Who is a mother? It’s a question that bears asking. We all
know the conventional definition of a mother. Someone who gave birth to a baby.
Even if they don’t raise them, they are still, by definition, a mother. But
there are also mothers who become mothers by choosing someone else’s baby and
raising that baby with all the love in their hearts. That would be another kind
of mother – one that is not defined as such, but in my mind, every bit or more
of a mother than one who is biologically a mother.
Then there are women who neither have children nor adopt but
who care so much for children that one wonders why they aren’t called mothers.
Like my friend who doesn’t want children of her own. She is more of a mother than
anyone else I have seen. She runs the school with me. She hugs and comforts
boys who are literally gigantic in size but little children in their minds and
hearts. She keeps problem children in her home when their parents are incapable
of handling them firmly. She feeds children whatever she is eating because for
some of our kids, food is the only means to calm down. She is a mother.
I know women like me too. I am a pretty good mother. I don’t
mollycoddle. I let my kids talk about whatever they want to me so they know
they aren’t being judged. I tell my son to be whatever he can. I tell my
daughter to stand up to every voice that tells her to be a lesser person – even
if that voice comes from someone she loves. And I have lived and dealt with
autism for an incredibly long time while still being able to smile. So I am one
of the tough ones. And I am proud of that.
And lastly there are those women who keep claiming
superiority over the rest of the world because they believe they have birthed
wonders. They not only bring up their children with warped notions of their own
greatness but they also cannot, even for a second, pretend someone else can be
treated like their child. If you cannot even hug another child or see their
pain and feel it in your mind, you are not a mother. If you cannot stop putting
your ego forward for the benefit of a child, then you are not a mother. If you
sit on your throne and demand favours and paeans of glory merely because you
reproduced, then you are no mother. You are just one of the millions of women
who can do that. Go stand in line.
Mothers are powerful. Mothers are compassionate. Mothers can
love without distinction. All other ‘mothers’ are just accidents. Earn your
right to be called Mother. Its not about a womb – its all about heart.
