What Does It Mean to Be a Mother?

What is motherhood you ask? Motherhood is many worthy and ruthless things combined into one. When becoming a mom, your child completely becomes your life. You always put them first, even before yourself, no questions asked. You provide for you children and love them unconditionally through the good and bad. Having children puts a lot of weight on your shoulders and you are expected to lift it all. Nobody ever said motherhood was easy, and it’s effortless to see why sometimes. In the poems “Daystar”, “In the Park”, and “Marks” we see many views of how motherhood has affected these women and how hard being a mother can be.

A mother is one who has endless love for her children. She serves as a protector, a provider, and a friend to say the least. She is selfless. She makes sacrifices. All in the name of protecting and providing for what she knows is her most precious gift from God. Many would agree that being a mother is the hardest but most rewarding job a women will ever have. Hardest because this world has established many barriers for mothers; logistical, social, and political.

Motherhood is a very broad meaning. It doesn’t have just one definition. It differs from each and every generation, as well as each and every society. In the Introduction to The Reproduction of Mothering, the author states how hard mothers are judged on their ability to raise a child well enough, and seen as a bad parent if the child does not meet certain expectations for society. The mother is blamed rather than the child itself. The author states, “how our children turn out has become the final judgement on our lives”. This gives mothers a sense of self-doubt. They start to feel as if they are failures even when they tried their hardest at raising their child.

Rewarding, selfless, joy, blood, sweat, and tears; what do these words have in common, other than sounding like tough work? These are just some of the words that are synonymous with the word, motherhood. One word I believe should also be added to the long list is sacrifice. According to Merriam-Webster’s definition, sacrifice means “destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else.” Children, from the time they are conceived to the time they are moving out to go to college, require so much time, attention, resources and care that many women do not have. Mothers are required to sacrifice their resources, no matter how much they need it, in order to help with the success and survival of their offspring. Being an African-American

One way I define a mother is someone who has love. The moment I had my children, I fell in love. I will never feel a stronger love than the kind I have for my children. The love for a child will never end. It is the kind of love that is unconditional.

Becoming a mother does not come with a mother manual or guide. How a mother should behave when a child dies is socially constructed. In the article by Nancy Scheper-Hughes called, Mother’s Love: Death without Weeping,” it discussed how the mothers of the town of Alto handle the death of their child. Alto is a poor underdeveloped shantytown. The women of Alto work for very little wages and they cannot bring their children to work with then. The babies are left all alone and sometimes die.

Everyone has a different idea of what being a great mother should be and what characteristics they should possess. Personally, my mother is different from other American mothers. Usually, mothers continue their duties and traditions from past generations or make up for what their mothers lacked in order to provide a better experience for their children. The concrete definition of a mother is: a woman in relation to a child or children whom she has given birth; though today sometimes the circumstances are difficult in comparison of what society expects our ideal mother to be. A mother is a woman who takes care of a child, someone who is emotionally connected to a child, and someone who cares unconditionally about that child. The mother of a child does not have to be the one who gave birth to a specific human, but they are the ones who have this unconditional thing we call love.

Being a mother is an achieved status as I chose to be a mother and this status was achieved voluntarily. The status has numerus roles that make a role set. There are four roles in particular that describe me the best as a mother which are, parenting, care for, counsel, and provider for. The role of a parenting is to educate and discipline your child. By parenting you are expected to give your child education, moral bases, and a religious background. To educate your child as they grow up, you are the first role model they have. Everything they see and say is because they have learned it form you. To discipline them when they have acted or done something wrong. The role to care for you are expected to give your child the care and attention they need. You are to see for them when they are sick. Ensure your child is taken care of at all times, if you cannot do so, find the appropriate provider like a babysitter or daycare. Taking the appropriate measures to ensure they are always safe and taken care of. To counsel, in this role you provide them with emotional and mental support. In this role you have to make sure that your child has your full support. That you are there number one fan or

Toni Morrison paints a beautiful picture of what it means to be a mother in her novel A Mercy. I feel that the two characters who best demonstrate what it means to be a mother are Sorrow and Florens’s mother. These two characters show that a wonderful mother comes not from what you give, but what you sacrifice. Sorrow sacrifices her well-being to earn her daughter a few minutes in the warmth of a house and Florens mother sacrifices her relationship with her daughter to sure that she will be free from the dangers the white master.

Motherhood can literally be seen as living the gospel. Jim Elliot famously said, “He is no fool who gives up that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” Motherhood is an opportunity to lay down the things that you cannot keep on behalf of the eternal souls, that are your children- that is your mission field.

I believe that this occupation holds less meaning for Bayar’s mother when compare to Ponijao’s mother because she does it a lot less and does not have the time to complete it. When nursing a child, especially a newborn, allowing the child to latch and become satisfied with the amount of milk that they have consumed can take, on average, an hour. As a farmer and gatherer in Mongolia, Bayar’s mother does not have the time to do this task and keep the cattle where they need to be as well as managing the crop growth. The cattle and crops are how they most likely get a majority of their income, and neglecting these tasks can lead to a decrease in income, which could be detrimental to the family. It is also suggested that a mother should nurse

Becoming a mother makes you feel joyful, elated, empowered, and invincible. You've just pushed another human being out of your body, and you're unprepared for all the things that come so quickly. While you're in the hospital, you've got plenty of help, but when you go home, it's all up to you.

Todays mothers will quite literally do anything for their child and can begin to feel like they are on the verge of insanity, and yet they still feel like it’s not enough. They feel such a gigantic guilt thinking that somehow they must know every need of their baby before the baby itself even knows what it wants. Mothers feel like they can never stop nursing, never stop rocking, and never stop carrying the baby like the baby must be held, loved, and cared for at every moment of every day. But fifty years ago, things were different. The mother did whatever was needed to get by, and that was it. They were not nearly as vocal about their beliefs and what they do for their baby as new mothers are in this day and age. However the love of a mother runs deep.

Mothers are the ones who have been chosen to keep the growth of humanity. They are the ones who build the humanity. Without mothers, there are no human beings. Mothers are the one who raised these humans to live in societies until this day. They are the ones who sacrifice their time and their body to raise children all these years and they are the reasons that populations has risen. Even though these populations and eras have changed through time, mothers are and will always be the core of any population on the earth.

A mother is most commonly defined as a woman who has raised a child or given birth to a child, but what makes one a good mother? Some people believe that a good mother never has a dirty home, always has a four course meal at dinner time, and never gets frustrated or angry. Some mothers can juggle it all, a clean house every day, delicious dinners every evening, and maybe even never having a meltdown. With working or single mothers those tasks can be challenging, and just because a mother can accomplish such everyday tasks does not necessarily make her a good mother. How a mother deals with the everyday stresses of motherhood, how she provides unconditional love, and how she supports her child, is what qualifies one to be a good mother. Being a good mother is a choice a woman makes every day to put her child’s happiness and well-being above her own. She gives her all for her children, she provides unconditional love, support, and does her very best to lead by example.