# Mothers



## jld (Dec 1, 2013)

I was recently reading the story of a young man who was abandoned by his mother when he was a child. It was heartbreaking. He still feels the pain from it, though he now has a happy adult life.

I think sometimes we moms don't realize how much we are doing for our kids. We feel like we are just doing our jobs. But in loving our children, and caring for them, we really are contributing to the stability of society.

Have you read stories or had experiences that have made you realize how important it is to just love a child, to just be there for them?

Fathers are important, too, but what I read focused on the mother, so that is where I got the title of the thread.


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## Anonymous07 (Aug 4, 2012)

I love being a mom and my son means the world to me. He is only 7 months old, but has shown me so much and tested my patience. He is an amazing little boy and his smile melts my heart.

Have to share this because I love this video:

An Ode to Motherhood from Boba and Denver's Futuristic Films - The Denver Egotist

"I made you, but you made me a mother"


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## jld (Dec 1, 2013)

What a beautiful video, Anon. Thank you so much for sharing.


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## skype (Sep 25, 2013)

My favorite quotes about motherhood:

"I'll love you forever
I'll like you for always
As long as I'm living
My baby you'll be."

Robert Munsch

"If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much."

Jackie Kennedy

I think parenthood is the most challenging thing that anyone can ever do. We have to find the balance between raising responsible children and realizing that they have their own personalities, and that they have to learn to make their own mistakes. We have to figure out which discipline approach works with each child.

When we had our first child, I was surprised by what a social experience motherhood is. People felt perfectly comfortable giving me their unsolicited advice, and they were only too happy to judge my mothering skills. No mother of a sunny 6 month old should ever give advice to the parent of a tired, screaming 2 year old.

I learned the hard way that children are not tabula rasas that I could mold into what I wanted them to be. But that is a very good thing!


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## jld (Dec 1, 2013)

Lol, skype. I don't know how old your children are, but I do think it's cute when younger mothers with fewer children offer me advice.


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## Anon Pink (Jan 17, 2013)

When my kids (oldest is now 27) were in elementary school, they would complain about not going on the cool vacations, or having all the cool gadgets their friends had. When it got bad I would reply "I will go to work full time so that we can afford those things too. But you will be in day care before and after school and every day during the summer. Shall I start looking for a job?" Every single time they immediately said "NO, never mind..." Until the next kid showed up with the coolest sneakers...


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## SimplyAmorous (Nov 25, 2009)

Years ago I walked into a Christian Book store and seen these words on a rather pricey Portrait, too cheap to buy it... I scribbled down the words & stuffed them in my purse.. ..had husband drill some holes & I dangled these hearts on a frame - A picture hangs in our Living room of myself giving our 2nd & 3rd son a Horsey Back ride & we're all laughing... 

Memories.. Laughter, good times... how important they are in the lives of our children....


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## john117 (May 20, 2013)

Abandonment central here.

My parents moved out when they retired for health reasons (city pollution) when I was 17 and started university in my birth country. They moved to our dacha 3 hours away, and me and my older brother were left to tend for ourselves :smthumbup:

Then I came to the USA for school and stayed, seeing my parents once a year till they passed on. Not abandonment per se but not quite "mom lives next door" either. My parents told me specifically to stay here after their first visit so... They spent a couple months at a time here, much to my wife's chagrin. 

Wifey lived for a year or two at a time with her father only, following him around their country from post to post (big time government apparatchik). Then she came here for college and was pretty much abandoned (she saw her mom rarely before she passed and we see her dad every couple years). 

Largely for the reasons above I have promised my kids I'll never do this to them. Granted, we did not have Skype or iPhones in the 80's but still...


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

My mom moved out of town the week I graduated high school. She said I could move with her if I wanted - to the middle of nowhere. Took me many years to get over that.

Today I am my DD23's best friend (whether I want to be or not, lol).


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## COGypsy (Aug 12, 2010)

turnera said:


> My mom moved out of town the week I graduated high school. She said I could move with her if I wanted - to the middle of nowhere. Took me many years to get over that.
> 
> Today I am my DD23's best friend (whether I want to be or not, lol).


I think the hardest lesson that we learn is that our parents are human and fallible. Or at least it's one that I think I've struggled with the most.


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## SimplyAmorous (Nov 25, 2009)

> *john117 said*: *Abandonment central here*.


My Mom messed up her life pretty badly and left me for an alcoholic moving to another state when I was 10.. On my 18th birthday....coming home from a date... my Step Mom had my bedroom on the porch... I was told when I leave, I was not to come back... this was it...

I was a model teen.... they just had their rules in the sand, I was their responsibility till 18...then I was on my own.. I thank God my husband was in my life back then..I did have a car & a Job, lived with some GF's for a short time .....it really helped his being there for me though.... 

... this is why I wanted my own family so badly...because basically ...Mine sucked....and I felt alone in this world outside of friends....and they had their own families... 

I feel so much differently... our kids are welcome, our house is their home...forever...if they need... we raise them to have their own wings, but if they get broken, they know they are welcome with open arms, I couldn't imagine it being any other way..


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