Mothers and Magnets

The list of things that mothers do for children is very, very long. On this Mother’s Day we acknowledge the huge debt we owe to all those patient, caring and self-sacrificing mothers who kept doing the right thing in spite of often getting no thanks in return. Hopefully you will be assured today that you are appreciated. But it isn’t always the huge heroic deeds that stand out in a child’s mind, as is illustrated by the following incident.
A teacher’s lesson for her Grade Two class was all about magnets. She demonstrated how it could pick up pins, nails and other small iron items. Then she explained how a bigger magnet can pick up bigger items. Finally she showed them pictures of a crane that could even use a huge magnet to pick up cars in a salvage yard. At the end of the lesson period she wanted to be sure that they remembered the word magnet. So she asked the class one question. If my name starts with M and I can pick up a lot of things that are lying around what am I?
One boy piped up and said, “You are a mother.”

Happy Mother’s Day,
Henry Wiebe