What is a Mother?
Essay by Dan Valentine
She’s a big smile with love in the middle…she’s two eyes filled with hope and pride…and just a hint of fear.
She’s a member of the world’s greatest sorority…
She’s America’s hardest working career girl… She’s a Mother
She’s old and young and in-between…she’s short and tall and rich and poor…
She is the hope of the world with love in her heart… She’s a Mother.
Mother’s come in all assorted sizes and temperaments.
She is timid enough to faint at the sight of a mouse…but will
battle the neighborhood when one of her brood needs help.
She’s a tired sigh standing over a sink filled with dirty dishes…
She’s the future of the world in a pretty dress… She’s a Mother.
Mothers like: Fathers…Children…Quiet nights at home…
Fires in fireplaces…Family outings…The happy shouts of boys and girls…A’s on report cards…and the music of family laughter…
A Mother is the most talented and useful of all living people. She can rock, change, coddle, coax, kiss and burp babies…
She can take leftovers from the refrigerator and blend them into a banquet fit for a king…
She can keep fathers happy…Attend PTA meetings…Volunteer
for church work…and push tons of spinach through the lips of a young baby…
Mothers stand over hot stoves…Push irons back and forth over small shirts and frilly petticoats… Mothers pick up toys and give sympathy and try to see both sides of every argument.
Mothers lend sons to America to fight its wars…and furnish husbands to other women.
Mothers soothe hurt feelings and sing lullabies and bandage up playground wounds…and worry about the food budget.
Mothers like to look pretty for other people…Cry at weddings
…and watch their sons and daughters graduate from college.
Mothers of sons pine for a daughter…and mothers of daughters
hope for a son…And mothers with both feel luckiest of all…
A mother is the original Jill of all trades…She is housekeeper,
plumber, gardener, carpenter and chef…She is baby-sitter, nurse, psychiatrist and judge.
She is pediatrician, hostess, seamstress, janitress and Sunday School teacher.
She is a diplomat holding a safety pin…A philosopher with a cake in the oven…a goodwill ambassador making oatmeal in the morning.
A Mother is a jar of fresh-baked cookies in the cookie jar…She’s a wave of the hand as the school bus disappears down the street every morning.
She thinks a grubby dandelion given by the loving hands of a 5 year son is far more beautiful than a basket of orchids presented by a stranger.
She holds back a tear when she sees her young son start off to school for the first time.
And she holds back a tear when the clouds of war gather over the world…because she knows the war-lords will use her sons for pawns.
Part of each mother’s day is spent in holding back tears…Because mothers only cry at night.
Mothers have the courage that beings gentleness to nations…she gives roots to the family…She gives warmth to the world.
She’s God’s greatest invention…She’s a mother.
