Observed the second Sunday in May, as proposed by Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia in 1907, Mother's Day was first recognized as a holiday by West Virginia in 1910.  President Woodrow Wilson officially proclaimed Mother's Day a national holiday in 1914.

(Source: A friendly reminder from The World Congress of Families and The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society: Mother's Day is Sunday, 13 May, 2001.)

"My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her." ¹

"Education commences at the mother's knee, and every word spoken within the hearing of little children tends towards the formation of character." ²

(Source 1: George Washington [1732-1799])

Knowing that their mothers might find out-or remembering what their grandma told them-may lower women's propensity to take sexual risks.

In this pilot study, published in the Winter 2000 issue Family Process, women were interviewed at a county health department clinic seeking diagnosis or treatment for a sexually transmitted disease or receiving services at a community organization.  The women were asked questions relating to their "contact with the extended family system, and continuity within the multigenerational family (indexed through knowledge of family history)."

Family knowledge was positively related to regular family contact, on both weekly (r = .22, p = .10) and monthly (r =. 24, p = .08) bases.  Interestingly, for women interviewed in the STD Clinic setting, continuity-knowing family stories-is strongly and negatively related to sexual risk-taking (p < .001), while women interviewed at the Community Organization evidence only a significance level of p < .10, with family knowledge remaining negatively correlated to sexual risky behavior.

Concerning family contact, "monthly contact and sexual risk-taking were moderately and negatively correlated."  However, for Community Organization interviewees, the correlation did not rise to statistical significance (STD Clinic sample p < .10).

The researchers conclude that sexual risk-taking among women may be reduced by encouraging or re-establishing regular contact with their families, "A possible mechanism through which this relationship operates is suggested: families that (a) have a core set of values or standards that may get communicated through family stories, or (b) possess both closer ties and a stronger sense of belonging reflected in the telling of family stories, could be expected to have a stronger inhibiting effect on sexual risk-taking compared to families with an ambiguous or weaker set of standards."

In other words, if you have regular contact with your family, or if you remember your family history, you are less likely to embarrass that family with untoward sexual behavior.

(Source: Landau, Judith, Robert E. Cole, Jane Tuttle, Colleen D. Clements, and M. Duncan Stanton, "Family Connectedness and Women's Sexual Risk Behaviors: Implications for the Prevention/Intervention of STD/HIV Infection," Family Process, Vol. 39, No. 4 [Winter 2000]: 41-475.)