Another Mother’s Day has passed, and I feel the weight of expectation lifted off my shoulders. I’ve written about the evolution of Mother’s Day for over 10 years. So this may be a repeat for some of you.

I always felt a few holidays were put on the calendar to sell greeting cards or perhaps boost a lull in candy sales after Easter. Though I have a mother and am a mother, Mother’s Day has landed in that category. I want my children to learn to give me gratitude because I deserve it, not because the calendar dictates it. If people deserve to be celebrated, it should be every day or not at all. That’s right. There is a lot of pressure to deliver the goods to mother figures, and there is always someone left behind. I want to remind people the pressure is over and there is a lot of Mother’s Day history to unpack.

Days dedicated to mothers have been traced back to a variety of sources. The ancient Greeks honored Rhea, the mother of the gods. Christians honor Mary, the mother of Christ. In the late 1500s, servants apprenticed away from home would be given the fourth Sunday of Lent to return to their “mother” church and gather again as a family. The holiday became a day reuniting mothers with their children.

In 1858, Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis organized Mother’s Day Work Clubs to help improve sanitation and worker safety in Appalachian West Virginia. During the Civil War, the clubs remained neutral to provide medical care for both Union and Confederate soldiers.

In 1872 Julia Ward Howe (author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”) organized a Mother’s Day of Peace. In her Mother’s Day Proclamation, she encouraged a holiday where mothers rally for peace. Originally held on June 2, Howe envisioned a day of activism.

The current holiday occurred in 1907 when Anna Jarvis, a Philadelphia schoolteacher started the progress toward a national Mother’s Day in honor of her mother. Jarvis petitioned influential business people and legislators to establish a day to honor mothers. It took Jarvis seven years, but finally, in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May, the anniversary of her mother’s death, as a national holiday in celebration of mothers.

With the commercialization of the holiday, Jarvis apparently attempted to lobby businesses to donate a percentage of the Mother’s Day profits back to women and children in need. She was unsuccessful. It is said that she regretted forming the holiday and even petitioned the courts to have it disbanded.

I am not suggesting that Mother’s Day be dissolved. I feel that anyone can use the day to honor a woman’s decision to be a mother or not be a mother, to grieve lost mother figures or mothering opportunities. We can also learn to forgive those people who were not nurturing. I like to embrace the concept of a day of peace. Peace to forgive. Peace to embrace. Peace for those lost. Peace for those broken and put back together. I hope peace is coming your way.