Love her for who she is

Like every year, Mother’s Day has come and gone with all the hype and hullabaloo that children and the family create. In the market, there will be many cards and gifts with messages to celebrate Mother’s Day and almost every mother receives one or two that day, all to make her feel elevated and exulted. She will be bestowed the status of a God and will be inundated with messages that praise her virtues and qualities.

This year, though, the one card that truly struck a chord with me read: “Tell your mom today that she can also make mistakes, she can be wrong, she can be human like all of us.” Ah, how true!

Everyone takes it for granted that a mother has to be a personification of compassion, patience and unstinted, unconditional love and every other positive emotion. The fact is, a mother is a woman too and every woman has her own hot buttons, her own personality traits that may not fit the image of a so-called “perfect mother”. Yet, she is a mother too, deserving more love and understanding, perhaps.

“Mothers are as capable as anyone, of feeling anger, aggression or ambivalence and they often feel it towards their own children or project it on them,” opined a famous psychologist. If children and spouse try to understand why she gets angry, it is an important step in helping her cope with her emotions.

Apart from sending a card or a message or buying flowers on Mother’s Day, children should give their time to her, show her in their affectionate ways that they care for her — those gestures will leave an indelible mark of love on her heart, better than the cards with printed quotations.

Some mothers may simply want a hug, or a word of appreciation from children, who fail to give it not because they are insensitive to her, but because they believe she is superhuman, and that she is all positives rolled into one.

But no, she is just a human being, with her foibles and failures. Love her with all her attributes, don’t make her feel compelled to be a goddess. Love her for who she is…