Mother's Day story

Second Sunday of May is celebrated as Mother's day in the United Sates and number of other countries. This year it falls on the 13th of May. The story behind Mother's day celebration in US is an interesting one.
Anna Reeve Jarvis, a young West Virginia homemaker, during the Civil War started something called Mothers' Work Days. The idea was group of women to work for better sanitary conditions during the war. After her death her daughter, Anna Jarvis, started the crusade to found a memorial day for women. The first Mother's day was celebrated in her honor in 1908. Though it started as a local West Virginia tradition soon it spread throughout the nation and by 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother's day to recognize and honour all those mothers whose sons have died in war.
Very soon commercialization creeped into the holiday and materialistic things mattered more than the sentiments and trueness of honouring our mothers. Seeing all this Anna Jarvis, became a major opponent of the holiday and worked against removing it as a national holiday till the end of her life. However as it is seen today, Mother's Day continues to be one of the most commercially successful US holidays.
I hope you won't make this Mother's day a commercial and materialistic affair and thank your mother just one day of the year.

You can read more about mother's day celebrations in other countries here