Mother’s Day celebrated in Pakistan, World over
By Fatima Raza 'Pakistan Times' Special Correspondent

ISLAMABAD: Like other parts of the globe, the World Mother’s Day, was celebrated across Pakistan on Sunday.On this auspicious occasion, all celebrations were devoted to those honourable mothers who are the experts of one of the most difficult tasks on earth.

Throughout the country, special events were arranged to pay tributes to mothers and processions were taken out by civil society members to highlight the issues pertaining to motherhood.

The participants emphasized upon the male members of society to nurture affection for their mothers especially in the age of senility.

The Mother’s Day is celebrated at the international level but with the changes in customs and traditions of the countries, the days and ways of celebrating this day vary from region to region.

Mother’s Day is celebrated to honour all mothers and to express gratitude for the hardships they bear in bringing up a child.

In a way, it is like paying rich tributes to one of those persons who have had a great impact on our lives, a person whose love and care knows no boundaries, a person who does everything to keep her children happy and joyous.

Mother is the first person from whom we learn about values and how to differ between right and wrong.

Who can deny that all through our lives we love to put our heads in the lap of our mothers without caring for our status, position and age.

So May 11, is a day to revive this lovely and unique relationship of a mom and child by adding that extra fresh energy to it.

The ‘Mother’s Day’ was first proclaimed in 1870 in the United States. And it was Julia Ward Howe who proclaimed the same in Boston. Howe also called for it to be observed each year at the national level in 1872.

In fact the original idea behind Howe’s “Mother’s Day” was a call for Pacifism and disarmament by all the women.

And in such meetings those mothers were supposed to participate whose sons had fought or died on opposite sides of the American Civil War.

Later Anna Jarvis in Grafton, West Virginia, to commemorate the anniversary of her mother’s death two years earlier on May 9, 1905, first celebrated Mother’s Day in 1907 in a small private way.

Jarvis’s mother, whose name was also ‘Anna Jarvis’, was an active participant in the Mother’s Day campaigns.

Inspired with her mother’s death and in order to pay tribute to her, the younger Jarvis launched a quest to get wider recognition of Mother’s Day.

For this purpose the younger Jarvis organized a grand celebration on May 10, 1908 at the Andrew’s Methodist Church in Grafton.

This celebration involved around 407 children along with their mothers. This unique campaign in order to get recognition of Mother’s Day was financed by a renowned clothing merchant named John Wanamaker.

Gradually in the course of time, as the custom of Mother’s Day celebration spread, its focus shifted from the pacifism and reform movements to a general appreciation, admiration and honoring of mothers.●