In 1943 Anna Jarvis campaigned to have Mother’s Day cancelled in America. This might not have been anything to note had she not been the person who had done so much to promote it in the first place. On 10thMay 1908 she held a memorial ceremony to celebrate motherhood in her church at Grafton, West Virginia, and by 1914 it had become established as a national holiday. 

But over the years it became an opportunity to make money selling cards, flowers and chocolates and it was this that Anna railed against. She complained that ‘a printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to mother and then eat most of it yourself’. 

Anna wanted children to think deeply about their mother’s sacrificial love. Perhaps in this she was inspired by her Christian faith and her belief in a God who had shown her so much sacrificial love. A God who sent his only son to die on a cross. In her eyes her mother’s love reflected the love of God and both demanded a heartfelt response.

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