BELLOWS FALLS — After reflecting on Elayne Clift's recent column celebrating women, I would like to emphasize the nurturing role of mothers.
Growing up in what was considered a “nuclear family,” we kids generally had many reasons to love, and eventually respect, our mother daily.
She'd greet us when we'd come home from school and listen to our triumphs and setbacks without too much prying. She'd gave us the autonomy to walk over to a friend's house or ride our bikes crosstown to the beach.
Our mother stopped working for a bank while my father held two jobs that, fortunately, he liked. She had an open mind, and we had people over who were not always welcomed elsewhere in our town. Mom just acted on her own sense of what was right. Looking back, she was pretty cool.
Fast forward to now. While my partner was not a mom, she gave the gift of art through 30 years of teaching whoever walked into her classroom studio. In many respects, she was a surrogate mother to her students.
While there have been, and will continue to be, hardships experienced by women across our country and across the world, it is important to celebrate the mothers here at home and appreciate their role in forming, through little minds and little hearts, the world of tomorrow.