Unconditional Love, Eternal Love: A Mother's Love

Of all the types of love, a mother’s is the strongest. The love between mother and child arises instantly, as a bond uniting two bodies and souls. A mother’s love is unconditional and eternal.

When we say that nature is wise, one of the things that we refer to is the bond between mothers and their children.

A mother’s instinct to protect her offspring begins from the moment she knows she is pregnant. Over the following nine months, although she is yet to see her child, he or she becomes the most precious thing in the world.

Babies have a certain survival instinct. They are born with a handful of strategies or “tricks” that encourage the adults around them to protect and care for them. This is the case with the smile reflex.

But the relationship between mother and child is different. It goes beyond the baby’s survival instinct.

A healthy relationship, based on unconditional love, affection and respect, makes for happy children.

Happy children become happy adults

Mother and child form a bond of attachment, building a relationship that will influence them both more than almost any other experience in their lives.

A child’s relationship with their maternal figure is of vital importance, affecting the way they relate to others throughout their lifetime.

Mothers offer unconditional love, which doesn’t depend on the child’s circumstances or characteristics. A child’s relationship with their mother also begins from a place of love. There is no need for a period of courtship.

We do not have to win our mothers’ love. This gives us an additional dose of self esteem, which comes from the feeling of deserving to be loved for who we are, not what we do.

But how can we love someone who we don’t even know yet? How can we love someone so small? Because they are a part of us, and fill a gap we never knew existed, flooding us with tenderness and fragility.

When we take on the role of motherhood, we reveal a new part of ourselves. We are stronger, capable of sacrificing everything for our children.

As a biological mechanism, this bond is vital. Babies are not capable of surviving alone, and need an adult to feed, protect and care for them until they are capable of taking on life on their own.

But does this bond go further than that? There is research that points to real changes in the brains of women who have had children.

A mother’s love is unconditional and eternal

Mythology and religion make multiple references to the unconditional love between mother and child, and the power of motherhood in general.

This is the case of Demeter, goddess of agriculture in Greek mythology, who, after her daughter Persephone is kidnapped, gives rise to the changing of the seasons.

Or the Virgin Mary of Catholic doctrine, who becomes pregnant although she is a virgin, and sees her son die on the cross. She goes on to defeat the Devil himself, who is not capable of looking at her directly.

For thousands of years, we have revered this unbreakable bond for the strength it gives to those who share it.

The protection we get from this unconditional love helps us to grow up with an emotional safety net.

Our mother’s love sustains us, just as we are, without changing, and helps us move forward with self-confidence.