The best compliment I have ever received is that I am just like my mother. Even during my moody teenage years after bickers over curfews, I would still smile at the comparison. In honor of Parents’ Weekend, I figured there would be no better time to learn about Villanova moms. I asked students to share insight on one thing their mother has taught them. Here on campus, there is no one to nag you about completing assignments or doing the right thing, so students must rely on all they have learned to guide them. In these formative years of our lives, when we are tasked with making important decisions for the future, we could all benefit from a mother’s wisdom.
The backbone of families, many students noted the selflessness and kindness their mothers exert.
“It is such a privilege to know I never have to question that my mom will be there for me,” one student said. “She does so much – never asking for credit, or even expecting it.”
This altruism has instilled the value of putting others first. Mantras from “kindness is free” and “you get what you give” still ring in a knowing tone inside students’ minds before making decisions.
“Nothing else matters except being as good of a person as you can be,” one student said. “Life is crazy, the only thing I can do is manage how I act and that should be the best version of me.”
Hard times will pass, but it is framing kindness as a strength that allows her to face the hard times instead of it washing over her.
Another student remembered her crippling introversion as a young girl. Fearful of even telling the waiter that her order was incorrect, she would rather poke at the spicy shrimp taco (she hates both spice and seafood), instead of politely asking for the correct cheese quesadilla. Her mother, however, would not let her sit back quietly and smile as the dish was placed in front of her. This wasn’t the last time her mom taught her to advocate for herself.
“I realize now I don’t have to accept a bad thing and blindly do what I’m told,” the student said. “I can stand up for myself, in a respectful way. If you don’t stand up for yourself, people will just walk all over you.”
“It was my mother who told me that nothing else matters unless you are having fun,” another student shared. “I had never had this much work before and didn’t know anyone… I felt so alone.”
Her nights spent in the library first semester of college may have incrementally increased her grades but left her sitting in the reading room watching her peers’ Instagram posts of dinners and parties she was not attending. It was then that she imagined her mother watching her. She could picture her furrowed brows and tender touch.
“Life is about balance – and I had none,” she said.
After that night, she sat next to a new girl in class, stayed a little longer at Spit dinner and reached out to new people.
One student’s mother always wanted to be a ballerina. As a young girl, she twirled in her three-person bedroom, her family unable to pay for lessons. It was her 45th birthday when she laced up her ballet slippers for the first time.
“Everybody says ‘It’s never too late,’” this student said. “But my mom proved it.”
The entire extended family of this student went to her recital to witness the whispered promise that dreams truly never expire.
Like most mothers, mine worked very hard: the never-finished labor of maternity. Her children are her creations, sculpted from her moral principles. Everything I am is a manifestation of her teachings. Every attribute is a testimony to how she raised me. When I am complimented for my patience, it is because she instilled that in me. All is a credit to her.
