As I was preparing to write my Mother’s Day message, I heard a new term: ‘disadvantaged women’… A term that made me wonder if they were defective, or even – wicked, disgraced, or criminal?

No, that’s not what it meant: it referred to women who are battered, widowed, divorced, or somehow find themselves in difficulty. ‘Victims’ in plain words. Naturally, I fell into a deep thought… 

Women who are made into victims or seen as victimised…

A woman protects, loves, creates, delivers, looks after, and raises; she is a mother. Peaceful by nature, she is a warrior at the same time. She is mother not only for her children but also for anything she touches. She makes peace when necessary, and fights when called for, ready  to give up her life. She submits to victimhood, or is forced to do so, in order to protect. There is a misconception that she will give up if victimised, if her wings are clipped.

A woman is a phoenix with the capacity to be born again from her own ashes.

Especially if she is a mother too; then however much you might torment her, she will find a way to survive, and to keep others alive, to create and to protect. 

This year as I celebrate Mother’s Day without my mother but as a mother myself, I call out to all mothers: let us protect our children from the toxic culture of victimhood. Neither be one, nor make one. Let us do all we can to prevent the spread of this evil.

Allow me to celebrate every woman who has experienced the miracle of motherhood, who nurture that unique love in their hearts: happy Mother’s Day.