Journal: News & Comment

Motherly time

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It's an old and clichéd sentiment, but I doubt most kids genuinely appreciate all that their moms do until the kids are old enough to be parents themselves. When we had my parents over for Mother's Day brunch today, I sat back a bit and looked at her, and at my wife—the two mothers in the room.

When our oldest daughter was born in 1998, I remember thinking that my wife (after several days of labour) had just accomplished the most difficult thing I'd ever seen a human being do. Then, two years later, she did it again. And my own mom had done the same thing for me three decades before.

And that's just the birth part. There's also that whole helping-the-kids-grow-up bit that follows.

It made a strange contrast with the 60th anniversary of VE Day, and the tales of happiness amid devastation in 1945, with minds turning to the then-continuing war with Japan. Looking back, it seems to have been a very unmotherly time.

Today my family's life is as peaceful as anyone's has ever been. Today is a motherly time, and better for it.

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