The term Mother has always has a dual meaning (for me at least). I offer that the word Mother is usually assigned to the biological carrier of an individual and after that it [mother] takes variations depending on the relationship between child and “mother”. So everyone has a mother [biologically], some have a “mom”, sometimes the mother and mom are one person and some have no mom at all. To link to the article by Kaplan the “mom” takes the role of who the child aspires to be/who they trust and learn from. A mom can come from anywhere there is no need for a biological connection (although in most cases I’d hope that would illicit a stronger connection). I know my definition can get muddled with the different images of mothers that Kaplan discusses or with the idea of image through mother and daughter discussed by Williams but, I believe there is still validity.

To look at the scene in King Vidor’s Stella Dallas (1937), when Stella is watching her daughter Laurel through the window as she is about to be wed. I think we see a shallow representation of the split between mother and mom. Laurel’s mother is outside looking in because she gave up her daughter for her child’s benefit (heroic mother) but Laurel still looks for her mother. Not completely alone, Laurel has a step mother whom she begins to mimic. This is discussed in the Williams article I believe. When she talks about the relationship between mother and daughter and the dynamic of it. (the mother and daughter bond over their lack of penis, the mother passes the image of herself onto her daughter etc)

So to look at Tate Taylor’s The Help (2011) the relationship between Elizabeth Leefolt’s daughter and Aibileen Clark is extremely complex. For the split now has added a dimension to image. Aibileen loves the little girl as if her own and the little girl reciprocates this love stating, “you’re my real mommy Aibi”. That line, to me, was one of the most important lines of the film. For how do we dissect the word Mother/mom/mommy. IS a mother the term for the nurturing, caring, and forgiving parent or is it the biological term for the sex that carries the offspring? Even further into the film Aibileen begins to tell stories about the children she has raised, exclaiming that she had told one little boy that she drank to much coffee to explain her skin color. I know that this dynamic is intriguing to me but I don’t quite know how to tie it in to the readings directly. So how does the idea of race and even biological ties play into what the word “mother” is?