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A Love Letter to My Mum: Personal Statements That Pay Tribute to Our Greatest Supporters

03/05/2024•13 minute read

Mother's Day is more than just a day to give flowers and cards. It's a time to reflect on the profound impact that mothers and even grandmothers have on our lives. Whether it's through their comforting words, wise advice, or determination to see us succeed, mothers play a pivotal role in shaping who we become. Recognising their contribution is a small way to show our gratitude for the lasting influence they've had on us.

To celebrate this special day, we want to share a couple of personal statements that pay tribute to our mothers and grandmothers — the tireless supporters who have been by our side through all of life's challenges. These stories also demonstrate how the unique bond with a motherly figure can inspire personal growth and success.

The Impact of a Mother’s Influence

Mothers play a pivotal role as educators in their children’s early years. In fact, a child’s development is primarily shaped by the influence of parents or caregivers. As children, we learn a great deal from those around us and from our environment, making a mother’s relationship with her child crucial.

Mothers have a significant influence on their children’s lives. They:

are considered the first and most important teachers
are our guardian angels
serve as a beacon of hope in tough times
help us understand the world better
guide us through challenges and help us face our fears
assist in developing their child’s discipline and social-emotional skills

In short, mothers shape our early years and leave a lasting mark on who we become. Their love and guidance are invaluable.

Tips for Writing Personal Statements that Celebrates a Mother’s or a Grandmother’s Impact

A personal statement is an essential component of university applications, allowing students to express their individuality and share personal stories. With various angles of approach, our mothers can serve as the foundation for a compelling narrative. In fact, highlighting our mothers or grandmothers, and writing about something meaningful and personal is an excellent way of standing out. The personal statement is your chance to discuss impactful experiences and what you’re passionate about!

Start by reflecting deeply on the role your mother or grandmother has in your life. How has she inspired you? How did she shape your values? Did her life experience motivate your decision to pursue a specific major? These are a few key questions you can ask yourself to get you started.

Be Authentic

Your own voice is unique so let it shine through! Admissions Officers read thousands of essays each year and it’s easy to get yours lost in a highly competitive pool. To stand out better, it’s important to reflect genuinely on your experience. Your personal statement should clearly convey who you are, your values, and what you’ve learned from your cumulative experience.

Here, mothers can be your focal point by explaining how she has motivated you and helped you grow as a person. Remember to also weave in authentic experiences that highlight your unique relationship to give your essay a personal touch. Don’t be afraid of being honest and vulnerable in your essay either! Take a look at our first essay example below, and observe how the writer connects a personal tragedy with her journey of self-discovery.

Connect to Your Ambitions

In your personal statement, admissions officers want to learn more about your ambitions and your motivation behind it. If your mother has shaped your aspirations and career plans, it’s worth mentioning it in your essay. For example, if she works in a field that you’re interested in, you could talk about how her work has inspired you.

Keep in mind though that you shouldn’t simply recount their story - your essay’s central focus is ultimately you. Always focus on the insights you have attained and what you have learnt, and connect them to your aspirations! You can then showcase your enthusiasm for your intended major, whether it’s with a passion project or community service. This demonstrates your level of maturity and your personal and intellectual growth.

Craft a Structured Narrative

A strong personal statement is one with a compelling narrative and a unifying theme. It might be tricky to combine various elements from almost two decades worth of experience, but incorporating an overarching theme is vital. What is the bigger picture of your essay? Your key points should all make sense when read together as a whole.

Mothers make for an effective overarching theme. It should connect the conclusion with the introduction, reinforce your key points, and explain how it’ll impact you moving forward. The second essay example is a great illustration of how the writer connects her relationship with her mother to something she’s passionate about, Kpop.

Heartwarming Stories Honouring Mothers and Grandmothers

Here are stories that beautifully capture the essence of motherhood and how our mothers and grandmothers can motivate us to achieve our goals. These stories also illustrate how our personal experiences with these figures can shape compelling personal statements!

