Here’s why Mother’s Day is celebrated on the second Sunday of May every year

• The first mother’s day was celebrated in 1908 when a school teacher Anna Jarvis held a memorial service for her mother at St Andrew’s Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia.
  
• She pressed to accept Mother’s day as a modern holiday in the United States.
  
• Though she started the idea, she died protesting against the commercialisation of the event.

Every second Sunday of May, we celebrate mother’s day to honour our mothers. This year in 2023, we will celebrate mother’s day on May 14.

The first mother’s day was celebrated in 1908 when a school teacher Anna Jarvis held a memorial service for her mother at St Andrew’s Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia. She pressed to accept Mother’s day as a modern holiday in United States.

Her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis died in 1905.

During the American Civil War, she created a Mother’s Day Club which addresses health issues for wounded soldiers.

Nine years after she started campaigning for mother’s day, Former US President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation and declared second Sunday in May as a national holiday that will be celebrated as Mother’s day.

Several card companies started selling printed cards. However, Anna was strictly against commercialisation of Mother’s Day. Jarvis believed that children had no time to make an effort for preparing cards rather they would gift printed cards.

“A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother-and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment," she had said.

She later organised boycotts for Mother’s Day and warned to issue lawsuits against companies involved in making profits.

However, despite her effort, she was arrested for disturbing the peace. The carnations she used to celebrate the first mother’s day became associated with it — leaving companies with big profits. Moreover, the concept was too commercialised and never became what Jarvis wanted. Jarvis died in 1948.

While some of the other countries adopted the concept as is, others like the United Kingdom, and Greece celebrated it on different dates. Some countries like Russia started celebrating mother’s day and International Women’s Day together.