Movie moms will make you thankful

Mothers have been officially celebrated at least since the time of the Greeks and their spring festival honoring Rhea, the mother of the gods. The English had an official Mothering Sunday near the end of Lent. But it wasn’t until Julia Ward Howe (who wrote “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”) tried to organize a sort of mothers-for-peace day in the late 19th century that the movement began in the United States.

True credit for Mother’s Day lies with Anna Jarvis of West Virginia, who in 1907 convinced her local church to celebrate mothers on the anniversary of the death of her own mother. She gave out white carnations to all the members of the congregation.

The movement grew ? fast. By 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation naming the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day across the United States. At first, it was celebrated quite simply: One wore a colored carnation if one’s mom was alive and a white one if she was dead.

Poor Anna was eventually to become very unhappy with the commercialization that grew up around her wish to express thanks to the women who raised us. Cards, bouquets of flowers, Sunday brunches and elaborate gifts have superseded Anna’s simple statement with a single carnation.

But Anna lived in a different time. Family values, motherhood, fatherhood and patriotism were all heavily sentimentalized as the Victorian Age blurred into the the 20th century.

And now we are in the 21st century, and very little is sacrosanct. So rather than think of the ideal mother on this day, let’s look at a few very, very scary mothers. It’s something of a postmodern take on motherhood, and it works. One look at these moms of the movies and, no matter what quibbles you’ve had over the years with yours, she’ll seem like a saint.