MOTHER’S DAY PROCLAMATION
Arise, then... Women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts...
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
all that we have been able to teach them of charity,
mercy and patience.
We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country,
to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
From the bosom of the devastated earth
a voice comes up with our own.
It says: “Disarm, disarm!”
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.
Excerpts from the original Proclamation by
Mother’s Day Founder
Julia Ward Howe
Boston, 1870
PRAISE THE MOMS AND PASS THE AMMUNITION
by Phyllis Palmer
May
begins with Mother’s Day, the quiet, roses-and-Hallmark-cards holiday
honoring the sacrifices women make in bearing, rearing–and sometimes
burying–their children. It culminates in the flag-waving,
bands-playing, parades-and-picnics holiday honoring those soldiers who
sacrificed their lives for their country in its many wars. In
between we have three weeks to forget there might be a conflict of
interests between the Venus and Mars world views being celebrated.
Julia
Ward Howe, the original founder of Mother’s Day, saw this conflict very
clearly, and her 1870 Mother’s Day Proclamation was an impassioned plea
for an end to war.
Like most people I know I hadn’t really
thought much about the real meaning and purpose of these
holidays. Memorial Day for us usually meant planting fresh
geraniums on our parents’ graves and sharing memories over a family
picnic lunch. The military aspect of the holiday and its ironic
connection with Mother’s Day never hit home for me until a few years
ago when I happened to attend a local Memorial Day observance, and saw
the clash of world views personified.
On the speakers stand were
politicians full of oratory, and aging, be-ribboned veterans full of
dignity and haunting war memories. Seated on one side were
fresh-faced high school band members, full of promise and dreams; on
the other side, a small group of women, quietly holding a “Mothers for
Peace” banner, and signs protesting the glorification of war.
The
veterans were obviously disturbed by the silent presence of these
women. They sat fidgeting nervously, eyeing the group until the
speeches finally ended. Then a portly veteran with an impressive
display of medals, unable to contain himself any longer, marched over
to the women.
“You ladies ought to be ashamed,” he said
loudly. “Have you no respect for the thousands of men who laid
down their lives so you could have the freedom to speak your mind?”
An
older woman in the group responded quietly, “Yes, we do–that’s
precisely why we’re here. We respect them too much to let their
sacrifice be in vain. We can honor their courage without
condoning the tragic waste of war. Surely you, as well as they,
would want to see an end to war. Glorifying it only perpetuates
the war system, and blinds us to better alternatives.”
His face
nearly purple, the vet whirled on his heel, sputtering, “You mothers,
you’ll never understand!” As he stormed off with his buddies,
gesturing forcefully, I heard the word “mothers” again, sounding more
like an epithet.
Since that day, I’ve thought a lot about that
encounter and the irony it represents. Both sides were right in
wanting to honor those who gave “the last full measure of devotion” for
others, just as we are right in honoring mothers who devote their lives
to nurturing their children and caring for others. But I wonder
if our traditional celebrations of both Mother’s Day and Memorial Day
have become a betrayal of the dreams of those we mean to honor.
Giving
one’s life for others may take many forms: one is in dying so that
others might live or have a better life. Another is in devoting
one’s life to nurturing and caring for others, helping them grow and
develop, and working to change the world into a place which also
nurtures human development.
The war system lures to an early
grave millions of persons who might have become leaders, inventors,
teachers, writers, artists, parents. Whatever dreams they had,
whatever contributions those individuals might have made toward solving
the world’s problems, all they could have been and done is lost
forever. By glorifying war, we seduce new generations of mothers’
sons to the same fate.
Giving oneself for others is indeed the
pinnacle of human nobility, as every mother knows. But what has
become of Julia Ward Howe’s original vision of Mother’s Day? For
centuries, women have labored to give life to their sons and help them
become compassionate, responsible, productive men, only to watch the
military take them away to be brutalized and sent off to kill the sons
of other mothers, or be killed by them. What many mothers long
for on Mother’s Day is not the usual sentimental praise for sacrificing
themselves for their families. What they need most is to be heard
and taken seriously; to have their values affirmed and respected in the
public sphere, and a commitment made to end the system which forces
them to sacrifice their sons for dubious national ends.
If Julia
Ward Howe were to speak on this Mother’s Day, 128 bloody years after
her original plea, she might say something like this:
“If you
really wish to honor us, gentlemen, save your sweet words and instead
try with your actions to honor our values: our reverence for all life
and our beautiful planet home, our concern for the rights and needs of
all of our human family, our belief in the equal and infinite value of
every human being, the primacy of the spiritual over the material, of
humanity over technology, of life over death, of good over evil, of
love over power as the operating principle in the universe. These
are human values, and should not be relegated to the ghetto of
‘feminine values’ and thus deemed irrelevant. You could honor us
best by joining in our efforts to bring the gentler ways of sharing,
cooperation and compassion into the public sphere. Helping your
brothers to give up their fascination with power, violence and war,
would allow the loving, nurturing, creative side of their nature to be
expressed more fully. Only then will men become ‘real men’ in the
highest sense of the word, and our children be assured a future full of
hope instead of fear.”
This month as we celebrate the giving,
and mourn the taking, of human life, we find hope in the ever-growing
numbers of caring men and women who are now claiming these values as
their own and joining together in the struggle to put an end to war.
(Published in Quaker Life Magazine)