What Is a Mother

I was not allowed more than a few years with my mother. I don't remember much, and what I do remember is fuzzy. I remember pizza, ice cream, but having a lot of "time out" as well. I also remember dark nights curled up next to her after having nightmares, and hearing her talk about someday buying the house she had rented out. It was obvious that my mother worked hard. She had a hard life dealing with abusive boyfriends, an underpaying job, and two children. I never understood that at the time, so looking back I wish I had more positive experiences with her.

Instead, when I was 8 she passed away. Unbeknownst to me, she was abusing illegal substances. She had been sobering up when her accident occurred, but it was too late. The blood vessels in her brain had taken too much damage, weakened, and they busted open. She succumbed to a cerebral aneurysm and fell into a coma before passing away.

I was in shock about it for most of my life. I accepted any new girlfriend of my father's to be my mom. I would call them Mom and watch them be touched by the idea that I considered them my mother, even though the name didn't mean anything specific to me. It wasn't that big of a deal to me, but I know it should have been. I just did not see being a mother as anything special since the special person I would have called Mom was taken from me early. However, even though I was not allowed to have a biological mother I did learn what traits a good mother has from all of my step-mothers.

A mother must be patient. A mother must have the patience to try and understand an upset child. The patience to be able to connect with someone so different than you is vital, but it is hard to come by. The older the person is, the easier it is to understand their emotions, but a child needs their emotions to be understood more than an adult does. Most of my step-mothers could not understand who I was, but those that could earned the title of mother quicker than those who didn't.

What a mother must also be is strong. She must be able to stand up for herself, whether that be to you or to another person. If she can not turn away from the evils of the world in order to protect herself and her family, she can not be a mother. This is easier than one would think, most mothers start out being strong, but many do not last this way. Slowly, they begin to weaken and then they eventually leave. Even my biological mother could not turn away from drug abuse long enough to care for her family.

Lastly, a mother must be afraid. Some feel this contradicts being strong, but you can be afraid and be strong at the same time. You can fear the bite of a dog, yet know you can hold it at bay if it does bite you. Fear is something innate, so it is to be assumed that this requirement isn't hard to fulfill, but the feeling of fear in general isn't what matters; what matters is what a mother fears. A mother should fear for the safety of her child, for if they are out of sight are they still safe or not. If she does not fear this, what stops her from putting her child in danger other than the threat of the law?

This is what makes a perfect mother: patience, strength, and fear. My original mother did not have these things, and not one of the replacements of her did either. Perhaps that's why none of them stayed, perhaps they realized they were not motherly material. Not everyone can be a mother. I want others to take note on my experience, and to relate it to their own children. Maybe then not as many people will be as unfortunate as I am.