With Mother’s Day right around the corner, people both young and old will likely soon be trying to figure out how to best celebrate the moms of the world. Flowers will be ordered, candy purchased, balloons inflated, cards drawn. Pictures will be posted to Facebook, phone calls home will made, and brunch will be eaten. The message “Happy Mother’s Day, Mom” will be everywhere, and, hopefully, moms all around will realize how much we as daughters, sons, spouses, and a society in general appreciate all that they do.
Like so many others, I have done my best to show my mother how much I care each May since I was young; however, in recent years, I have started to realize that the Mother’s Day season is a time when I find myself thinking of a number of other woman in my life who have inspired me and influenced me in as powerful a way as my own mother. In fact, I would go so far as to claim that I have started wanting to celebrate my “other moms,” – the friend’s mom who has been hosting “snack time” at her house since I was eight years old, the roommate’s mom who sent me an Easter basket, my thesis advisor – or, my “academic mom” – who kept me sane as I embarked on one of my most difficult academic projects to date… the list goes on. These beautiful, compassionate women fill my heart, keep me safe, and put a smile on my face ways complementary to my own mother, and, I arguably owe almost as much to them as I do to her.
Oprah Winfrey once claimed that, “Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.” I would go further and claim that biology isn’t even a necessary component in being a mother to someone. Mothers are the women around you who guide you – the ones who encourage your dreams, help you pick up the pieces when you falter on your way to those dreams, and believe in you even in the moments when you don’t anymore. They are the women who inspire you, who represent all you hope to someday become a fraction of. They are the women who make room of you in their hearts, who open their lives to you, and who simply hope to make a difference in y our life in some small way.
Across your lifetime, odds are you, like me, have had and will have many women who have filled the role of “mother” in some capacity in your mind. This Mother’s Day, take the time to let these women know what they have meant to you. Let them know that you think of them as mothers too. Give them the title. Make the same room in your heart for them that they have always made for you. Celebrate them.

In the spirit of Mother’s Day, Strong Women, Strong Girls is running a campaign to celebrate the strong women in our lives. Donate to our organization today in honor of one of the many “moms” who inspire you.

If you’re in Boston, visit our donation page and make sure to designate your donation “in honor of” the strong women you want to celebrate.

If you’re in Pittsburgh, save the date for Pittsburgh’s Day of Giving on May 6th and, on that day, go to www.pittsburghgives.org and click “Day of Giving” followed by “Donate Now.” Select “Strong Women, Strong Girls” and make a donation of $25 or more to be matched by the Pittsburgh Foundation.

Thank you for your continued support, and happy Mother’s Day!

Kim Crowley joins SWSG as the Marketing and Communications Associate in her last semester at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education, where she will be graduating with a bachelor’s degree in applied psychology and human development. Finishing her third year as a mentor, Kim is passionate about SWSG’s mission and is excited to be working to promote it. She wrote this blog post in honor of her mother, her grandmothers, her sister, and all the other strong women in her life that she has been blessed enough to know.