Mother's Day comes every year and every year I see the same sort of messages.
"Thank you for your sacrifices"
"Thank you for loving me"
"Thank you for teaching me right from wrong."
I've said them all myself and they all ring true.
This year, however, I want to honor my mom for something else that not all mothers do. I want to thank my mother for educating me about how to treat women and show my respect for the opposite sex.
I also want to thank my mother-in-law for raising a woman that has become my world and the love of my life.
As I experience this world it has become clear that while nearly all mothers care about their kids, they do not approach teaching their kids about sex and relationships in the same way.
I have run into far too many men who think of women as a lesser sex, that on some level they only exist to help make children and for the pleasure of men.
I have interacted with too many women who are taught that their value is in being pretty and to keep men happy or to attract a mate that can provide.
I've watched in horror as some men I once considered friends come from behind a woman to grab a breast or slap an ass.
I've listened to misogynistic rants from former coworkers and classmates that women need to worry more about their weight and getting on treadmills rather than valuing what they have to say and how they think.
They're called dumb or sluts and are demeaned for no other reason but for the man to feel superior.
I am proud to not be one of those men, and I owe a great deal of that to my mother.
It is not that I do not have awareness of or appreciation for physical beauty. I don't think that it's possible for a human to not be aware and conscious of those things.
When I fell in love with my wife, there was (and still remains) a vibrant physical attraction.
However if it weren't for my mother teaching me the values of respect for women and understanding and sympathizing the humanity of women, I think I would be blind to some of the most beautiful aspects of my wife.
My wife has the kindest soul that I've ever encountered. Someone who thinks of others and would be willing to sacrifice time and money to make others happy, especially the less fortunate.
When I met my wife, she was working as a teacher for low income students in rural Pennsylvania. She didn't make much money and the fact that she was falling in love with me, a person who wasn't exactly on the fast track to wealth working as a barback in a college bar, told me that character mattered more to her than material things.
I credit her mother for teaching her that a man is more than a job and a source of provision.
My wife has strength that sometimes even she doesn't recognize thanks to a mother that taught her to refuse to back down.
Not all women have the courage that my wife displayed when she told me about how my drinking would make her scared and that it was becoming a problem.
In some circles of this society women are taught to be passive by example and they endure physical and mental abuse because of it. My wife refused to be one of those women.
It is because my mother taught me how to have empathy for women and to see beyond sex appeal that I get to experience true happiness with my wife. It is because my wife's mom taught her to stand up for herself in a relationship, that ours was saved.
Mothers in this world have a difficult job teaching morality, self sufficiency, and constantly giving love.
Today I want to thank the mothers in my life that went further by helping educate a son to not see women as objects, and helped raise a daughter that sought equality in a relationship. And as a team, unbeknownst to them, created a couple that is based on pure love.
