08/05/2021
Happy Mothering Day ♡
Mother as a verb – as in to be mothered and to mother — the very best of human possibilities come into our imaginations. And we are all able to mother, whatever our s*x or our age or our abilities.
To mother is to care about the welfare of another person as much as one’s own.
To mother depends on empathy and thoughtfulness, noticing and caring.
To mother creates the only pairing in which the older and the younger, the stronger and the weaker, are perfectly matched.
It is also about free will. One can be forced to become a mother, but one cannot be forced to mother.
What Julia Ward Howe had in mind in 1870 when she invented Mother’s Day was a day on which we oppose war and advance peace. In other words, it was not Mother’s Day, but a Mothering Day.
It reminds us all, whether we are young or old, male or female, of the possibilities that lie within us and that we cherish one another.
