Breakfast in bed or brunch out on the town? French toast or waffles? Coffee, mimosa, or both?

These are the kinds of questions many of us have asked our moms on Mother's Day—or have been asked ourselves. These are lovely, generous questions, don’t get me wrong. But if you want to celebrate Mother’s Day in a way that reflects the origins of the holiday and deepens your connection to your mother, you might consider asking some different questions.  

We owe our modern Mother’s Day celebrations to Anna Jarvis. Born in West Virginia in 1864, Anna set out to create a Mother’s Day holiday after the death of her mother, Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis. Never having married and with no children of her own, Anna was determined to honor her mother’s legacy, which extended past the confines of her own family. 

Ann Maria is believed to have given birth to about a dozen children, but most of them died from diseases like the measles, widespread in the Appalachian area where she lived. Hoping to prevent more deaths, Ann organized public health endeavors called “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs,” with other women in her area. They raised money to provide assistance and medicine to families that needed it, inspected bottled milk and food, and taught neighbors about the importance of hygiene. 

When the Civil War started, Jarvis turned her women’s groups’ attention to caring for soldiers and insisted they serve those from both sides of the war. In 1868, when tensions were still high, Jarvis organized a “Mothers’ Friendship Day” to try to restore a sense of togetherness to the community. According to historian Katherine Lane Anatolini, daughter Anna recalled once hearing her mother say, “I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mother’s day commemorating [mothers] for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is entitled to it.” 

Anna made that her life’s work. She organized the earliest official celebration in her hometown of Grafton, West Virginia in 1908, and then lobbied governors around the country. By the time President Woodrow Wilson signed a presidential proclamation making it a national holiday, most states had already been celebrating it. Anna’s vision was for sons and daughters to visit with their mothers or send hand-written letters to them, thanking them not only for their role in the family home but more broadly for the role they played in the country. “This is not a celebration of maudlin sentiment,” she wrote. “It is one of practical benefit and patriotism, emphasizing the home as the highest inspiration of our individual and national lives.”

Ann and Anna Jarvis both recognized how family life is deeply affected by and intertwined with forces and developments outside the home. They saw firsthand the impact of epidemics, public health campaigns, and war on their hometown and their own family. They knew first-hand how women often took it upon themselves to work together for the benefit of those inside and outside their own four walls. And they knew how important that work was to the country’s ability to survive and thrive.

Over time, Anna Jarvis became severely disappointed because she felt Mother’s Day had devolved into a commercial holiday that benefited florists and greeting card companies more than truly honoring mothers’ efforts and sacrifices.  

So, this Mother’s Day, you might give your Mom the gift of curiosity and ask her some new questions. How does she think about her role as a mother? How might that be similar to or different from how her mother and grandmother saw things? What changes—political, cultural, scientific—does she think have shaped her approach to mothering? 

Questions like these are at the heart of history. By setting aside time to ask them, you can give your Mom one of the greatest gifts possible, and honor Ann and Anna Jarvis’s contributions to history at the same time.