Many nations have a special name for themselves using gender-based terms. For instance, Germans call their country “Fatherland.”  Russians call their nation “Motherland” as do the Ukrainians. The French cover both genders by calling their nation ‘la Patrie”—opting for  “Fatherland” while the word remains in the feminine.  In the USA we refer to our nation as our “Homeland”—a genderless term.

In the USA, Mothers’ Day is to celebrate and honor one’s mother and it takes multiple forms. In this op-ed I am suggesting that celebrating one’s mother is an excellent idea—so is setting aside a later date for Fathers’ Day. In this op-ed I want to emphasize that we need to focus more on “Mother Earth” every day of the year—a necessity for survival. In i970, John and Jane Shuttleworth initiated Mother Earth News in Topeka, Kansas. This bi-monthly promotes re-cycling, renewable energy, family farms with good agricultural practices, better eating habits, and practical simple living. Alternative energy was frequently covered, with articles on how to switch to solar and wind power and how to run your car on ethanol.

In the March/April 1975 issue, John Shuttleworth said in his “Plowboy”* interview that we should not think that only humans have rights on this planet and that our needs, wants and desires should be instantly gratified. We do not understand, he argues, the interconnected

nature of the “garden” we live in, but spend most of our efforts on the human-centered concept of money.

In the scientific world which takes seriously that we are headed for an ecological apocalypse, the questions are how much time do we have and is there a point when it is too late to reverse the process toward that apocalypse?  Can more people and nations of our planet Mother Earth treat every day as “Mother Earth Day”?

*A play on Playboy.

Thanks to Wikipedia for some of the data used in this op-ed.