On Mothers

"Being a mother isn't simply a matter of having children. To think that is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician."

— Sydney Harris

This distinction is crucial. Anyone can give birth, but mothering is an art, a practice, a commitment that goes far beyond biology. I've known women who mothered children they didn't bear, and I've known women who bore children but never truly mothered them. Real mothering is active, intentional, constant. It's the showing up day after day, the endless patience, the cultivation of another human being. Like musicianship, it requires dedication, skill, and heart. The piano is just an instrument; the music is what you do with it.

"Children must have their naps, it's mother who knows best. When what she really means by that is that she needs a rest."

— Donna Evleth

I love the gentle humor here, acknowledging what every mother knows: that self-care often has to be disguised as child-care to be justified. This speaks to a deeper truth about how mothers are expected to be endlessly selfless, never admitting their own needs. But mothers are human. They get tired. They need quiet. They need space to simply exist without tending to someone else. There's wisdom in recognizing this, both for mothers themselves and for those who love them.

"A mother is the only person on earth who can divide her love among ten children and each child still have all her love."

— Anonymous

This captures the mathematical impossibility that is a mother's love. It doesn't follow the laws of division. It multiplies instead. Each child receives what feels like the entirety of their mother's love, and somehow that doesn't diminish what the other children receive. I've watched this in large families - each child utterly convinced they are their mother's favorite, and in a way, each of them is right. This is one of love's great mysteries: its infinite expandability in a finite human heart.

"It takes a hundred men to make an encampment, but one woman to make a home."

— Anonymous

There's a profound difference between shelter and home, between a place to stay and a place to belong. This quotation recognizes that creating home is about more than physical construction - it's about creating emotional atmosphere, establishing rituals, weaving connections, making space sacred through care and intention. This has traditionally been mothers' work, often invisible and undervalued. But anyone who has experienced true home knows its worth cannot be measured.

"An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy."

— Spanish Proverb

This proverb suggests that a mother's moral influence outweighs formal religious instruction. I think there's truth here - the values we absorb at home, through observation and osmosis, shape us more deeply than any sermon. A mother who lives with integrity, kindness, and courage teaches these things more effectively than any lecture could. The example is the lesson. The daily lived reality is the sermon that sticks.

"Mothers fill places so great that there isn't an angel in heaven who wouldn't be glad to give a bushel of diamonds to come down here and take their place."

— Billy Sunday

Sunday's hyperbole contains a genuine insight: that mothering represents one of the highest callings available to a human being. The work of forming a soul, of guiding a life from helpless infancy to capable adulthood, of loving someone through all their changes and challenges - this is profound work. It's easy to idealize distant, abstract forms of service, but the daily, intimate, messy work of mothering is where the rubber meets the road. It's where love becomes real.

"Most of the beautiful things in life come by twos and threes, by dozens and hundreds. Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers, and sisters, aunts and cousins, but you've only one mother in the whole world."

— Kate Douglas Wiggin

This singularity makes the mother-child bond so precious and so fragile. We take comfort in redundancy, in having backups, in knowing there are more chances. But there is no spare mother. This unique relationship, this one person who carried you and cared for you, cannot be replicated. I think this is why mother-loss is so profound, and why the mother-child relationship, for better or worse, shapes us so deeply. It's the one relationship we can never truly replace.

"A woman of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies."

— Proverbs 31:10

This ancient text recognizes what modern economies still undervalue: the worth of character, of steadfast devotion, of the countless unseen ways a good mother strengthens and sustains her family. Rubies are rare and precious, but this passage suggests that a devoted mother is rarer still. In a world that measures value in money and status, this is a vital corrective - reminding us that some treasures cannot be bought, some work cannot be adequately compensated, some love cannot be priced.

"Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Her children arise and call her blessed."

— Proverbs 31:30,28

Beyond the specific religious language, this speaks to how a mother's true worth reveals itself over time. Surface qualities fade, but depth of character endures. The real measure of a mother isn't how she appears to the world, but how her children remember her, how they carry her influence into their own lives. When adult children "arise and call her blessed," it's because they've come to understand, with mature gratitude, all that she gave them. That recognition is the deepest honor.

"There is nothing like a mother's love. It is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible."

— Marion C. Garretty

I've witnessed this firsthand - mothers pulling strength from reserves they didn't know they had, accomplishing things that seem superhuman, enduring what seems unendurable, all for their children. A mother's love taps into something primal and powerful. It's protective, fierce, enduring. It doesn't count the cost or calculate the odds. It simply does what needs to be done. This isn't sentimentality; it's observable reality. The love between mother and child releases extraordinary capacity in ordinary people.

Closing Reflection

After spending time with these quotations, I'm reminded that every conversation about mothers is really two conversations: about the ideal and the real, about what mothers represent and who they actually are.

Mothers are placed on pedestals, and mothers are taken for granted. Mothers are honored in theory and undervalued in practice. Mothers are expected to be everything - nurturing but not smothering, present but not intrusive, selfless but not martyred, strong but not hard.

The truth is simpler and more complex: mothers are people. Imperfect people doing important work. The best we can do is recognize the magnitude of that work while acknowledging its difficulty. To honor mothers without romanticizing motherhood. To appreciate what they give without demanding that they give everything.

If you are a mother, may you know that your work matters profoundly, even when it feels invisible. If you have a mother, may you see her not just as the role she plays but as the person she is. And may we all work toward a world that truly values the work of nurturing the next generation.