Mother's Day: A Day For Peace

"Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have taught them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

This is part of a poem by Julia Ward Howe that was a proclamation for the first Mother's Day in the United States. I did not know until this year that Mother's Day was started as a rally for peace by mothers who cared so much about this world we live in. It makes me sad that she wrote this in 1870 and we are still searching for that peace. I plan to take part in a Peace Rally on Mother's Day organized by the church we have started to attend. Here is more information about the peace rally. Julia's Voice.

Mother's Day this year is also James' and my 12th year wedding anniversary. 12 years ago we joined together to form a lifelong partnership, and that is what led me down the path to motherhood. Being married to James and becoming a mother to Charlie and Juliana has been the most wonderful time of my life. It has its challenges, but those challenges are always worth it. Charlie and Juliana teach me so much more than I teach them. I want them to live in a world free of injustice and full of equality and peace. I want them to always know that our family is their place of security and acceptance, where they can always turn when times are tough and when they need to celebrate. I want them to know that their dad and I made the decision 12 years ago to join together because we were best friends and knew we could weather the storms as long as we were together, and that they came from a place of immense love, respect, and a common desire to show our children a wonderful happy life. I hope that Charlie and Juliana learn that the most important thing in life is their relationship to other people and how they make their footprint in this world. I want them to learn to respect all people, no matter their differences. I want them to learn that the way we treat our earth affects the way the earth treats us. I want them to learn that war creates more problems than it ever solves and that peace and education and acceptance are the ways to overcome problems. I hope that James and I instill in them a sense that they can accomplish what they dream through hard work, and education, but also by the way they treat others. My own mother taught me all of these things my entire life by her actions not just her words. She has always been the first one to lend someone a hand,even when she herself was struggling to make ends meet. She always taught us that all people are equal and worthy of respect. She taught us that peace is always a better choice than war. She taught us that education is the way to make a better life, and even if money is tight, a college education is obtainable and necessary. All of her children have college degrees, my brother has a Ph.D and my sister an MBA. Hopefully one day, I will also get a master's degree, but I at least have my BSN. None of us ever considered not going to college as an option. I thank my mother for these gifts she gave me, and I hope I can pass them on to my own children.

Here is the Mother's Day Proclamation poem in its entirety.

Mother's Day Proclamation
Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
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, the 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 voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Julia Ward Howe