***image1***Sunday is Mother’s Day. Throughout the world, children honor their mothers and try to be extremely nice.
They start with setting the table and preparing breakfast Sunday morning. They also give flowers, cards or other presents to show their appreciation for their mother’s hard job.
Mother’s Day has been initiated by just one woman. In 1907, exactly one year after her mother died, Anne Jarvis from Philadelphia had the idea to choose a day to thank mothers all over the world for all their love and unselfish care. The idea became real one year later.
As the first town in the world, Philadelphia celebrated Mother’s Day on May 10, 1908.
Six years later, President Woodrow Wilson officially proclaimed the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
In the following years, Mother’s Day became popular in India, China, Mexico, Scandinavia, England and Switzerland. The first Mother’s Day in Germany was celebrated in 1933. In the initial years in Germany, mothers were not honored for their devoted work but were rewarded for the number of children they had.
In 1938, Adolf Hitler awarded mothers with the “mother’s cross” to honor their outstanding help against low birth rates and death. Each year in August, on the birthday of Hitler’s mother, he gave the bronze medal to mothers with four children, the silver medal to mothers with six and the gold medal to mothers with eight children.
After the war, it took a while until Germans started celebrating Mother’s Day again. People still had terrible memories of the past, as well as the current miserable situation on their minds; they didn’t feel like calling special attention to something that should be normal and taken for granted.
Mother’s Day is always observed the second Sunday in May. Chil-dren try to behave well and pamper their mothers that day. Despite the commercialism — gifts get bigger and more expensive — children are encouraged to honor and take good care of their mothers every day, not only on Mother’s Day.
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