Being a mother, quite simply, means that you went through every stage, from pregnancy to delivery. And after that, the sleepless nights began. Every night became a night of light sleep, during which you had to keep watch over your little one’s rest. You had to make sure you were waiting on them hand and foot, make sure they lacked for nothing, and then that their sleep was steady and restorative. All mothers are unanimous that the experience is not the easiest of all, but the game is truly worth the candle. You need only look at the smile on the lips of these fulfilled mothers. Being a mother is enriching and comforting when your child’s needs are met. Mothers, we celebrate you all the more on this day.
Being a single mother adds another layer of difficulty to the role. The single mother must, alone, attend to every aspect of her child’s development. She has no support in the matter and must, from the moment she wakes until she goes to bed, manage everything that touches her child, come rain or come shine. However she herself may be feeling, the priority remains the child, with no option of handing them over to dad’s care, however briefly. The single mother lives through every stage and every phase of the child’s upbringing and development. And so the joys and the praise come back to her alone as well. The single mother can rejoice in each step successfully taken in her child’s life. Single mothers, we are all the prouder of you on this day.
Being a mother in 2023 calls for facing the challenges of the hour. Every generation of parents comes up against a series of difficulties that I will call here "the challenges of the hour". For information, the generations that make up today’s society can be grouped into 4 categories, according to their birth dates:
the baby boomers: individuals born between 1946 and 1964;
Generation X: between 1965 and 1979;
Generation Y: between 1980 and 2000;
Generation Z: from the year 2000 onward.
Without wishing to revisit the challenges of each one of these generations, we do recognize the preponderant role of mothers across every one of them. And being a mother in 2023 obliges you, among other things, to manage your children’s interactions with screens. We will come back to that. Mothers in 2023, we acclaim all the more your capacity to adapt and your powers of observation.
Being a mother without having borne a child is also increasingly in evidence. We think of all those women who have the opportunity to give an upbringing to young children without being their mothers. We think as well of those women who take on the role of babysitters now and then, to give parents the chance to get away. The same thought goes out to those mothers who find themselves having to take in children orphaned or abandoned in the street. And finally, we think of all those women who are expecting, or who have not yet received the blessing of childbearing. All things come in time to those who know how to wait. To us, you are already mothers in your souls. And we pray that God grants you according to the desires of your hearts. Mothers who have not borne children, your self-denial in building a more fulfilled society is all the more greatly appreciated on this day.
Whatever category you find yourself in, you are a mother and, as such, you receive our warmest wishes on this day in particular, and for all the others still to come.
M. Z.
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