Every year about this time, I share my thoughts on the history and meaning of Mother’s Day. In thinking about what I might write this time around, it occurred to me how much the meaning of “motherhood” has changed in recent decades. So that is the focus of “My Turn” today.

When I was growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, most of my classmates and friends came from traditional households where both parents were present. In those days, the norm was for women to be the “comforter and encourager,” and for men to be the “provider and protector.”

There were, of course, exceptions to that norm. And my household was one of them.

My mother, Gertrude, was what we would call today a “single mom.” I never heard her use that phrase, though. Nor do I recall it being in general usage at the time.

To my two sisters, Doris and Geneva, and to me, Gertrude was both mother and father, comforter and encourager, provider and protector. She worked her fingers to the bone at the local hosiery mill. She also did laundry and housecleaning chores for prominent and prosperous families around town. She did all this to keep our family together in trying times.

Although my Mother was not “well-educated” in the formal sense, she was a graduate of the “school of hard knocks,” and she valued education. She told me many times, “Get a good education son. That’s something nobody can take away from you.” It took awhile for her wise advice to sink in, but I’m so thankful it  did. And I’m even more thankful to her for all her help when I needed her most.

The roles of motherhood have changed greatly  in recent decades, due in large part to more and more women in the workforce. Now, working mothers face the daunting task of balancing their time between job or profession and hearth and home.

Grandmothers and even great-grandmothers have expanded roles to play, too. Many of them are taking on the role of “surrogate mother” to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, for a variety of reasons, and doing it with devotion and love. They’ve gone from being “old folks” whom children visited now and then, to being an essential and integral part of the extended family life.

These are just a few of the many ways motherhood has changed through the years. Like most everything else in life, the manifold roles of motherhood in the USA continue to evolve, but their essence remains the same: unconditional love for the children entrusted to their care.

Thank you, mothers and surrogate mothers, for your selfless service to the past, present, and future of caregiving to children who need it most.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Retired Army Col. Thomas B. Vaughn can be reached at tbvbwmi@benlomand.net.