"Mother's love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved." - Erich Fromm
In a season of recognizing motherhood, I would like for us to show appreciation to not only the mother's that birthed us, but as well the mother figures we have encountered throughout our lives. While any woman can become pregnant and give birth, not every woman have has what it takes to be a mother. A mother is a special breed of woman. She defies all odds through carrying a living being within her womb for nine months and then caring for the birthed child for another eighteen years, sometimes longer.
Disregarding the monetary investment in raising children, a mother as well puts a fair amount of time into raising children. Eighteen years and nine months doesn’t sound that long however, to put that into perspective, that’s about six thousand eight hundred and fifty days or five hundred and forty five million seconds.
When someone thinks of the word “mother,” they normally conceptualize their birther, however we as humans experience motherly figures all the time without recognizing it. Our mothers, grandmothers, aunts, godmothers, family friends, friend’s mothers and neighbors, we find motherly figures in most aspects of our daily lives without realizing it.
I myself have been fortunate and blessed enough to find myself with many mother figures other than the ones I was born with. While I have my mother and grandmothers, I was fortunate enough to have been given a step mother who treated me as her own, and as well two best friends whose mothers refer to myself as their “adopted son.”
Mothers provide guidance especially through the turmoil we experience in our lives. Everyone has heard the coined term, "a mother knows best," and well... they do. As much as we disagree with, argue with, contradict, more often than not our mothers are right.
So in this season of appreciation, let us take more than a moment to gratify our mothers. Mothers of all sorts invest endless amounts of time, money and love into us as humans. Their efforts in raising us into functional human beings should never go unnoticed. Raising children is not an unvarnished feat, and thus I would like for us all to thank mothers everywhere both in kinship and not, for what are we without our mothers?
