What is a Watchful Mother

"Whether your mother is good or bad, any mother is better than no mother at all."

I recently watched a video from PBS that was on-line about women who were kidnapped in China to become "brides". They followed a story of a married woman, with at least 2 children, who was kidnapped from a market and taken to inner Mongolia. Five years later her husband and now 18 year old daughter went to try to rescue her. Because the local police wouldn't co-operate the woman did not return to her family, but stayed with the people who bought her and with her new child. The heart-broken daughter, cried as she said, "Whether your mother is good or bad, any mother is better than no mother at all."

It is true that any mother is better than no mother at all, but what sorts of things make for a good mother? I would like to really figure this one out. As the mother of seven children, I really have a lot of my life invested in mothering. I want to be a good one.

I was reminded of a quote from Uncle Tom's Cabin, Mrs. Shelby, a gentle woman, whose husband has, because of financial pressures, is brought to sell two of their slaves that they treat as family, speaks of how she feels about a mother's duty.

I have talked with Eliza about her boy -- her duty to him as a Christian mother, to watch over him, pray for him, and bring him up in a Christian way; and now what can I say, if you tear him away, and sell him, soul and body, to a profane, unprincipled man, just to save a little money? I have told her that one soul is worth more than all the money in the world; and how will she believe me when she sees us turn round and sell her child? -- sell him, perhaps, to certain ruin of body and soul!"

Then I thought of it, I want to be a Watchful Mother. This blog is dedicated to defining that term.

Copywrite Cynthia Hampton TheWatchfulMother 2008