What does a Mother get out of being a mother?

"She's one woman in a million. It's something to thank God for, a mother like that; it's a privilege to know her. I've been wondering what she gets out of it; but I think I've found it out. This morning, thinking what her life is, I couldn't see what repaid her, do you see?" (young man talking to the daughter of this mother who has 8 children) "What made up to her for the unending effort and sacrifice, the pouring out of love and sympathy and help- year after year after year...."

"You know, these days when women just serenely ignore the question of children, or at most, as a special concession, bring up one or two- just the one or two whose expenses can be comfortably met!- there's something magnificent in a woman like your mother, who begins eight destinies instead of one! She doesn't strain and chafe to express herself through the medium of poetry or music or the stage, but she puts her whole splendid philosophy into her nursery- launches sound little bodies and minds that have their first growth cleanly and purely about her knees. "

" Why, what good is learning, or elegance of manner, painfully acquired fitness of speech and taste and point of view, if you are not going to distill it into the growing plants, the only real hope we have in the world?

"you know, there's a higher tribunal than the social tribunal of this world, after all; and it seems to me that a woman who stands there, with a forest of new lives about her and a record like hers will find she has a Friend at court!"

taken from MOTHER, by Kathleen Norris. A book I just finished about a Young lady who just can't seem to understand why her mother has given up her life to keep having babies. I think this is a struggle that many ladies and young mothers battle at some time or another. I found this book through http://www.visionforum.com/ , I wish I could buy a whole cart of these to pass out to others! (I put in bold what I felt was significant)