A friend of mine was abused by her mother, and has a very difficult relationship with her. She told me that as she had gone through life, she had found many mothers. Women who had helped her, in small ways and big ways, and helped her along. Some of those women, she told me, were not in her life anymore, but they had left her a healthier and stronger person. My friend had had to go through a lot of pain because of the way her mother treated her, and she is afraid to have children herself for fear that she would repeat her mothers mistakes.(But she loves my son and is wonderful around him, so I think she would be a great mom). I find it a very uniqe point-of-view; that we have many mothers, not just the one that brought us here.