Mamá!

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. ~William Makepeace Thackeray

And in the lips and hearts of big children too.

“Brunnhilde” by Arthur Rackam, 1910

Here at GFOW we’re preparing for that most hallowed of days by providing the best Mothers’ Day cards we can come up with, and we think you’ll have so much fun with them that you’ll wish you had more than one mother!

But wait, let’s think about this.  If you’re very lucky you’ll have at least two grandmothers won’t you?  Heaven knows they have paid their mommy dues.  And if you’re as wise as you apparently are (having demonstrated it by landing here) you know darn well that mothers-in-law count too.  As do step-mothers, of course.  How many of  you actually have great grandmothers too?  So you can see how you’re going to need a handful of cards, not just one, and we’ve got them!

You know, of course, that your Mom is the Queen of Everything.  But  you won’t be reminding her of that obvious fact, just recognizing it, right?

Sheet music of a popular song in 1899, by Charles Coleman

And mothers are strong!   They may not start out that way but we sons and daughters certainly do our best to make them so.

When you were a tot did you think your mom could do everything?

Mother’s Bread

A 1906 photo by Edward Steichen, one of the great photographers of the 20th century

Our celebration of Motherhood is trans-species, right?

Currier and Ives print of 1866

A Norman Rockwell cover for Leslie’s Weekly, 1917.

Did your mom ever ask you to thread a needle for her?  Mine did.

Absaroke mother and papoose, by Edward S. Curtis, 1915

This young mother and her baby are dressed in their finest for their sitting with Edward Curtis.  Although it’s hard for many of us to imagine, our mothers very well could have been this young when we popped onto the scene.  Nothing like the first papoose to change a girl into a woman!

Back in 1846, a couple of gentlemen named Sarony and Major published this lithograph extolling the ideal mother.  (I think they had you in mind when they drew the little girl in the yellow dress, don’t you?)

“The Happy Mother”

Now you have no excuse!  Click on any of the images above to be taken to that card on our Etsy site and do it soon.  Mother’s day is May 10 so for once, get her taken care of early and for sure.  And don’t skimp – include a card with your gift to her; it will make her so happy she may even forget all the times you haven’t exactly been the way she taught you!

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“Life doesn’t come with a manual – it comes with a mother.”