Mothers

 

      “It will be the Mother of All Battles,” gloated Saddam Hussein as UN tanks rolled into Kuwait in 1991 to repel his invasion. What ensued was more like the Mother of All Defeats for the Iraqis.

We may deplore Saddam Hussein, his arrogance, and his destruction of Kuwaiti oil fields in retreat, but his premature boast bears a backhanded tribute to mothers. “Mother of” was his way of saying “the greatest, the most spectacular and significant.” The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or MOAB, is America’s most powerful non-nuclear weapon. People use the same initials, MOAB, to dub it the “Mother Of All Bombs.”

Why use “mother of” as a metaphor for “greatest”? Because of the massive impact mothers make on their children. Some mold their children’s minds toward good: “Do not forsake your mother’s teach­ing. Bind it always on your heart. When you walk, it will guide you; when you sleep, it will watch over you; when you awake, it will speak to you. For this teaching is a light; correction and instruction are the way to life.” By contrast, other mothers incline their kids toward catastrophe. By prodding her son to pretend to be Esau, Rebekah provided a pattern to promote Jacob’s career in craftiness.

Examples abound, both scriptural and secular. Timothy, Paul’s beloved follower, exercised a faith that “dwelt first in his mother Eunice.” From the will of Henry Heinz: “Throughout my life I have been wonderfully sustained by my faith in God through Jesus Christ. This legacy was left me by my mother, and to it I attribute any success I have attained.” Thomas Edison: “My mother cast over me an influence that has lasted all my life. If it had not been for her faith in me, I should never have become an inventor.” A boy worked long hours in a Naples factory. At age ten he took his first voice lesson. “You can’t sing. Your voice sounds like the wind in the shutters,” said his teacher. But the boy’s mother believed in him. “I am going to make every sacrifice to pay for your voice lessons.” That boy: Enrico Caruso.

Perhaps good moms are the Mothers of All Influences. Ladies among us who have reared children of your own, or encouraged the offspring of others, or hope to raise a child some day, we love you!