Happy Mother’s Day!

Happy Mother’s Day to all moms—and all those fulfilling the role of mom full-time, part-time or just occasionally—everywhere!

And very special thoughts to all those missing their moms today.

To celebrate the power of mothers and motherhood, here are some of our favorite—and most thought-provoking— quotes:

“Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.” – Barbara Kingsolver

“To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.” – Maya Angelou

“Being a mom has made me so tired. And so happy.” – Tina Fey

“[My mother] had handed down respect for the possibilities—and the will to grasp them.” – Alice Walker

“Having kids—the responsibility of rearing good, kind, ethical, responsible human beings—is the biggest job anyone can embark on.” – Maria Shriver

“[Motherhood is] the biggest gamble in the world. It is the glorious life force. It’s huge and scary—it’s an act of infinite optimism.” – Gilda Radner

“Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.” – Robert Browning

And finally, here is an inspiring note on the history of Mother’s Day written by Heather Cox Richardson in a Facebook post, dated May 7, 2022.

She says: If you Google the history of Mother’s Day, the internet will tell you that Mother’s Day began in 1908 when Anna Jarvis decided to honor her mother. But “Mothers’ Day”—with the apostrophe not in the singular spot, but in the plural—actually started in the 1870s, when the sheer enormity of the death caused by the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War convinced American women that women must take control of politics from the men who had permitted such carnage. Mothers’ Day was not designed to encourage people to be nice to their mothers. It was part of women’s effort to gain power to change modern society.”