Tag Archives: Mother’s Day

Flowers for So Many Mothers

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Debbie says:

Evan Greer made an extraordinary series of tweets, and I just want to share them with you:

Each of these is accompanied on Twitter by different flowers, but I’ve just reused a few of the flower pictures. The captions are all from Evan Greer:

These are for the trans moms who are estranged from their children or families simply for choosing to live their lives as they truly are.

These are for the moms who would rather not have been moms but we’re denied the basic right to make that decision.

These are for the revolutionary moms who have taken incredible risks +faced immeasurable repression to fight for their children’s liberation.

These are for the moms who are artists, musicians, and creators who are constantly told they should give up their passion for parenting.

These are for the undocumented moms who know that at any moment they could be permanently separated from their children by a callous system.

These are for the fulltime moms who work their butts off every day+then have to hear people say their income earning partners “work so hard.”

These are for the moms of black children, who live every day knowing that their kids’ lives are in danger & not valued by this racist system.

These are for all the moms struggling with depression, anxiety, or other obstacles, who hide that because society tells them they have to.

These are for all the nonbinary / gender queer / trans masc parents who don’t identify as moms and get misgendered extra hard today.

These are for the single moms who face constant judgment, while supporting a family with less than half the income many families have.

These are for all the moms in prison, and the moms whose children or other loved ones have been taken by mass incarceration.

These are for all the trans moms who don’t get cards or flowers or texts today because no one recognizes their mothering. I see & love you.

She may add more, so check her Twitter feed. I don’t have anything to add: I’m just appreciating the range of ways she thinks about mothers, and the range of mothers she sent gifts to.

Mother’s Day Proclamation

Laurie says:

Thought it would be interesting to put up the original Mother’s Day proclamation by nineteenth century pacifist and feminist Julia Ward Howe. She was writing in reaction to the carnage of the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War.

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Arise, then, women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
“We will not have great questions decided 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 bosom of the 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 out 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 at 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.

Happy Mother’s Day.