Mood:
specialTopic: Positive News!!
Happy Mothers Day to all us mums- it's the toughest job in the world- but the most rewarding :)
Enjoy my Mothers Day Selection
love Rachael xxx
Subject: mother reclassification
A woman named Emily renewing her driver's license at the Clerk's
office was asked by the woman recorder to state her occupation. She hesitated, uncertain how to classify herself.
'What I mean is,' explained the recorder, 'do you have a job, or
are you just a .....?
’Of course I have a job,' snapped Emily. 'I'm a mother.'
'We don't list 'mother' as an occupation... 'housewife' covers it,' said
the recorder emphatically.
I forgot all about her story until one day I found myself in the same
situation, this time at our own Town Hall.
The Clerk was obviously a career woman, poised, efficient, and possessed
of a high sounding title like, 'Official Interrogator' or 'Town Registrar.'
'What is your occupation?' she probed.
What made me say it, I do not know... The words simply popped out.
I'm a Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human
Relations.'
The clerk paused, ball-point pen frozen in midair, and looked up as
though she had not heard right.
I repeated the title slowly, emphasizing the most significant words.
Then I stared with wonder as my pronouncement was written in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire.
Might I ask,' said the clerk with new interest, 'just what you do in your
field?'
Coolly, without any trace of fluster in my voice, I heard myself reply,
'I have a continuing program of research, (what mother doesn't), in the
laboratory and in the field, (normally I would have said indoors and
out).
I'm working for my Masters, (the whole darned family), and already have
four credits, (all daughters).
Of course, the job is one of the most demanding in the humanities, (any
mother care to disagree.?) and I often work 14 hours a day, (24 is more
like it). But the job is more challenging than most run-of-the-mill
careers and the rewards are more of a satisfaction, rather than just money.'
There was an increasing note of respect in the clerk's voice as she
completed the form, stood up, and personally ushered me to the door.
As I drove into our driveway, buoyed up by my glamorous career, I was
greeted by my lab assistants - ages 13, 7, and 3. Upstairs I could hear
our new experiment, (a 6 month old baby), in the child-development program, testing out a new vocal pattern.
I felt triumphant! I had scored a beat on bureaucracy! And I had gone
on the official records as someone more distinguished and indispensable to mankind than 'just another mother.'
Motherhood.....What a glorious career! Especially when there's a title
on the door.
Does this make grandmothers 'Senior Research Associates in the field of Child Development and Human Relations' And great grandmothers Executive Senior Research Associates'? I think so!!!
I also think it makes Aunts 'Associate Research Assistants'.
Mother's Day History
Contrary to popular belief, Mother's Day was not conceived and fine-tuned in the boardroom of Hallmark. The earliest tributes to mothers date back to the annual spring festival the Greeks dedicated to Rhea, the mother of many deities, and to the offerings ancient Romans made to their Great Mother of Gods, Cybele. Christians celebrated this festival on the fourth Sunday in Lent in honor of Mary, mother of Christ. In England this holiday was expanded to include all mothers and was called Mothering Sunday.
In the United States, Mother's Day started nearly 150 years ago, when Anna Jarvis, an Appalachian homemaker, organized a day to raise awareness of poor health conditions in her community, a cause she believed would be best advocated by mothers. She called it "Mother's Work Day."
Fifteen years later, Julia Ward Howe, a Boston poet, pacifist, suffragist, and author of the lyrics to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," organized a day encouraging mothers to rally for peace, since she believed they bore the loss of human life more harshly than anyone else.
In 1905 when Anna Jarvis died, her daughter, also named Anna, began a campaign to memorialize the life work of her mother. Legend has it that young Anna remembered a Sunday school lesson that her mother gave in which she said, "I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mother's day. There are many days for men, but none for mothers."
Anna began to lobby prominent businessmen like John Wannamaker, and politicians including Presidents Taft and Roosevelt to support her campaign to create a special day to honor mothers. At one of the first services organized to celebrate Anna's mother in 1908, at her church in West Virginia, Anna handed out her mother's favorite flower, the white carnation. Five years later, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution calling for officials of the federal government to wear white carnations on Mother's Day. In 1914 Anna's hard work paid off when Woodrow Wilson signed a bill recognizing Mother's Day as a national holiday.
At first, people observed Mother's Day by attending church, writing letters to their mothers, and eventually, by sending cards, presents, and flowers. With the increasing gift-giving activity associated with Mother's Day, Anna Jarvis became enraged. She believed that the day's sentiment was being sacrificed at the expense of greed and profit. In 1923 she filed a lawsuit to stop a Mother's Day festival, and was even arrested for disturbing the peace at a convention selling carnations for a war mother's group. Before her death in 1948, Jarvis is said to have confessed that she regretted ever starting the mother's day tradition.
Despite Jarvis's misgivings, Mother's Day has flourished! In fact, Mothers Day has become the most popular day of the year to dine out, and telephone lines record their highest traffic, as sons and daughters everywhere take advantage of this day to honor and to express appreciation of their mothers
Who ran to help be when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My Mother."
-Ann Taylor
"Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes
"Who is getting more pleasure from this rocking, the baby or me?
-Nancy Thayer
"Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to 'jump at de sun.' We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground."
-Zora Neale Hurston
"Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother."
-Lin Yutang
"I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life."
-Abraham Lincoln
"The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother."
-Author Unknown
"Making the decision to have a child-it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."
-Elizabeth Stone
"Is my mother my friend? I would have to say, first of all she is my Mother, with a capital 'M'; she's something sacred to me. I love her dearly...yes, she is also a good friend, someone I can talk openly with if I want to."
-Sophia Loren
"My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her."
-George Washington
"Nobody knows of the work it makes
To keep the home together.
Nobody knows of the steps it takes,
Nobody knows-but Mother."
-Anonymous
