Just a Mother – Sunday, May 13, 1984
What a mistake it is to think that motherhood is outdated or menial, or that being a mother is not prestigious.
Common sense rejects this false notion; history contradicts it; and truth disproves it.
And yet, how often we hear this apologetic response; “I am just a mother,” as if the title needed defending.
Just a mother…
“My boy is not stupid,” said one such mother when her son brought home a note from a teacher saying the boy was too stupid to learn. “I will teach him myself,” She produced Thomas Alva Edison.
Just a mother brought refinement and culture into a 19th century peasant cottage in Poland—Madam Curie, Nobel Prize winner and benefactor of mankind, was the result.
“All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother,” concluded one man near the close of his life—a man who had spent his boyhood in a lag cabin and had gone on to occupy this country’s White House and to save a nation and emancipate a people: Abraham Lincoln.1
Just a mother…
Men are what their mothers make them. Not governments, not schools, not churches—but mothers, are the ‘fundamental architects of great men and great women. To mothers alone is entrusted the awesome responsibility: to train the mind of an Einstein, to light the poetic flame of a Long fellow, to instill the compassion of a Florence Nightingale or nurture the genius of Michelangelo.
From wherever we stand, we look back towards the hazy dimness of our childhood from whence we came, and with moist eyes, acknowledge the font of our learning and character—our mothers.
Just a mother, acting confidently and responsibly in her role as human engineer, unfearful of ridicule, unmindful of fame, doing what love bids—will cast the shadow of her influence over the world.
1 Lincoln, Abraham, “The New Dictionary of Thoughts, Standard Book company. 1965. p 427
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May 13, 1984
Broadcast Number 2,856