God could not be everywhere, and so he made mothers.
– Jewish Proverb

Parents – persons who are there in our lives as a pillar of support and protection. Persons who are always there for us and hence are taken for granted at times. We may seldom realize that they contribute toward the building up of a structure – a mind, body and soul – packaging it as a complete personality. Without the conscience of love, concern and affection contributed by a mother and the conscience of responsibility, independence and obedience contributed by a father, a human being is not complete. While a father’s love is to be earned, deserved and is thus, conditional, a mother’s love is abundant and unconditional.

‘Good parents give their children roots and wings.
Roots to know where home is,
wings to fly away and exercise what has been taught to them.’

One of the most precious things in our life is a mother. A mother represents home, warmth, peace and nature. No matter whether she expresses her love or demonstrates her emotions, there is no doubt that none can love more than a mother. This quality and virtue is attributed to a mother alone. In this regard a woman is fortunate to be capable of acquiring this noble and revered status. If anyone deserved to be worshipped besides God, it would have been a mother…any mother. Whether she is ugly or beautiful, rich or poor, literate or illiterate, a mother will always be special. If a woman has no achievement or attribute attached to her but proves to be a good mother, nothing else matters. If she proves to be a bad mother, all else that she has or is, would not really matter. In fact the mere fact that a woman is a mother automatically arouses the feelings of respect and warmth in all.

It is said that making the decision to have a child is momentous. But it is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. This decision is not an easy one for it drastically changes the life of a woman. This decision is full of commitment, responsibility, and exhaustion in every sense of the word. And then there is no turning back…

Erich Fromm in his book, ‘The Art of Loving’, very beautifully explains the essence of a mother’s love. He states that: ‘Mother is warmth; mother is food – she is the euphoric state of satisfaction and security… There is no misdeed, crime or sin, which can deprive a person of his mother’s love.’

A mother’s emotions have nothing to do with appropriateness or fulfillment of any criteria and conditions. They are sincere and it just matters that she has a child to expend them on. A mother’s concern for her children always outweighs her concern for herself. It can never match anyone else’s in the entire world. Justice and equality can never be witnessed more profoundly than in a mother’s presence and jurisdiction. She never takes her love from one child to give it to another. There is always and always more than enough to go around. Her affection and concern is endless. The more she expresses them, the more is created within her. This replenishable reservoir always seems to be overflowing. For a mother, her children are always her kids…no matter how much they grow. She may find it absolutely normal and justifiable to call them her ‘babies’, even if they have gray hair. A mother does so much for us without ever wanting anything in return…except for her children to be happy! That is all she expects from them.

A mother is not only a pillar of love and security, a caretaker and a friend, she is the also the best guide and teacher one can have. To lose a mother or be deprived of her love and concern may be regarded as a misfortune. It is a void that cannot be fulfilled by any other being or substitute. She is the one who moulds a child into a good human being and citizen. Such a big and vital responsibility given to women in no way reflects her weakness or inferiority but rather her strength of mind and character. Nobody can replace a mother’s role in rearing and educating her child. This noble and challenging work cannot be ordinary or easy. This is why it should earn her the respect and affection she deserves from her children.

This experience of being loved by one’s mother is unique, passive and unconditional. Unique in the sense that no other relation ever involves this kind of unconditional and sincere love. Passive in the sense that there is absolutely nothing that a person has to do in order to be loved by his mother. All he has to do is be her child and thus, keep on gaining her love, concern and affection. Mother’s love is unconditional because she loves her child, not because the child has fulfilled any specific condition, or lived up to any specific expectation. This love is such that it never disappears and hence the fear and insecurity never comes in the minds of the children. This may be a drawback in the sense that we can and do take this love and person for granted. In spite of everything, she loves because she is a mother. Period. Nothing more to it.

Where do you find this elsewhere? Believe me – nowhere! Adoration is the highest and humblest reverence and worship due a mother. It is the one thing we can pay to our mother as a tribute to her being. All should know that in this competitive, corrupt, materialistic and technical age there is still something simple and uncorrupt left…something that money can’t buy…a mother’s love.

‘It is good to value the things money can buy,
but it is good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure
you haven’t lost the precious things in life that money can’t buy.’