The Love of Mothers

 I've been watching Call My Agent! on Netflix, a French series about, well, agents for the French stars. 

The show focuses more on the younger agents of the firm, but sometimes the crusty old-timer, Arlette, gets a word in edgewise, and she does have the wisdom of age and experience. 

In Season 3 episode entitled "Isabelle," she comes to visit a new mother, who had accidentally become pregnant and hadn't been sure to begin with if she should have the child. The mother is overwhelmed in this new change, questioning her decision. 

Arlette begins to speak of her own experience. "I don't do regrets, you know me. I was a free woman, at a time when it wasn't easy to choose that way of life. People looked at me funny. I partied hard, I worked hard, traveled a lot, I had many lovers," she tells the mother. 

"Yeah, and you had no regrets," the mother assumes. Arlette corrects her impression: "I do. There's one thing I wish I'd had: a mother's love for her child. That's a special kind of love. It never goes away. Yeah, I would've loved to experience that! It can be kind of frightening too. You gotta experience that. Live your life to the fullest."

I found the way she expresses that regret to be interesting. A number of women would say they want a child for the child's love for them; but she seems to see quite clearly that love from one's own children is not a guarantee. However, a mother (typically) loves her own child, no matter what.

It's hard sometimes to have the perspective when a toddler is screaming blue murder—that we don't become mothers in order to receive love, but to give love. That the child did not ask to come here, and that it has no obligations to us (as yet. The kibbud av v'eim thing kicks in later).