Posted by Robert Weir, district leader

Here is my Mother’s Day letter to the editor that appeared in the Kalamazoo Gazette, Sunday, May 13, 2007.

Mothers should unite to promote peace today

When Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910) instituted Mother’s Day in 1870, she drew upon her experience as a Civil War nurse.

Since then, Mother’s Day has become the victim of commercialized “spin.” And while it is nice to honor our mothers with flowers and greeting cards, it is necessary, especially in this time of unjust and unwarranted war, to realize that Howe intended for the holiday to be a statement by mothers against war.

In her Mother’s Day Proclamation, Howe asserted the power of women to demand peace: “Our husbands shall 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 women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

In effect, Howe was putting into words the practices of women in ancient civilizations who banded together in primal wisdom to withhold procreation from their men who merely wanted to breed future warriors.

Similarly, Marianne Williamson, chair of the campaign for a U.S. Department of Peace, pleads for all mothers to stand firm against the use of children, regardless of age, as instruments of war.

And, Nobel Peace Laureate Betty Williams of Ireland contends, “Every time a child dies of violence, it is a mother's labor spurned.”

If you want to honor the original intention of Mother's Day, then work for peace and work to end war – not just the current wars, but all war. Send a Mother's Day card to your elected officials and their spouses. Say, as Howe did, “Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.” Insist that not one more child die in combat—ever.