You may enroll for a course and it will end within a certain duration, you can take up a job and choose to resign when you desire growth or change, you can probably even walk out of a marriage, the so called most important “sacramental” relation in one’s life, however for a woman, irrespective of the number of titles she dons or the roles she plays, once a “mother” is always a mother till she finally bids adieu to life…! Now that is too much of a commitment, isn’t it? I am myself pondering on the extent of its immensity as I am penning this down!! And yet when we look around we can see that each mother has done it and each mother still does it.!

When one hears the term “motherhood”, there are many other descriptive adjectives and terms associated with it that come to one’s mind. The numerous expressions about her greatness, distinctive importance of her selfless character, and for her endless sacrifices the “put her on the pedestal” level of dedication that are expressed for a mother, all of this makes me wonder about the degree of unsaid expectations and parameters of perfection that are implicitly imposed on a woman when she decides to become a “mother”.!

Right from holding a feeble,fragile, delicate child at birth to assisting it through its survival, growing up, education and maturing into an adult, a mother is constantly transitioning from the various roles that each stage demands. She is a caretaker, a teacher, a role model, a mentor, a guide, a friend and finally a well wisher with endless blessings for her child.

“Always do remember, a woman in the role of a “mother” is only as old as her child……!” It’s a constant passage of adaptation that she takes into her stride to do her best for her little one.

Motherhood is a journey, beautiful, distinctive and memorable in its own, with no guide for instructions, no map for directions, no GPS to follow, each mother has her own route in it but the final destination remains the same “well-being” of her child ! And so, there really is no “bad or imperfect or not good enough mother”, there can never be…!

A mother and a child grow together, with each other and through each other.

So, even if at times things become overbearing for her or she yells at her children or is strict with them to discipline them, gets angry at them at times or is jovial and happy go lucky kind, serves them only vegetables or leniently allows them to have junk food at times, is ambitious about their schooling choices or is not too pressurizing type, no matter if she is a working woman or a home maker, no matter the way she chooses to raise her children, the fact beyond doubt, shall always be, that each mother loves her child beyond her life and deserves respect, and yes !, in the worldly terms each mother is a “GOOD MOM” certified by God Himself.! No human judgments required…!

– Sonali Bakshi