Like Valentine's Day, many people cynically write off Mother's Day as a holiday that has been invented by card companies to boost their sales, while card company think tanks collectively cry 'we wish', the origins of Mother's Day can be traced back to ancient times and tells tales rich in irony.

The earliest noted celebration of Mother's Day start, like most things, in Ancient Greece with the spring festival dedicated to Rhea, the mother of the Greek Gods Poseidon, Hades and Zeus. There were also similar festivals for the mother of the Roman Gods, Cybele.

Christians were the next major group to establish a tribute to their Mothers dedicating the fourth Sunday of the holy period Lent to the Mother of Jesus, Mary.

This lead to the establishment of Mothering Day in the 1600s, again on the fourth Sunday of Lent, the day was set aside for apprentices and servants to take leave from the developing cities and visit their mothers around the country, usually bringing gifts upon arrival.

The British still celebrate this same holiday today on the fourth Sunday of Lent, while countries like Australia, Italy and Denmark take their maternal adoration date from the American version of the event.

It wouldn't be American unless it was newer, bigger and slightly bizarre, and Mother's Day is no different. Anna Jarvis, an Appalachian housemother decided to organize a day to rally mothers in her town to increase the living conditions for all citizens, knowing that mother's were the only ones who could organise the people of the town.

Upon Jarvis' death, her daughter, also named Anna Jarvis dedicated the second Sunday of May to her mother, essentially continuing the work that Jarvis Senior had started that aimed to celebrate the hard work that women did.

Jarvis lobbied politicians to adopt the day for the nation, in her one-year memorial service Jarvis handed out her mother's favourite flower, a white carnation. Five years later the House of Representatives adopted a resolution declaring all government workers should wear a white carnation on Mother's Day and by 1914 Woodrow Wilson made Mother's Day a national holiday.

Jarvis' mission was accomplished, but now comes the bizarre bit. When the greater public adopted the celebration they moved away from Jarvis' idea of going to church and started to give gifts and send cards, which made Jarvis mad who believed the sentiments of the day were being spoiled.

In 1923 a now round the twist Jarvis filed a law suit to stop a Mother's Day Festival and was then arrested for disturbing the peace at a convention selling carnations for a war mother's group. Despite her efforts the trend has spread around the world, which is why in Australia we celebrate the hard work that our mothers do on the second Sunday of May.

As for the founder of our modern Mother's Day, Anna Jarvis died in 1948, on her deathbed proclaiming that she regretted ever inventing Mother's Day. So if you think Mother's Day is a commercial exercise, so did the person who invented it.

Your mother might be tops, but here are some mother's from history who have also been influential.

Whistler's Mother
Born in 1804 and raised in North Carolina, Anna McNeil Whistler married George Washington Whistler and raised five of her own children as well as five from George's previous marriage to Anna's best friend. Her eldest son, James McNeil Whistler proved to be the most talented of their offspring as a renowned painter.

Despite his father being hailed as an engineering genius who built the first mile of passenger railway in America, James chose to honour his mother on canvas.

Jocasta
While many a tombstone may read 'much loved wife and mother', the term would be most applicable to the Queen of Thebes and famed mother of Oedipus. Unwittingly marrying her own son and etching her family's tortured tale in history forever, Jocasta and Oedipus have given this modern age our most popular derogatory accusation.

Queen Boudica
Well before Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir there was one woman proving just how capable women were. As the Queen of the Iceni tribe, Boudica led her troops on an uprising around Britain in 60AD and almost chased the misogynist Romans out of the Isles, proving to them that women were warriors, not property, and she was a mother to boot.

Mother Earth
There's one thing that binds everyone on the planet together, our mother earth. Some love her more than others but regardless of whether you hug trees or own an oil refinery in Texas, there's not a single person who doesn't enjoy some of mother earth's protection.