On mothers and motherhood

Mother's Day is going to be a bit different this year, as many of you will not be able to be with your mothers or grandmothers. By the same token, many mothers will not get to see their children – the very people who make them mothers – face to face either.

Nevertheless, we celebrate the day and the women (and some very special men) who love us unconditionally and mother us to the best of their abilities. In this day and age some of you will be able to FaceTime with mom through the miracle of the internet, or at least talk with her thanks to the use of a simple telephone call. Maybe others of you will simply be able to send a card or flowers or some other token of your remembrance and gratitude.

I'm celebrating the day and the women with some great quotes I've found on mothers and motherhood:

"So when the great word 'Mother!' rang once more, I saw at last its meaning and its place; Not the blind passion of the brooding past, But Mother – the World's Mother – come at last, To love as she had never loved before –To feed and guard and teach the human race." – Charlotte Perkins Gilman

"Women's rights in essence is really a movement for freedom, a movement for equality, for the dignity of all women, for those who work outside the home and those who dedicate themselves with more altruism than any profession I know, to being wives and mothers, cooks and chauffeurs, and child psychologists and loving human beings." – Jill Ruckelshaus

"No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement." – Florida Scott-Maxwell

"A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie." – Tenneva Jordan

"Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to 'jump at de sun.' We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground." – Zora Neale Hurston

"And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see -- or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read." – Alice Walker

"Women do not have to sacrifice personhood if they are mothers. They do not have to sacrifice motherhood in order to be persons. Liberation was meant to expand women's opportunities, not to limit them. The self-esteem that has been found in new pursuits can also be found in mothering." – Elaine Heffner

"By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class."– Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary." – Dorothy Canfield Fisher.

"God knows that a mother needs fortitude and courage and tolerance and flexibility and patience and firmness and nearly every other brave aspect of the human soul. But because I happen to be a parent of almost fiercely maternal nature, I praise casualness. It seems to me the rarest of virtues. It is useful enough when children are small. It is useful to the point of necessity when they are adolescents." – Phyllis McGinley

"I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and duty but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world and one that demanded the best I could bring to it." – Rose Kennedy

Happy Mother's Day to all of you moms out there (especially to moms with new babies at home...like our Alysia!)

© Marilda Mel White. Mel is a local Tehachapi writer/photographer and co-owner of the Treasure Trove. She's been looking on the bright side for various publications since 1996 and she welcomes your comments at [email protected].