Our lives start in the soft caress of mother's hands and lap. Mothers give us the first taste of the strength we need to grow, whereas we tend to be very demanding as our unshakable drive to develop keeps adding to our selfish momentum. We do not care if it's day or night at first and just keep demanding more. We have no words or mother tongue at that time, just a loud voice.

The eyes of a human child are like two lakes reflecting the moonlight. Only our mothers know their mysterious depths. The lakes often overflow – tears are perhaps among the very first human rights of a new citizen of the world. But smiles are very much allowed too. We start learning the fine art of reconciling our rights and obligations at an early age. We make demands and deploy cunning. And mothers always give everything they have to give. So we could grow up without a care and gradually get to tell cold from hot, right from wrong.

Yes, the world is oh so small at first. Only palms and laps. But soon, they will no longer be enough. We end up wanting a much bigger world. By carefully raising our heads first, but soon getting up on two legs and walking. Until the realization dawns that speech is like walking. Our first words must also stand upright on their own to be understood. Mothers help, and meaning gradually follows words to finally come together as the Gutenberg galaxy in all its glory, helping us to make sense of our families, communities and all of society.

Nowadays, when we are increasingly immersing ourselves in a world described as digital and virtual, we're prone to thinking that time and the world are boundless. It is as if there is no need for them. We convert human relationships into signals and run away from others.

Everything seems to dissolve in virtual infinitude, including the relationship between mother and child. But there is no such thing as virtual motherhood or digitized mothers. Life is not an algorithm, which is perhaps what makes it human and genuine. Let us not close off our minds. Let us all be alive for our mothers. Now and every day.

Every mother is like the president of our inner country of hopes and disappointments. No one can take away the dignity of being a mother, no matter how complicated or even tragic one's life or those of children.

There can be no championships of motherhood. No one can judge all the facets of being a mother. Every journey is as unique as a person's iris. A single mother rises to the challenge of also filling in for the child's father, while mothers tend to be the lightning rods that protect children in physically or mentally abusive families.

We can and must speak of the birth of humans. We could close our ears when someone again impassively remarks that Estonians' birthrate is the lowest it has ever been. Just as we are forced to admit that motherhood can remain trapped in the shadow land of wishes and fears.

The future seems uncertain. Opportunities for self-realization may crumble, while in many cases, children can be seen as a problematic aspect of women's careers. No one says it in those words, but the perception is there. Where to find the right emotion for feeling at home in our own country? So that the future would be the color of hope and not diminished by those chasing fiscal balance talking about slashing family benefits or mother's pay.

Becoming a mother is not something for others to comment on or ridicule. While we have been generous in terms of the maternity benefit, have we been equally giving when it comes to kindergartens, schools, hobby education and general feelings of social security?

We can only feel overjoyed in that there are those who do not give up, and we can eventually see two hearts beating on the ultrasound monitor. The baton of life has been passed. And yet the question lingers, whether we have the strength to introduce our child also to their brother, sister or both.

Years later, we seek the depth of our mothers' eyes, to ask them how we're doing. We search the look in their eye for familiar landscapes and paths trodden. But no amount of thanks can measure what mothers have given us. And the same will be true of our children.

We will always be indebted to the future.

Have a lovely Mother's Day!

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