Every year on the second Sunday of May, a majority of the world celebrates mothers day by visiting their mothers, treating them, spoiling them and giving them gifts, displaying their love and appreciation for everything their mothers did for them. Mothers in all species instinctively sacrifice their own well beings for their offspring and today is the day their children say thank you in a display of love.
As we celebrate mothers day, most don’t realise where the idea of mother’s day originates from. Centuries ago Greeks and Romans organized festivals to honor Rhea and Cybele the mother goddesses, with this Christian festival named Mothering Sunday preceding before mother’s day as we know it. As the years went by, Mothering Sunday became less practiced and the concept of mother’s day was introduced to include both religious and non-religious people and was a more secular version of mother’s day, with children celebrating their mothers by giving them flowers and gifts. The modern version of mother’s day initially originated from Julia Ward Howe and Anna Jarvis, with both women having a strong hand in establishing this mother’s day tradition in the United States. Many countries celebrate mothers day at different times of the year and of course with the differing languages comes the different names of the day, with the Dutch calling it Moederdag, Germans calling it Muttertag and the French calling it Fete Des Mere. Some countries like Costa Rica, Georgia and Samoa also celebrate it as an annual public holiday. Fast forward to 2019 and families continue to celebrate mothers all around the world and shower them with love, flowers and sentimental gifts. For their lifetime of selflessness, today is the day we say thank you and Musician Stevie Wonder said it best when he said “Mama was my greatest teacher, a teacher of compassion, love and fearlessness. If love is sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love”.
Today as many of the EMU students are separate from their mothers on this day, Gundem reporter Faith Edigin traveled the campus asking for students messages to their mothers and why they felt it was important to celebrate this day.
Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers around the world, and thank you or everything you do and have done.
