As a little girl your mother is your first port of call for absolutely everything. She’s the person you run to for advice and comfort when your sibling is teasing you, when you feel sad, when you fall down and graze you knee, or when you just need a hug. Your mother is the first person you’ve ever known, and as you grow older, the running to her for advice doesn’t change, and neither does her patience. She is your template from which you learn what it means to be a woman, and it isn’t until your get older that you begin to realise all that she taught you and prepared you for in life with her subtle suggestions and gentle advice.
Here are six things that your mother taught you throughout your life – whether you realised it or not- and you are sure to pass on to your daughter.
Patience
This may be an obvious one, but from the very beginning of your youth your mother taught you how to be patient. If you had siblings, this in itself was preparation. Learning to live with others and respect other’s time for attention taught you to learn to be patient and wait your turn.
How to be brave and bold
Mums embody the notions of brave and bold. Putting her children’s needs before her own and making decisions for you everyday in order for you to grow to be who you are today shows incredible courage and strength. Watching your mother do what she did every day for your family, and in such effortless fashion, instills a certain type of strength into you that you have grounded into you forever.
How to love
Your mother has a huge role to play when it comes to teaching you how to love. From day one in the womb, you are surrounded by her nurturing body and care, which continues long after the first nine months! Your mother’s love for you is strong beyond belief, and no matter where she is, it can be felt through your bond as mother and child. You may have watched your mother care, support and love her partner, or other family members, and watching her love and care for so many people teaches you to care and love others too. She prepares you to be open to all love in the future by shining her love on everyone she cares for.
How to raise a family
Watching your mother organise an entire family and manage to keep everyone healthy, happy and fed for most of your young life (who are we kidding, it continues long after this!) is an astonishing thing. How can one woman do the work of 30?! Your mother doesn’t just look after you, she raises you. She teaches you right from wrong, good from bad and, more importantly, how to be a good person and the best you can be. She encourages her family and tends to them everyday, watching them grow and protecting them from any harmful exteriors. Watching her raise a family is a lesson that will live with you forever, and is something you will reflect on when you are raising a family of your own.
Respect, and how to look for it in return
If we had a euro for the amount of times we have heard our mothers say to us: “Do not talk to me like that, I am your mother, I deserve respect” we’d be millionaires. However, your mother was right, and whether you thought so at the time, she was teaching you what it meant to earn respect and give it in return. Learning boundaries and respect helped you learn how to treat others. It taught you to look for respect, as she did, and not settle until you had it. Such a lesson stays with you for life, and enters all sections of your life, be it in work, with friends, or when learning for qualities to look for in a future partner.
How to accept yourself
Last, but most definitely not least, your mother taught you to accept yourself for who you are. Watching her glide through her days with an effortlessness that you wish could be bottled and sold, we’ve watched our mothers exuberate a confidence and a self-assurance that, although not loud, was anything but nonexistent. Your mother’s care and love instills in you from an early age that you are safe in her love, you are perfect as you are, and that as long as you are trying to be a good person, nothing else matters. Acceptance and confidence like this takes time, but your mother nourishes and waters it until it grows quite tall. You mightn’t feel it growing, but one day you’ll look in the mirror, and you’ll realise it had been there all along.