During March and May, nations honor the mother on a day known as “Mother’s Day” when some rejoice and honor their mothers through presents and loving and tender gestures and others grieve for having their mothers departed physically or for being abandoned by their mothers.

This said and far from emotions, reality calls first to revisit and refer to the different categories of motherhood. Yes motherhood is very much biological. However biological motherhood doesn’t always involve practicing motherhood either through mothers being completely careless towards their children or mothers abandoning their children whether through divorce or as outcome of extramarital relationship. Here, it is a must to refer to biological mothers who end the lives of their children prematurely through late term abortions. 

Between practiced biological motherhood and non-practiced biological mothers, great non-biological mothers practice most loving motherhood involving adopted children, children of one’s husband or single women who practice great motherhood with family member children or with most vulnerable citizens in non-governmental institutions for orphans or for children with life threatening illnesses, e.g. cancer, and with disabilities. In this respect no greatest very humane model of non-biological mother to remember and follow than Saint Mother Theresa. 

Putting aside the above three categories of motherhood, it is a must to refer to the most affectionate, devoted and  caring mother who practices greatest motherhood with her own children and with children within her professional responsibility or on voluntary basis. In this respect, it is an ethical and just duty to refer to one of the most humane loving mother who exhibited immense affection for her own children and for thousands of children with physical disabilities. This mother, this princess of status and this princess of the hearts, this mother who recently left us and joined the Lord is HRH Princess Majda Ra’ad who won the hearts, the respect and the admiration of many including of this author who in person on several occasions witnessed the joy, the tears and the worry in the eyes of this princess when hugging the children of Al-Hussein Society Jordan Center for Training and Inclusion (AHS). The late Princess Majda Ra’ad founded AHS in 1971 and presided it for over five decades and contributed immensely towards enhancing the status and the rights of the people with disabilities on local and on regional levels. This great role of late Princess Majda Ra’ad was surely so productive and successful with the support of her husband HRH Ra’ad bin Zeid and of her children and certainly through her collaboration with the Executive Director of more than two decades of AHS Mrs. Annie Mezagopian Abu Hanna. Mrs. Mezagopian Abu Hanna who,  like her model for humanity late Princess Majda Ra’ad,  practices most caring and affectionate motherhood with her own children and with the children of AHS  of different nationalities, origins, and faiths thus putting in practice the culture of tolerance and advocating human security embodied in  her both Armenian and Jordanian identities.

Yes on Mother’s Day, we must honor and give tribute to late Princess Majda Ra’ad who best invested the legacies of her two identities, the very humane peace loving legacy of her Swedish identity and of her Hashemite Jordanian identity.

Last but surely not least, it is a must to underline the multi tasks of motherhood which involves the early education and upbringing of the children, being responsible of house economy and healthy clean house environment, and a loving supportive partner of sacred partnership and often a care taker of the senior members of the extended family. Thus we regain the dignity of motherhood through stressing on the multiple responsibilities of mothers who unfortunately often refer to themselves as non-working housewives. 

True motherhood involving both non-biological and biological mothers, especially the two roles of motherhood practiced by a mother altruistically and unconditionally albeit with wisdom and even with strictness and assertiveness when and if needed , is truly a form of sainthood and a key prerequisite for any healthy successful compassionate society. Hence to secure a sustainable comprehensive socioeconomic and political development amid a civilized and humane society, all the possible support for those who practice true motherhood must be secured. 

Yes, let us revisit and revere different true motherhoods.

Madeleine Mezagopian

Advocate of Human Security and Academic Researcher, Advisor and Analyst

Conflict Resolution/Peace and Socioeconomic and Political Development 

Amman, Jordan, March 21, 2025