Mother's Day is Coming!

Yes, Mother’s Day is coming, which leads me to remind you all that my book All About Motherhood is the perfect gift for moms at all ages and stages. In keeping with this Mother’s Day time of year, I was thinking, the other day, of a woman I know who once told her prospective second husband at the very moment that he asked her to marry him, that he’d have to keep one thing in mind if he wanted the relationship to work. “I’m a mother,” she said, “and my daughter will always come first.” Hah!

            Now, usually (but certainly not always) men don’t find this out until much later, until after the wedding has taken place, the years have passed, the nine months of pregnancy have been enjoyed (or endured). Only then, when junior pops forth from the womb, does dad see the glowing, glazed look in his wife’s eyes, and somewhere, deep in his soul, realize that in his wife’s heart he may never really be numero uno again.

            Now, certainly this isn’t true of all women, and some men may be just as likely to put their kids ahead of their wives (though I don’t know these guys). And maybe this is wrong (I’m not judging) or maybe it’s right. That’s not the point.

            The point is, however, that women who put their children before everything else (and sometimes, sadly, even before themselves which can lead to big problems) are everywhere. And whether it’s right or not, survival of the next generation rather depends on mothers (and fathers, too) making their kids a top priority. What would happen, after all, if mom forgot to nurse her newborn, or neglected to change his diaper? It wouldn’t be pretty…We may be tempted to critize the woman who tells her husband that baby (or in this case, her adolescent daughter) comes first, but it kind of makes sense in the big picture.

             A mother’s love is stronger than wind, deeper than oceans, wider than the world. It travels everywhere…into the sock drawer, into bank accounts, over teacher’s desks, into doctor’s offices, into preschool and college admissions offices, up trees, under couches, in laundry bins, and everywhere else.  Mother love makes us fearless when we were once filled with fear (and it also makes us fearful where we once were fearless). Everything changes, and I mean everything.

            Good or bad doesn’t matter, it just is. In fact, I might go so far as to argue that a mother’s love is the strongest force in the Universe. Think of it this way: Where would we collectively be without it?