It may be cliché to say this, but that does not make the sentiment any less genuine when I say that the woman I look up to the most is my mother. When I say that, I don’t mean it to imply that I believe she is perfect or all-knowing. What I mean when I say that my mother is my role model is that there are many things about her that I admire and many things about her character and mistakes that I learn from.
I admire the strength of my mom’s character. She is the most hard-working person that I know and she makes sacrifices on a daily basis for her family. My mother had me relatively young and in a foreign country. She spent three years handling paperwork so that she and I could come to the United States and live a better life. She moved here by herself, where she didn’t know the language or the environment, for the advancement of my life. Now she spends her days working 12-hour shifts at a warehouse, then comes home and cooks, washes clothes, and generally provides in any way that she can for me and my two siblings. She sacrifices her time, energy, and comfort for us.
From my mother I have also learned many lessons. I learned how important a college education is—not just for academics, but also for the opportunities and the people you wouldn’t find otherwise. My mother was unable to attend a university and I have seen the stress she has gone through working jobs that don’t pay well, don’t have good benefits, and make people feel stuck. I learned how important it is to prioritize yourself and your dreams. Both my mom and I have giving personalities, so it is really easy to forget about what we need in the face of what the people we love need. I for one need alone time and I need to finish any work I have in a timely manner in order to feel productive and useful.
My mom is my role model because she, more than anyone in the world, has given me every necessity, whether it be physical, such as food, emotional, such as affection, or psychological, such as the way I act towards the world.