually a day off for most people and flower shops are exceptionally allowed in almost the entire federal republic to open to the public. Only in Baden-Wurttemberg is it prevented from opening if that Sunday coincides with another holiday (usually it coincides every several years with Pentecost).

In Argentina

In the Argentine Republic, it is commemorated on the third Sunday of October, in reference to the commemoration of the motherhood of Saint Mary.

In Bolivia

In Bolivia it is celebrated on May 27, in commemoration of the Heroines of the Crown who faced the royalist army during the Bolivian War of Independence in the year 1812 on the hill of San Sebastián, in the city of Cochabamba. who sacrificed their lives to fight the Spanish royalist troops.

That year, the Spanish general Goyeneche, at the head of the Spanish troops, went to Cochabamba with the desire to frustrate the revolution led by Esteban Arze. As there were no men in the city (because they were in other battles in the country) and in order to protect their children, the women of the city decided to organize and arm themselves to face the Spanish. They climbed the hill of San Sebastián (La Coronilla) with the slogan: "our home is sacred" and exhibiting the image of the Virgin of Mercy. They tried to block the entry of the Spanish troops, but they were massacred and three days later the city was occupied by the Spanish. TO ^_~

In Brazil

The first commemoration dates back to May 12, 1918 in Porto Alegre, and was organized by the Associação Cristã de Moços. In 1932, the then President Getúlio Vargas, at the request of the Brazilian Federation of Feminist Women for Progress, officiated as the date of celebration on the second Sunday of May throughout the country. The initiative was part of the strategy of feminists who sought to value the importance of women in society, encouraged by the prospects that opened up after winning the right to vote in February of the same year. In 1947, the Cardinal Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro Jaime de Barros Câmara determined that this date should also be part of the official calendar of the Catholic Church.

In Chile

In 1976, through Supreme Decree 1110, May 10 was established as Mother's Day. However, it is observed on the second Sunday of that month for commercial reasons.

In Colombia

In 1925 the then President of Colombia Pedro Nel Ospina through decree 748 of 1926 made the second Sunday of May official as Mother's Day throughout the national territory. Some time later, the city of Cúcuta, Capital of the department of Norte de Santander and main border city between Colombia and Venezuela decided to move the date of Mother's Day in the city; The reasons why the date of Mother's Day was moved are not very clear, but the strongest theory suggests that it was the product of a commercial agreement. Cúcuta currently celebrates Mother's Day on the last Sunday of May, unlike the rest of the country that celebrates it on the second Sunday of this month.

In Costa Rica

August 15 commemorates the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, who for Catholics is the best example to follow in terms of motherhood. It is a holiday throughout the country and a non-working day by law.

In Spain

Mother's Day in Spain has been celebrated on the first Sunday of May since 1965, although it has never been officially declared and is mainly commercial and popular in nature. In 1925 the Valencian postal worker and poet Julio Menéndez García published a Hymn to the Mother in a pamphlet proposing the celebration of Mother's Day in all Spanish-speaking countries. produces the official declaration, but at that time the initiative is adopted at the local level on different dates; Thus, for example, in Madrid a Mother's Day is celebrated on October 4, 1926, in Granollers it is celebrated on May 6. The institutional background dates back to the 1920s. The Canarian poet Félix Duarte Pérez launched the idea of celebrating a Mother's Day in the municipality of Breña Baja. It would become the first municipality in all of Spain to celebrate this day officially and annually. In 1939 the Youth Front of the single party, FET de las JONS, promoted the celebration of Mother's Day coinciding with the feast of the Immaculate Conception, on December 8. In the early sixties at the initiative of a chain of large stores (Galerías Preciados), which is a copy of the custom established in Cuba, is also celebrated on Mother's Day on the first Sunday of May (El Corte Inglés, the great competitor of Galerías Preciados, celebrated the holiday in December). The two dates, May and December, coexist until 1965 when the ecclesiastical authorities choose to celebrate the festival in May, within the MONTH consecrated to the Virgin, to recover the authentic character of the feast of the Immaculate Conception.

In Italy

In Italy, its birth would date back to the 1950s for commercial and religious reasons. Thus, in 1956 the senator and mayor of Bordighera Raúl Zaccari together with the president of the Flower Fair and the Bordighera-Vallecrosia Ornamental Plant Giacomo Pallanca decided to celebrate Mother's Day in Bordighera on the second Sunday of May 1956 at the Zeni Theater; subsequently, the party took place successively at the Palazzo del Parco. On the other hand, the following year the parish priest of Tordibetto di Assisi Otello Migliosi devised a celebration on May 12, 1957, but not to celebrate mothers in their social and biological quality, but in their great religious, Christian and interreligious value, and as a land of encounter and dialogue between its different cultures. On December 18, 1958, a bill to ensure the creation of Mother's Day was presented to the Senate, which provoked rejection in some parliamentary sectors. The celebration gradually expanded throughout Italy, and for about forty years it always fell on May 8; only since 2000 has it been transformed into a mobile holiday, celebrated on the second Sunday of May as in many other countries around the world.

In Mexico

In Mexico, Mother's Day is celebrated annually on May 10, without adjusting to days of the week like other countries. This day would have been celebrated for the first time in 1911, but it was not until 1922 when it would have been institutionalized at the initiative of the director of the Excelsior Rafael Alducín with the support of the Secretary of Education José Vasconcelos, since it is suggested that "This initiative was actually a reaction to a feminist movement" Puebla, that is, they tried to counteract the ideas of women's liberation and education that were being discussed in Puebla. The celebration includes the support of different state entities, also including a certain religious connotation by being linked to tributes to the Virgin of Guadalupe in some towns.

In Panama

In Panama, Mother's Day is celebrated on December 8. It is also a national holiday, throughout the Republic. The date is taken for the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.

In Peru

The government of Augusto B. Leguía promulgated Supreme Resolution No. 677 on April 12, 1924, which made every second Sunday in May official as "Mothers Day".

In Ecuador

In Ecuador, like other Latin American countries, Mother's Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of May. This is because in 1914 in the United States it was decided that it would be celebrated on the second Sunday in May and later the decision was transferred to Ecuador and other countries.