With tongue in cheek, I’m completely mortified by “Dear Abby.”

Paraphrasing Wikipedia, Mother’s Day was originated in 1908 by Anna Jarvis.

Her primary intent was to honor her mother, who had been very active in supporting wounded soldiers from both sides of the Civil War and had created “Mother’s Day Work Clubs to address public health issues.”

But, by the 1920s, after Woodrow Wilson had made Mother’s Day a national holiday, Jarvis became totally upset by the commercialization of Mother’s Day and the fact that retailers seemed to be benefiting from it more than mothers. She even tried to rescind the holiday.

Thus, as I grew up during the Depression, my mother, an unknowing disciple of Anna Jarvis and not 100 percent accurate in her facts, taught me that Mother’s Day was nothing but a creation by retailers to promote sales and forbade me to give her a Mother’s Day present.

Now, because I do not give a Mother’s Day present to my dear wife and mother of our four children, Abby says I am “thoughtless, insensitive or cheap” (“Woman’s Prince Charming abandoned the magic words,” Page D5, May 4).

John Parker

Falmouth


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