By Agenzia Fides
May 10 2023
MEXICO CITY – A reflection on the great value of mothers in society is proposed in the editorial of the latest issue of the weekly “Desde la fe” of the Archdiocese of Mexico. “Two thousand years ago, a woman said yes to God, to become the mother of God himself and with Him the mother of humanity” highlights the text. “Mary of Nazareth, undoubtedly the most influential woman in history, was a mother, with all the uncertainties that could arise at the time, to live firsthand the uncertainties of any mother in the world, and also to live the courage that only God can instill in a woman who is a mother”.
For this reason, the weekly invites us to remember and recognize all mothers, those who have many children and those who only have one, since “mother’s love cannot be measured, it simply grows and strengthens”. There are mothers who have to raise their children alone, due to life circumstances; there are those who have to become migrants together with their children, leaving the place where they were born and going to unknown lands in search of a better future; there are those who cannot see their children because of the distance; others have to work a large part of the day, “because they have decided to sacrifice that family time for a better future for their family, and for society itself.” Sometimes they have to entrust the care of their children to the other parent, or they have to turn to their grandmothers, who thus continue the work of mothers, with so much love for their grandchildren.
In this panorama, there are mothers who have lost their children, unemployed mothers, or those “who have to carry out sometimes degrading jobs in order to obtain daily sustenance”, mothers who have suffered the death of a child, “a pain that remains for ever”. “There are mothers who have lost their child in the womb, voluntarily or involuntarily, and there are mothers that society could consider successful in a professional sense, but who have to face the daily sacrifice of not being present in everything they would like to be with their children”.
There is anendless number of professions, from the factory to commerce, from transportation to public safety, from medicine to teaching, “in which women mothers are involved, not only for family benefit, but to enrich society with their feminine and motherly vision”: we must value and respect them all, “because their work as mothers means that human society does not disappear from the face of the earth”. Entrusting them to Mary Most Holy, the editorial concludes with an appeal: “let us never forget the great social and human work that a mother does”.
According to the latest available data from INEGI (National Institute of Statistics and Geography), in 2021 out of 128 million people living in Mexico, 65.5 million were women (51.2%), of whom more than 50.5 million (77.1%) were 15 years old and over. Also in the same year, at the national level, out of the total number of women aged 15 and over, 70.1% had suffered at least one episode of violence, of a psychological, economic, patrimonial, physical, sexual or discriminatory nature in at least one area. Psychological violence is the most widespread (51.6%), followed by sexual violence (49.7%), physical violence (34.7%) and economic, property and/or discriminatory violence (27.4%). – (SL) (Agenzia Fides)
