It is Mother’s Day and it is about time someone recognized the women that gave us life. According to History.com, Mother’s Day was created by Anna Jarvis of West Virginia in 1908. It soon became so commercial that Jarvis spent the rest of her life trying to remove it from the calendar. Well it has become a bit commercial with restaurants catering to special menu’s and flower companies having lots of business. Chocolate companies do well too as well as spa and self-care gift cards being sold. It is all about looking at Ma and saying she is a good woman who always wants the best for her children no matter what sacrifice or what cost to her. It is a popular time to give back.

It seems that a mother will do almost anything for her child most recently seen among the tragic destruction of a poor Baltimore city in chaos. There was one video of a women rushing through the debris and crowds of people dodging herself from things being thrown around to find her teenage son and bitch slap the black off of him and make him stop participation in the riots to go home . It was a disturbing sight on many levels but it did make a nation stop and watch and bond as parents do and all agree that family and humanity counts. Moms have crazy courage that way when it comes to their children.  The scene was funny and it was also sad but no one disagreed with her decision.

All women or prospective Moms need to be respected. Being born a girl means you have a body that is curvaceous and beautiful but built to provide children. Women have mood swings, PMS, bleeding every month, breasts built to hold milk just large enough for a tiny baby’s arm to hold while sucking on the perfect size nipple to receive the best nutrition at the perfect temperature. Women are amazing.  Yet the most perfect of Moms do not receive any social security funds for the years they stay home raising a family. The workplace considers those years not working as lost years putting a woman back in line for good jobs. Yes, having a child these days requires much sacrifice for women. They are not even compensated for their pain and suffering during childbirth. Most women are sent home with their newborns that need constant care while they themselves are not healed and continue to bleed.

In parts of the world there is a drop of newborns. Yes Moms are becoming scarce. On the Italian island of Sardinia   the number of babies being delivered annually has dropped by 70%. Babies are increasingly rare in Italy. In 2014 there were fewer babies born in Italy than any other time since 1861. Now women there seek education and employment first before families if at all. Quite often a woman is 40 years old before she can afford a home for a family. Then a family would probably be only one child. No one wants to raise many children in poverty which is a true sentiment spreading across most of the developed world.   The birthrate in Russia and Europe and America is already below the replacement rate of about 2 children per couple. In Italy one quarter of all women have no children at all.

It is partly because of a system that gives women no support. More than 50% of Italian women are in the workforce outside their home and yet there is no affordable daycare services, no school meals and no after school programs. They are trapped into a situation of “only” being housewives that earn them no money.  Young women have dreams of college and a good career, not husbands or children now. They are giving up the dream of having it all because they realize they can ‘t do it all. The days of the big families with 10 children are gone. So, the answer now is to cherish any new Mom willing to become a Mom.