All The Loving Mothers

Diary, Life And Love, love, memoir, Reflections 2 Minutes

There are so many wonderful mothers that I don’t know where to start. Here I am going to list them–it’s an inexhaustible list and I can only list a few. Real life mothers and literary mothers are going to be mixed together because they coexist in my mind without much difference to each other.

  • Mothers who work hard to juggle family and work. These mothers work non-stop and they don’t have a minute for themselves. If there are grandparents around to lend a hand, these mothers can have a break from time to time, but otherwise, they just have to rally their strength to deal with the pressure.
  • Mothers who enjoy spending time with their children. I know one or two mothers like this in my community. The mother and daughter pair show up in hair salon, shopping mall, church. They wear each other’s clothes, comb each other’s hair, talk about recipes and beauty routines. I always envy them. My own relatives are reserved and inexpressive, which makes me desire affectionate display even more.
  • Mothers who are very serious about their children’s education. These mothers involve themselves in their children’s schoolwork, friendship, after school training. They talk with teachers and other mothers to see if there are resources to be explored and opportunities to be sought after for their kids. Some would move from one township to another to find the best school experience for their kids.
  • Dedicated mothers who work for their children’s careers. Behind every tennis player, figure skater, child actor and classical musician, there’s a mother who sacrifice her own career to accompany her child as a chauffeur, a cheerleader, a comforter, a scheduler.
  • Mrs. Musgrove in “Persuasion” by Jane Austen. She is very affectionate and caring to all her children. One of her sons are sent to the navy because he’s intractable on land. Still she loves him and wants to know how his life is under Captain Wentworth.
  • Mrs. Wilcox in “Howards End” by E. M. Forster. She is so loving to her children and so loving to Margaret too even if she’s not her children. What a wonderful woman, person, and mother. Her heart is open and she respects friendship between women–although the author never points this out, I suspect she loves Margaret more than she loves those characters of hypocrisy in her own family– E. M. Forster is brilliant in here to probe something that rarely examined by other novelists. For a person who grows up in a family based society like me, his writing is so exotic and refreshing.
  • Mothers who are entertaining. In Bridget Jones’s Diary, Mrs. Jones is very entertaining and I love the character, although I dislike the author’s treatment of her, which relegates her to the corner of eccentricity and irrationality. Her desire is valid and her yearning for experiences is essential for human existence despite the fact that her pursuit will surely disturb the family peace.
  • Mothers who are unconventional. Angelina Jolie’s mother is like that. She let her daughter express her thoughts and emotions freely without the usual parental sanctions; she asked her daughter’s boyfriend–her high school peer– to move in with them. Also in the TV series “The Affair”, Alison’s mother is such a character. She lives and loves unconventionally even if she incurs a lot of criticism from people around her.

Published by haoyando

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33 thoughts on “All The Loving Mothers”

    1. Me too. She is really fun to watch and I hope society can be arranged in a more imaginative way so that Mrs. Jones can have the fun while her family will not be hurt. LOL.

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        1. Exactly what I am thinking. A girl needs fun no matter how old she is. While Bridget has all the fun, her mother is not dead and wants to live her life too.

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        5. She does. I mean she is entitled to have some fun, isn’t she? I always feel sympathetic to minor characters–they are marginalized and unfairly criticized in the fiction.

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        7. Whenever such kind of topic is touched, it’s another “Madame Bovary”, the book I really hate. The book is so well written, which makes me hate it even more since the message is so wrong.

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        8. Omg yes that book annoys me so much!! I read it since it’s so famous but I was so irritated by the message too. I hate it when people villainize characters for simply being human.

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        9. Yes. People are villainized and demonized for doing the simple human thing. I have always pondered on this point that many things we do have to be socially sanctioned, women much more so than men. If one lives in two cultures, one seems to be navigating two sanction systems…

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        10. Yeah women are definitely more often villainized than men- even in real life I guess so it makes sense that it would be that way in literature. I think if you live in two cultures you’re expected to follow the norms of both but often times the two are quite different and contradictory so it’s very difficult to do that.

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        11. I wonder how people can behave when one culture asks you to speak up while the other culture asks you to shut up. However we all grow up with certain kind of absurdity and contradictory requirements even within one culture. LOL.

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        12. I guess most of us find a middle ground and some struggle their whole life- usually it’s older people that struggle because it gets harder to change when you get older.

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  2. Mothers are amazing creatures after all. We enter this world making them cry in pain but they are the ones who never fail to make us smile and has our backs in the worst of circumstances.

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  4. Indeed mom’s are the best. Being a new mom I understand the struggle that a mom goes Through to take care of one’s kid. Makes you appreciate your own mom more 🙂

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    1. Wow, that’s so true. Juggling work and a new baby is tough even with the helping hands of relatives. I don’t know how people had like half a dozen kids in the old days. Nowadays, it is so hard to only have one. LOL. Life is demanding and wish you all the luck. 😊😜💖

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  6. Great dedication to wonderful mothers

    My mom is more of the first three points you mentioned.
    She juggles work and family…as difficult as it is, she still finds time to spend quality time with us and enjoy
    As for our education…there’s nothing which she always stresses is for us to be educated and independent 🤗🤗🤗

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