How did Father's Day and Mother's Day come about ?

Mother's Day has been celebrated for just over 80 years, but the idea of dedicating a day to honor mothers can be traced back a long time. In ancient times, the Greeks and Romans held "spring festivals" to show their respect for the "mother goddess" (a generic term for a female deity).

Later, in medieval England, the fourth Sunday of Lent (a religious event of fasting and penance in honor of Jesus' fasting in the wilderness, which took place from the end of February to the beginning of April) was known as Mothering Sunday. On that day, grown-up children must bring home gifts for their mothers.

Female writer suggests Mother's Day to promote peace

In the United States, Julia 6.4 Ward 6.4 Hoyer, a female writer who is known for writing the "**** Peace Songs," suggested that Mother's Day be celebrated on a day in June. With the outbreak of the American Civil War, many mothers experienced the horrors of war and the pain of losing their beloved children, and Julia strongly advocated for a holiday to promote peace. Her suggestion was only adopted by a few places.

Soon, an American named Mrs. Jarvis formed a committee to sponsor Mother's Friendship Day in her hometown of Grafton, West Virginia. The purpose of the holiday was to unite families in the eastern states who had fought for both North and South in the Civil War. While Mrs. Jarvis' plan gained local support, the idea of Mother's Day was not really realized until after her death.

Anna carries on the legacy of her mother's vision

Mrs. Jarvis died in Philadelphia on May 9, 1905, the second Sunday of the month; she was a widow with her son, Claude, and her two daughters, Elsinore, a successful businessman, and Anna, who was nearly blind.

Anna has always loved her mother, so after her mother's death, she tries to find a way to pay eternal homage to her mother and continue her mother's idea of Mother's Day.

In 1907, she wrote to the pastor of the Grafton church and asked him to make a special memorial service for her mother, who had died on the second anniversary of her death. On that day, Anna donated 500 of her mother's favorite flowers - white carnations - to be given to all the children and mothers attending the service.

The following year, the church officially declared the third anniversary of Mrs. Jarvis' death as Mother's Day. But she was not present that day because she was busy organizing a Mother's Day committee in Philadelphia.

Launching a letter-writing campaign to make Mother's Day a national holiday

With the committee's help, Anna began a massive letter-writing campaign. She wrote to hundreds of churches, business leaders, newspaper editors, politicians, and others, asking them to join the campaign to make Mother's Day a national holiday.

In 1910, the governor of West Virginia responded to her plea and issued the first Mother's Day proclamation, asking all West Virginians to wear white carnations to church on the second Sunday in May. And Oklahoma and Washington, too, began celebrating Mother's Day that year. By 1911, Mother's Day services were held in every state in the nation.

Congress passed a resolution designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day

Anna was overjoyed when she decided to organize the Mother's Day International Association, and from 1912 onward, she devoted all her time and energy to promoting Mother's Day. Her efforts finally came to fruition on May 8, 1914, when Congress passed a joint resolution asking Americans to fly the flag on the second Sunday of May to express their immense respect and love for mothers across America. The next morning, Anna was a guest at the U.S. White House to see the resolution signed by President Wilson, who also presented Anna with the signing pen.

By the 1920s, Anna had planted the idea of Mother's Day in forty-three other countries.

Friends help Anna in her old age

Anna had been living in Philadelphia with her brother Claude, and together they cared for Elsinore, who was completely blind. When Claude died in 1926, he left his entire fortune to his two sisters. She thought they would have enough to last them for the rest of their lives, but the Great Depression of the 1930s reduced the value of those possessions to nothing.

By the 1940s, Anna was penniless and, like Elsinore, almost totally blind, and she no longer had the strength or sight to write letters. One day in November, 1943, she went to the Mass Hospital in Philadelphia and asked it to take her in as a charity. Upon hearing of her plight, Anna's friends immediately arranged for her to be admitted to a private sanitarium for proper care.

Later that year, Anna's friends, in turn, wrote to the governors of the states asking them to proclaim Mother's Day ceremonies again. Many of the governors responded, and also promised that they would make a special proclamation once a year on Mother's Day to show how much they valued the holiday.

On November 24, 1948, at the age of eighty-four, Anna died in a nursing home. Today, every year on Mother's Day, the President of the United States proclaims the importance of the holiday in honor of Anna Marie Vise, the woman who almost single-handedly created this international holiday, and other countries celebrate Mother's Day with a variety of programs and events.

The origin of Father's Day

There are two theories about the origin of Father's Day:

The first theory:

In 1909, a Mrs. Bruce Dodd in Washington, D.C., was celebrating Mother's Day, when she suddenly had an idea: If there is a Mother's Day, why can't there be a Father's Day? why couldn't there be a Father's Day?

Mrs. Dodd and her five brothers lost their mother at an early age and were raised by their loving father. Many years have passed, and every anniversary of their father's birth, the six siblings always think back to the time when their father worked so hard to raise their family. With the support of Dr. Rasmus, she wrote an earnest letter to the state government calling for the establishment of a Father's Day and suggesting that it be celebrated on June 5, her father's birthday. The state government adopted her suggestion and hastily set Father's Day on the 19th, the 3rd Sunday in June, 1909, as the date. The following year, Mrs. Dodd's city of Spokane officially celebrated the holiday, and the mayor proclaimed a Father's Day proclamation making the day a statewide observance. Later, other states also celebrated Father's Day. On Father's Day, specific flowers were chosen to honor fathers. Mrs. Dodd's suggestion was taken up and red roses were worn to show love to living fathers and white roses were worn to pay tribute to deceased fathers. Later in Vancouver, people chose to wear white lilacs, and Pennsylvanians paid tribute to their fathers with dandelions.

There were strong calls for Congress to recognize Father's Day, and in 1972, President Nixon signed a congressional resolution establishing the holiday. The holiday was finally established in the form of a law and has been used ever since.

Second statement:

The idea of dedicating a day to honor mothers was first proposed in 1907 in the U.S. Two years later, Mrs. John Bruce Dodd, a woman in Washington State, suggested that a day similar to Mother's Day should be dedicated to honoring fathers, who were the head of the family. Mrs. Dodd lost her mother at a young age and was brought up by her father. She loved her father very much.

In the same year that Mrs. Dodd came up with her idea - 1909 - the governor of Washington responded by declaring the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. The idea was officially approved by President Woodrow Wilson in 1996, and in 1924, President Calvin Coolidge proposed making Father's Day a national holiday to "establish a closer relationship between fathers and children and to impress upon fathers the full extent of their responsibilities." Red or white roses are the recognized flowers for Father's Day.

Father's Day has been recognized as a holiday throughout the United States longer than Mother's Day. Because the idea of establishing Father's Day was so popular, businessmen and manufacturers began to see the business opportunity. Not only did they encourage sons and daughters to send cards to their fathers, but they also encouraged them to buy ties, socks, and other small gifts for their fathers to show their respect for them.

During World War II, U.S. servicemen stationed in Britain asked for Father's Day cards to send home. The American servicemen's request was responded to by British greeting card publishers, and cards were therefore printed. Although the British public has been slower to embrace this artificial holiday, today Father's Day is celebrated in Britain on the third Sunday in June, in much the same way as it is celebrated in the United States.

Father's Day seems far less important than Mother's Day, and no children give their fathers gifts. But fathers in the United States still consider their lot much stronger than those in many other countries, where fathers don't even have a nominal holiday.