Representations of Motherhood
Moms in the News
Moms in Music
Moms in Advertising
Moms in Television
Moms in Film
Moms in Magazines
Moms in Literature
Letter to my Mother
The world likes to tell us a lot of how mothers should be and what they should do to be the best mothers but I think you already figured that out. From what I can tell the best thing you did for me was just be yourself. I know you had ambitions and goals for how you wanted to be as a mother and I have no idea how you matched up in your mind to who you actually have been to Maddie and I but I can tell you that when I talk about you I am proud. I am proud to have a mother who is fully and truly a friend, someone who I seek counsel from and deeply value the opinion of. I am proud because you are every bit of the word sane. You are rational and understanding. You are slow to anger and slow to let us be fully ourselves. I have never once felt in my life that I had to be someone or do something to have your approval or love and that is a gift. I am proud because you are loving, regardless of middle school and early high school. You are the most comforting and life giving human being I know--mostly because you're my mother but I don't think every mom is that way. I am proud because you are a fully capable and able woman. You pursued your dreams in life and didn't settle for the expected. You made great adventures for yourself and now have wonderful memories and stories to share. I am proud because you lived, and you have set that standard now for me to go out and do the same. I am proud because you have shown me that there is much life and purpose in a marriage and a family but it's not the destination in life, it's the crew that makes up the team that goes along beside you. I am proud because you put in me a desire to achieve and to follow dreams and passions and I am proud because you have given me the freedom to do so even when it's far away and even when you might want me close by. I am proud because you love me so selflessly and there are so many mothers who are manipulative and self-seeking when it comes to how they love their kids as they've grown up. I am proud to be your daughter and to see parts of you in me. I am proud to have a mother who I want to be when I grow up and hopefully have children of my own. I can't imagine what it would be that would make you better than you already are. In my mind you are the standard of what it means to be a mom and all else fail in comparison. I know I have to be biased in some form or fashion but I still can't help but believe in the deepest parts of me that I'm just pointing out what everyone else in the world would say if they knew you. I am proud because all of my friends who meet you love you and tell me how real and down to earth you are and how much they love that. I am proud because I never have anything to say when my friends complain about their moms. I am proud because people tell me what a gift it is to have a mother who doesn't expect their child to be someone their not and who doesn't nag or manipulate them. I am proud to be your daughter and I cry almost every time I leave home simply because of you. I'm never really sure why, but I do, and I think its because of how much I love you and I how deeply I value and cherish my time with you. I don't think all the weird feels of growing up and hormones help anything either.For the record I am able to pull myself together, as I think I should and as you probably would want me to as well, but there is something to be said for the emotional reaction stemming from love and respect that rises from within me when I dwell upon who you are and what you mean to me. Even now as I write this I am overwhelming proud, crying, and so beyond what the word thankful expresses when it comes to who you are. I am proud because you are a woman worth knowing and a mother worth becoming. You may compare yourself to others, but in my mind you have achieved it all. You have lived, you love well and set an example by your actions and life, you are graceful and beautiful in all of your ways but strong and firm at the same time. You are hilarious and so wise, you make life sweetly simple when i've turned it into a complicated mess in my mind. There are representations of mothers in everything around us and rarely do they meet the standard of what it truly means to be a mom as you have been to Maddie and I. I am thankful for the twenty two years I have gotten to be your daughter, my life would be so drastically different if I was anyone else's daughter and I am so thankful that Jesus had me as yours. Mom, as a woman I know there are tendencies to compare and to wonder how we measure up and the reality is that what the world throws at us as the standard really isn't an acceptable standard at all. Motherhood and being a woman isn't done well if it's only about the image. I think the standard is measured in the lives of those you impact and I believe only those who know you can tell you if you're doing it well or not. I believe you have achieved it all as to what it means to be a woman and a mother and there is no single thing I would change about you. You make me all sorts of emotional because of how much I love you and I wish i could look you in the eye and say these things but even writing about it now makes the tears increase at a faster rate so that would be a horrible hot mess that I don't need to create. Mom I am proud of who you are, of how you have lived and how you have loved. I am every bit of proud to be your daughter and to be like you without even trying to be. Mom in every ounce of my soul I am thankful for who you are. To me you are perfect and lovely and wonderful and there is no woman better than you. I am glad that you are you and nothing less, and especially that you are you and not the image that the world gives us to be. You are the reality of what it means to be a woman and a mom and to do it well. I absolutely adore you and am so underserving of such a normal and loving woman to love me as you have. Mom I know what it means to be a woman because of you and I am forever a better woman because how you have lived and loved me.