Monday, February 25, 2013

Mothers

The people with whom I interact at work these days are mostly very successful in what they do. There are a lot of mothers. What I have noticed about them is that they all share this drive to do the very best for their kids. 

Sometimes I get very frustrated to hear others say, "oh you don't have to do this or that for your son." And I get upset if I hear people say, "you are doing all this for Winston because you worry too much", when it's the lack of effort that worries me as opposed to effort. 

Like the other mothers I meet these days at my new work place, I feel great when I have made the best effort for my son. I then can focus on other things in life, and can almost feel carefree - almost, as I would be the No.1 liar mother in the world to say that I don't worry about my son. 

Once at a party, I was told, "to say a mother worry too much is like calling a ball round. I have not seen any good mothers who don't worry about their kids. I am almost 50, and my mother still worries me, and her vigilance has saved me from bad situations that no one else was even aware of. All great mothers have the instinct to go against the world if necessary to do the best for their kids. Often the world is just a tad behind the intuition of great mothers." 

What We Live For

The other day, I suddenly remembered what a friend told me. She said that she heard the following from one of President Obama's speeches, "it's only after I had kids that I realized that everything we do is for them." - or something to that effect. 

At the time, I did not have any particularly strong feelings. In fact, there were many things that I heard before that did not strike me as hard as they do today. The entire world including me was shocked and dismayed  read about the Chinese dairy processors adding melamine to their products. Now, I simply can't bring myself to even remember that incident, as it will feel personally traumatic. 

Indeed, as President Obama astutely observed, what we do will lose all its meaning were it not for the next generation, and the ones after next.