The year 2004 will be a milestone for us: we will graduate the first of our two daughters from our home school. This school year has been a time of emotional turmoil for me as a mother; letting go and allowing a child to grow up can be a very difficult task. It has also been a time of circumspection: What kind of a job have I done? What kind of mother have I been? Being a mother is often an underestimated position, but as William Ross Wallace wrote, "The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world." And through it all, the title, "Mother," will be the one I treasure the most.

And now, a few thoughts on Motherhood...

The Hand that Rocks the Cradle
is the Hand that Rules the World

Blessings on the hand of women!
Angels guard its strength and grace, In the palace, cottage, hovel,
Oh, no matter where the place; Would that never storms assailed it,
Rainbows ever gently curled; For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Infancy's the tender fountain,
Power may with beauty flow, Mother's first to guide the streamlets,
From them souls unresting grow-- Grow on for the good or evil,
Sunshine streamed or evil hurled; For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Woman, how divine your mission
Here upon our natal sod! Keep, oh, keep the young heart open
Always to the breath of God! All true trophies of the ages
Are from mother-love impearled; For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Blessings on the hand of women!
Fathers, sons, and daughters cry, And the sacred song is mingled
With the worship in the sky-- Mingles where no tempest darkens,
Rainbows evermore are hurled; For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

A Song for My Mother - Her Stories

I always liked to go to bed-
It looked so dear and white.
Besides, my mother used to tell
A story every night.

When other children cried to go
I did not mind at all,
She made such faery pageants grow
Upon the bedroom wall.

The room was full of slumber lights,
Of seas and ships and wings,
Of Holy Grails and swords and knights
And beautiful, kind kings.

And so she wove and wove and wove
Her singing thoughts through mine.
I heard them murmuring through my sleep,
Sweet, audible, and fine.

Beneath my pillow all night long
I heard her stories sing,
So spun through the enchanted sheet
Was their soft shadowing.

Dear custom, stronger than the years-
Then let me not grow dull!
Still every night my bed appears
Friendly and beautiful!

Even now, when I lie down to sleep,
It comes like a caress,
And still somehow my childish heart
Expects a pleasantness.

I find in the remembering sheets
Old stories, told by her,
And they are sweet as rosemary
And dim as lavender.

The Mother's Hymn

Lord, who ordainest for mankind
Benignant toils and tender cares! We thank Thee for the ties that bind
The mother to the child she bears.

Whe thank Thee for the hopes that rise,
Within her heart, as, day by day,
The dawning soul, from those young eyes,
Looks, with a clearer, steadier ray.

And grateful for the blessing given
With that dear infant on her knee,
She trains the eye to look to heaven,
The voice to lisp a prayer to Thee.

Such thanks the blessed Mary gave,
When, from her lap, the Holy Child,
Sent from on high to seek and save
The lost of earth, looked up and smiled.

All-Gracious! grant, to those who bear
A mother's charge, the strength and light
To lead the steps that own their care
In ways of Love, and Truth, and Right.

The American Woman as a Mother

Theodore Roosevelt

          In our modern industrial civilization there are many and grave dangers to counterbalance the splendors and the triumphs. It is not a good thing to see cities grow at disproportionate speed relatively to the country; for the small landowners, the men who own their little homes, and therefore to a very large extent the men who till farms, the men of the soil, have hitherto made the foundation of lasting national life in every State; and, if the foundation becomes either too weak or too narrow, the super-structure, no matter how attractive, is in imminent danger of falling.
          But far more important than the question of the occupation of our citizens is the question of how their family life is conducted. No matter what that occupation may be, as long as there is a real home and as long as those who make up that home do their duty to one another, to their neighbors and to the State, it is of minor consequence whether the man's trade is plied in the country or the city, whether it calls for the work of the hands or for the work of the head.
          But the nation is in a bad way if there is no real home, if the family is not of the right kind; if the man is not a good husband and father, if he is brutal or cowardly or selfish; if the woman has lost her sense of duty, if she is sunk in vapid self-indulgence or has let her nature be twisted so that she prefers a sterile pseudo-intellectuality to that great and beautiful development of character which comes only to those whose lives know the fullness of duty done, of effort made and self-sacrifice undergone.
          In the last analysis the welfare of the State depends absolutely upon whether or not the average family, the average man and woman and their children, represent the kind of citizenship fit for the foundation of a great nation, and if we fail to appreciate this we fail to appreciate the root morality upon which all healthy civilization is based.
          No piled-up wealth, no splendor of material growth, no brilliance of artistic development, will permanently avail any people unless its home life is healthy, unless the average man possesses honesty, courage, common-sense and decency, unless he works hard and is willing at need to fight hard; and unless the average woman is a good wife, a good mother, able and willing to perform the first and greatest duty of womanhood, able and willing to bear, and to bring up as they should be brought up, healthy children, sound in body, mind and character, and numerous enough so that the race shall increase and not decrease.
          There are certain old truths which will be true as long as this world endures, and which no amount of progress can alter. One of these is the truth that the primary duty of the husband is to be the home-maker, the bread-winner for his wife and children, and that the primary duty of the woman is to be the helpmeet, the housewife and mother. The woman should have ample educational advantages; but save in exceptional cases the man must be, and she need not be, and generally ought not to be, trained for a lifelong career as the family bread-winner; and, therefore, after a certain point the training of the two must normally be different becasue the duties of the two are normally different. This does not mean inequality of function, but it does mean that normally there must be dissimilarity of function. On the whole, I think the duty of the woman the more important, the more difficult, and the more honorable of the two; on the whole, I respect the woman who does her duty even more than I respect the man who does his.