“Mum, you are home, I missed you so much”, says the daughter of my 24-year old friend. After a long working day, we finally arrived at her home to drink a cup of coffee. My friend became a mother when she was only 18, even when she had dozen of plans for the future: she wanted to finish secondary school with distinction and apply for the Design Faculty; she wanted to visit different countries and go to parties every Friday. She wanted… Does she regret the occurrence and her current life? No, she does not. She is not rich and she has to combine the work with her studies in order to manage with survival, she is tired for the most part of the week and her travelling plans have been put away for a while. But she is the happiest person and the most thoughtful mother I have ever met.

At the same time I would like to provide the picture of another woman living in my hometown and being of the same age as my friend. Even their life stories are quite similar – early pregnancy, refusal for the majority of their dreams, nurturing children alone. However, that woman’s chosen life path is totally different. She does not work. She does not have any education; neither is willing to get a degree. She has five children for the moment, and none of them looks happy. How could they? They have been given a birth just for one purpose – to help to get social benefits from the government.

Looking to these young women almost every day, I started to think what arouses mother’s love to her child. Is it her husband’s or boyfriend’s care? A successful career? The fulfillment of her own dreams? High material provision? Probably. But where does love appear from when all these conditions are missing?

First of all, love derives from early childhood and is being inherited from the parents and the values they used to teach their offsprings. If they managed to show that love does not depend only on financial well-being, but it consists of all the small week day joys, problems and challenges, the young girl-mother will take these values to her life as well.

Secondly, the mother is able to love her child only in the case she loves and estimates herself. There are no researches made on this topic, but the reality shows that women with low self-esteem also can not love their child as much as they would want to.

And thirdly, love of the mother to the child derives from her love to the world and other people. The old proverb says: “If you love the world, you can love your child, as he is a part of the universe”.

So, we see that the love of a mother is not always an unconditioned state, very often there are some small, almost unperceivable criteria which have to be fulfilled before the woman can begin to love her child with every cell of her body.

Post written by Anna Zemblicka/ Changemakers

Picture taken from Flickr Creative Common’s Attribution License – http://www.flickr.com/photos/rolandslakis/97499962/ by user Rolands.Lakis