Honor Your Mother

Think about it like this - she didn’t have to have you. She didn’t have to have kids at all. Thankfully, she wanted to.

Then, think about it like this: it happened to be you, born to her.

The odds of you being born are 1 in 400 trillion. That makes your existence a miracle. The miracle of your life is only made possible by the choices of your mother to keep you, birth you, raise you, and endure all the sacrifices in between.

Your mother held your hand crossing the street, gently wiped the blood from your scraped knees, and washed the mud from your hair on rainy days. She exalted you to the sky like Simba on walks through the park, carted you to all your practices and games, hosted all your birthday parties, and picked you up when you fell learning to ride your bike. She dried your tears when you got picked on and encouraged you when you stood up for yourself. She remembers exactly when you first rolled over, stood up and fell and stood back up, the first words you spoke, the first time you made her cry, the first time you argued with her, got in trouble at school, the very first time you made her heart well up with pride that you were her boy.

She knew which girlfriends were going to work out, which ones weren’t worth your time, which ones you shouldn’t have screwed up your chance with. She knew which friends weren’t good for you. She knew where to raise you and who to surround you with.

She knew giving you a life was worth all her pain and sacrifice. Though she could never be a perfect mother - never save you from the struggles of growing up, the pain of your first heartache, and all of life’s suffering - she knew that if she loved you wholeheartedly and gave you her best, this life-giving choice would be worth it for both of you. Even though one day you’d break her heart and move away.

You wouldn’t be who you are without her. You would genuinely be nothing without your mother.

Once our teenage years hit, we stop telling Mom everything about our lives - we don’t want her to hear it. She may want you to be her smooth-faced angel boy forever, but you can’t be. You’ll get older and say bad words and get in fights and sneak beer and girls into her house. The strength of the bond we share with our mothers is a natural casualty of growing up. But it doesn’t have to be that way forever.

A good mother understands that she has to let her son do his own learning through trial and error. In order to honor your mother, you must necessarily leave the comfort of her protective embrace, develop independence, and become your own man. Necessarily, a man will go into that which wounds him. Ideally, he will come out stronger as a result.

You were an enormous investment for your mother. She signed up for nine heavy, laborious months of carrying you around in her stomach, no breaks and no looking back. She spent years tending to you, and countless dollars on your food, your clothes, your field trips, your summer camps, your new scooter, your puffy winter jacket, your well-being, your education.

Did it pay off? Your responsibility is to never have her wonder if it was all worth it. She wants to be involved in your life, be proud of who you’ve become, and have all her friends tell her what a great young man you are. To honor your mother is to ensure that her sacrifice was worthwhile. You must prove to her that - without a shadow of doubt - it was.

You are who you are because of your mother. You are a piece of her and an extension of her.

Write her letters and send her cards and call her spontaneously and surprise visit her and give her big hugs and tell her you love her. Then, go back to making her proud.