Why Mother’s Day Matters (May 10, 2026)

by Scott Sosebee

Normally, this space is devoted to Texas history topics, but because Sunday is a special day I thought I would take a different angle. It will still be a little history, but mostly it will be some reflection on why we should have a day that specifically honors not just our mothers, but women generally in our society. Mothers occupy an exceptional place in our society; they are often our first and most pervasive influence, and—I think, at least—the person who quite often provides the stability within our lives and leads us to want to try to emulate the best angels of our personalities. She goes by many names—Mother, Mama, Mum, Ma, Mummy, or Mom as mine is—but no matter how you refer to the one who brought you into the world, she is likely your biggest fan and the one who will be in your corner no matter what life deals you. Mom is our rock, that buttress that we can cling to when life gets too difficult.

The specific designation of Mother’s Day in May traveled a varied path. The first documented designation of a “Mother’s Day” came from a Kentucky school teacher named Mary T. Sasseen who led her class in observance of a special day. She had suggested April 20—which was her mother’s birthday—but she died before her movement gained traction. But, the spirit did not die and three other women, Ann Reeves Jarvis, Julia Ward Howe, and Anna M. Jarvis (Ann’s daughter) get the credit for creating the specific holiday. Ann Reeves Jarvis, a Virginia activist, began to organize “Mother’s Day Work Clubs” in the years just before the Civil War. The thrust of her movement was to improve sanitary conditions in hospitals and to address the high infant mortality rates in the state. In the years after the Civil War, Jarvis added a campaign to lessen the tension caused by the end of the Civil War. The “friendship” she spoke of was to bring former Union and Confederate soldiers together in unity. Julia Ward Howe, at approximately the same time, suggested a holiday she called “Mother’s Peace Day” that was generally an anti-war campaign. Howe’s first day of peace came in June of 1873. Ann Jarvis died in 1905, and her daughter Anna M. Jarvis began to call for a holiday to honor all mothers in remembrance of hers. She organized the first one in West Virginia on the second Sunday in May. The holiday stuck. West Virginia was the first to have it as an official holiday in 1910, in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson made it a federal celebration.

Mother’s Day has now become one of the nation’s most celebrated holidays. According to FTD, the global floral wire service, Mother’s Day is a very close second to Valentine’s Day in terms of flower sales, and it is considered the busiest one-day of the year when it comes to restaurant sales in the U.S. Like so many other things in our society, those statistics demonstrate that Mother’s Day has certainly become over-commercialized, and there are some who will tell you that a special day to celebrate mothers can cause sadness among those women who through choice or fate have no children. Still others will complain that we should honor our mothers every day of the year and not just on one day when the calendar tells us to do so, a view that I can certainly endorse. However, honoring and thinking of our mothers on a special day has a role to play in our lives and reminds us of the special bond we have with the person who gave us life. I can remember Mother’s Days when I was young, the day that me and my brothers likely made a special homemade card for Mom, the church recognized all the mothers in the congregation, and, yes, just like the stats say, we went to a more “special” restaurant that day instead of our usually Sunday post-church visit to the local cafeteria.

I’m not sure that we don’t honor mothers—and women—enough in our world today. We need that day dedicated to just mom. We expect a lot from mothers; they are the ones, more than anyone else, who puts everyone else in her household first before she takes care of herself. She also does so without complaint and does it because it is the way she shows how much she loves us. Mom is the one who will do without the piece of pie because there are not enough left for everyone. She runs the car pool, coordinates the ball practices, and, for most moms today, does so while also juggling a job and being a wife. There is a reason women are known as multi-taskers and men are not. It’s because we males have never had to be. In our house, until all three of us were old enough to leave home, it was Mom who got us up, got us dressed, got us fed, and then made sure we were off to school. She then came home after a long day of work—a job in which she spent most of her day on her feet—and then made dinner and got us ready for bed, and then woke us up the next day to do it all over again. Of course we didn’t say thank-you; we were young boys and barely had enough sense to come in out of the rain—unless Mom made us. Mom was a constant. She was always there to dry a tear, cheer an achievement, and put her children and my dad before herself. And that thank-you she didn’t get? That was ok because she did all that not for praise but because she loved us and that was what she did. So, maybe a special day like Mother’s Day is the time for us to offer that thank you for making us what we are. For giving us a role model to emulate, one of quiet strength, one that is more responsible than anyone for giving us resolve and a way to be a “good person.” I’m saying thank you to my mom. You should do so as well.

The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee the Executive Director of the Association and can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu or via www.easttexashistorical.org.