From humans to animals, motherhood exists everywhere

Year after year, Mother's Day comes with flowers, photographs, social media posts with nostalgic captions, and emotional tributes. People celebrate this day because of mothers intensive care, sacrifice and priceless love. But, do you know what? Beyond this human society, another quieter celebration already exists in nature itself. For this, there is no need for a fixed day to celebrate. Hence, every day is Mother's Day.

If you look insightfully, you can see that motherhood continues everywhere in forests, rivers, rooftops, villages, and even in your city streets. A mother hen protects her chicks by gathering them under their wings to provide warmth, safety, and security. A stray dog shielding her puppies from the rain. An elephant refuses to leave its injured calf behind. A mother waking before dawn to prepare her child for school. The faces are different. Yet the instinct is the same.

Indeed, Motherhood is one of the best creations of our God. It's the only emotion that exists beyond language and species. From humans to animals, it appears as an ancient force rooted deeply within life itself.

 A bond older than civilisation

Scientists explain motherhood through biology and survival. Hormones create attachment. Evolution rewards the protection of offspring. Species survive because mothers nurture the next generation. But observing motherhood closely often feels larger than science alone.

If you are from a rural village, you might notice that even a simple mother hen can become fiercely protective when its chicks are threatened. Or you may have seen on social media an elephant refusing to leave her dead calf, or a mother bird tirelessly flying back and forth, carrying food to a nest hidden among the branches. 

In the Sundarbans, tigresses raise cubs in one of the harshest environments on earth. In urban alleys, cats search through garbage bins for food before carrying scraps back to their kittens. Across the natural world, motherhood becomes labour without applause -- continuous, repetitive, and often invisible.

Human mothers know this reality well. Their work hardly pauses. It exists in unfinished meals, sleepless nights, silent anxieties, and sacrifices so ordinary that society, as well as other family members, often forgets to notice them.

The invisible labour of mothers

Motherhood is often celebrated through symbolic gestures, yet its everyday reality is far more demanding than what appears in greeting cards, social media posts, or gifts.

A mother sacrificing sleep to care for a sick child.  A garment worker may work overtime to support her family. A rural woman carrying both water and an infant under intense heat. A single mother balancing survival and taking care of her offspring alone. Much of motherhood exists in silence. The labour is repetitive, emotional, and continuous. Yet society often treats it as ordinary simply because mothers have carried it for generations.

Nature mirrors this reality, too. Some octopus mothers protect their eggs for months without eating, dying shortly after the eggs hatch. Polar bear 

mothers survive harsh winters while nursing cubs inside snow dens. Penguins travel enormous distances searching for food before returning to their young.

In both humans and animals, motherhood repeatedly reveals the same pattern: survival through sacrifice.

A bond that transcends species/ Nurturing as a Universal Force

Scientists explain maternal behaviour through biology and evolution. Hormones create attachment. Instinct encourages protection. Species survive because mothers nurture the next generation.

But observing motherhood insightfully often feels larger than science alone. There is undeniable emotion in the way elephants mourn calves, or in the panic of a bird circling above its threatened nest. These moments challenge the belief that humans alone experience deep emotional bonds. Motherhood blurs the line humans try to draw between themselves and the natural world. It reminds us that care is not merely social behaviour - it is part of life's foundation.

Long before humans built societies, wrote poetry about mothers, or even set aside a day to celebrate, nature was already telling the same story.

Motherhood Beyond the Myth of Perfection

Yet motherhood is not always soft or poetic. It can be exhausting, frightening, isolating, and emotionally overwhelming. Mothers are often expected to remain endlessly patient and selfless, regardless of their own struggles. Nature also reflects this harshness. Animal mothers can become fiercely aggressive while protecting their offspring. In difficult conditions, survival itself becomes painful and complex.

Human mothers, too, carry invisible emotional burdens -- fear for children's futures, financial pressure, societal expectations, and the exhaustion of constant responsibility.

Reducing motherhood to sentimental celebration alone often ignores this reality. True appreciation of mothers requires recognising not only their love but also the weight they carry.

What motherhood teaches about the world

Our individualist contemporary society often celebrates speed, productivity, and competition. Whereas motherhood represents something different: responsibility toward another life. At its core, motherhood is an act of continuity. It is a life protecting life.

Whether inside a luxury apartment or beneath a broken roadside shelter, the instinct persists. It survives economic hardship, environmental danger, and exhaustion.

And perhaps that is why motherhood feels universally moving. Because across species, motherhood reveals a truth that civilisation sometimes forgets -- survival is not built only on power, but also on care.

In the cry of a hungry child answered by a tired mother, or in the quiet vigilance of an animal protecting its young, the same ancient story continues to unfold.