Soap to Ploughshares: Returning Mother's Day to its original meaning

"The hawking of Mother's Day is hardly new," writes Ruth Rosen in Slate, noting the "stampede" of appeals from nonprofits offering merchandise and soliciting contributions in the name of Mother's Day. She wonders whether these organizations are simply exploiting the holiday like their commercial counterparts. "Perhaps the answer depends on whether the political cause that hitches itself to Mother's Day has any connection to the lives of women or mothers—or to why the holiday first came into being."  Rosen retells the story of how abolitionist and women's rights advocate Julia Ward Howe first proposed a Mother's Day for peace following the Civil War.

She writes that "it is anti-war organizations like the Ploughshares Fund that return us to the original meaning of Mother's Day. Ploughshares has always promoted peace. Its current e-mail asks you to sign a declaration for [Global] Zero, a campaign to create a nuclear-free world. In making this request, Ploughshares urges, 'After all, what better way to honor our mothers than to return to the holiday's original purpose.'

"Now here's a message the founding mothers of the holiday would have understood: just a simple request to sign a declaration demanding the destruction of nuclear weapons so that we leave a safer planet for our children. How delightfully quaint."

Learn more about Ploughshares Fund's Mother's Day for Peace campaign here.