Child Development
Mother's Love Teaches Love
By Ann Patterson
Feb 27, 2008

Holding her eighteen-month-old Autumn Ann in her arms, Beverly looked at me in her beautiful loving way and said, “Mom, I understand now. I understand how much you love me. Now that I have my precious child, I understand.”

Those loving words today filled my heart as tears of love filled my eyes.

In that moment, I knew that I had learned a great lesson. Mothers teach daughters to love by their way of loving and showing love to their daughter. From the first moment of a daughter’s birth until the last moment of their lives together, love is being taught.


Love is of the heart. When a Mother lets love flow continuously as devotion, trust, respect and appreciation throughout the life of her child, she is preparing the way of love that will be given to her own grandchildren.

The initial love, which a mother feels for her child, is exciting to her own heart and a blessing to her tiny infant. For most mothers, that love continues to evolve with every task and every touch she gives to her baby.

For some mothers, that excitement and initial love changes as the day-by-day activities become a blur of soiled diapers, midnight feedings and related stressful activities and responsibilities.

Sometimes, a mother finds herself grumbling so much that the initial love fades into resentment in the presence of her demanding baby. In such moments, the baby feels the change. The mother’s touch becomes different, perhaps even painful to the sensitive skin.

The nervous system of a human being of any age and size functions better than radar does. The baby senses positive and negative feelings in the mother’s tone of voice as well as the words spoken. She understands within the depth of her being when she is being loved and when she is not.


The baby senses the message given in the movement of mother’s hands upon its body, and is aware of the message given in her mother’s manner of laying her onto the bed or floor. She receives a clear message according to the length of time it takes her mother to respond when she cries for help or comfort.


Negative feelings felt within the very being of the infant are strong teachers. They implant a message that love does not exist; or that it exists only when certain conditions are met. When a mother’s message about love is painful, her daughter’s future and her granddaughter’s future are being sadly determined.

The loved daughter, even as an infant, senses mother’s love and responds within her quiet spirit. Knowing and feeling love is healthy and healing to body, soul and spirit.

Every mother influences the spirit of the child of her womb every day in every way. Those early months of her baby’s life are significant in teaching love. Even more important, I believe, are the adolescent years.

Growing through adolescence to adulthood is a difficult period in life. A daughter who does not feel loved or acceptance by her mother may always be

confused about what love really is and how it feels. Later she may be unable to express it to her own daughter.

During her teenage years, a daughter finds herself being drawn to her mother and pushing away from her mother at the same time. The one important influence on her success in doing both is confidence in her mother’s love and in the way her mother shows that love.

When a daughter knows without a doubt in her heart, that she is fully accepted exactly as she is by her mother, then she knows that mother’s love can be depended on to remain constant or even increase.

On the other hand, if she feels within her spirit that mother’s love is demanding, is conditional and can be withdrawn, her heart’s pain may not allow her to successfully enter adulthood truly knowing love.

My daughter has never doubted that have always loved her very much, even the one time that we disagreed on an important matter, she interpreted my concern into a matter of trust. That happened when she was sixteen years of age and began dating her first and only boyfriend. After a few days of bad feelings, she did the one important thing that I had always tried to teach her.


She came to me and spoke a message from her heart to mine that she felt that my trust of her was being withdrawn. She said that she deeply valued my trust and that she needed it more than ever as she made her life’s decisions in her steps toward adulthood.

I understood her message and responded as a loving mother, a single mom, who believed in her decisiveness and asked forgiveness for my personal fear of failure as a mother.

I had taught her to always be open and honest about her feelings. She was and I was grateful. She spoke with love and moved me to “get back on the right track,” the track of trust, respect and appreciation of who she was and who she was becoming. Our love for each other continues to increase in a positive, maturing way as adults.

I have no doubt that her daughter will always feel a continuous flow of love, respect, appreciation and trust from her mother. The beauty of that flow is that it can flow downhill generation after generation.

I wish the same for every daughter born in America. Only unconditional, unlimited love from mothers can build loving children and eventually a loving world.