Mothers, We Should Listen to Them

Mothers, We Should Listen to Them

My first real exposure to the power of the women’s movement was during the pathetically minuscule peace rallies I attended before the US led invasion of Afghanistan by NATO forces.

The vast majority of those in attendance at these rallies were women. Rain or shine, they were present. In their relentless pursuit for peace they would give passionate speeches, handing out flyers to those passing by, trying to prevent war by pleading for sanity from our society.

Initially I had planned on presenting information about how women, mothers specifically, have been the driving force for the peace movement, and how they have succeeded in bringing about change and awakening the masses. But I decided to keep this brief and simple.

This is one of those instances where pictures alone convey the message better than any words that can be strung together. So for today let’s remember all those mothers who tried to stop their children from going to war, and all those mothers who have buried their children because of war.

May we one-day listen to them…

Mothers' Day Proclamation: Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870 -

“Mother's Day was originally started after the Civil War, as a protest to the carnage of that war, by women who had lost their sons. Here is the original Mother's Day Proclamation from 1870”:

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!

Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. 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. 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 our dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow 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 then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place 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.

Julia Ward Howe
Boston1870...

all moms everywhere, thanks!! kosmicdebris.................