Essay #1

With the quiet fan humming and the soft murmur of the TV in the background, Ah Ma said under her breath, “I never thought I’d have to go to my daughter’s funeral.”

In this moment, my grandmother’s strong exterior shattered like glass against the hard reality. My heart squeezed as I discovered that within the brave, hardworking matriarch lives a grief more profound than I can ever imagine: the pain of a mother who lost a daughter.

My mother passed away when I was so young that my first memories of her happened to be the last. She has always lived in the crevices of my memory—blurry hospital visits and the hazy scent of a dish whose recipe has long been forgotten. These glimpses are what make up my idea of her; sometimes she has felt more like a stranger than a mother. Throughout my childhood, I was expected to grieve for a person, who, over years, became less real in the fuzzy visions of childhood memory. I didn’t really know her, but it hurt all the same when I couldn’t remember (or never knew in the first place) what her favorite food was. The pain of having known the dead, the pain of trying to know the dead: two sides of the same coin.

What I knew more about was the grief that haunted my family. Hushed conversations and sobbing past bedtime taught me that my mother’s death was taboo. When I came home with a new haircut, and Ah Ma whispered, “you looked just like her,” I knew who she was but didn’t ask any questions. Ah Ma was looking at me, but at the same time, at a person who came through the same door with the same haircut decades ago, now immortalized on the family shrine.

Over time, the silence became too suffocating. So on that day when Ah Ma laid her heart bare for the first time, I asked her if my mother liked sports too.

She gave a little nod, and at that moment, a wall between us was torn down.

Gradually, I learned more about my mother. On some days, Ah Ma would reveal a part of my mom that she kept close to her heart, and soon we realized that we both found solace in sharing her story. The glaring blank space in my life began to contour itself into a more defined figure of the person I am now learning to love and grieve.

She was diagnosed with cancer shortly after I was born. I inherited her smile, but not her precise orderliness; her determination drove her to pursue finance, and mine to politics. It was a curious experience, knowing someone I have barely met, but it was one that allowed me to finally love this hardworking and over-worrying mother, and gave weight to the word mother that was once hollow to me.

She gradually made her way back into family meal conversations, appearing in dinnertime stories fondly told one too many times. I put flowers on her shrine twice a year—the day of her birth and the day of her death—because her life is worth celebrating as much as the legacy she left behind. Her final lesson to me was about the unrealized future, and I learned that living is a privilege I afforded. Loving her became a source of strength that motivates me to pursue my own passions to the fullest; it is a silent promise to live my life for hers too. This is a different kind of love, one that can never again be reciprocated—but one that endures.

It’s the kind of love now found in lazy afternoons, bustling dinners, and a silent hand on my back at the columbarium. My family now shares both love and grief—because they coexist, not contradict—and I found that the empty space in my heart is a little more filled today.

Essay #2

“You never listen to me, Dinggggg!!!! I’m doing this all for you!!!”, my mother shouted strikingly from the other side of the house, followed by the jarring sound of falling chopsticks. In the blink of an eye, I had burst into tears.

My mom and I didn’t always fight like this. I was born in Beijing, China. At the age of eleven, I moved to Singapore with my mom for a better education, while my dad continued to pursue the family business in China. Despite being in an unfamiliar country, I was able to quickly adapt to my surroundings. I became independent and able to handle unprecedented situations without the help of my mom. Instead, I was the one helping her due to the language barrier.

As I grow more independent, however, there is more friction between us. I believe the desire for independence is natural when on the brink of adulthood. I need privacy and freedom, but my mom needs me to tell her everything: where I’m going with my friends; what time I’m coming back; and who specifically I’m going out with. She has done small things like following me to the library to make sure I'm actually studying there and looking over my shoulder when I’m texting my friends. It feels like she doesn’t trust me, which is frustrating, because I want to be considered a reliable person.

When I need to destress either from family matters or school, my K-pop idols save me. My favorite song is “Better Days” by the boy group SuperM—the powerful lyrics brighten my gloomiest days. The group has said “this song contains a message of comfort and empathy to help get through these difficult times. We hope our fans can feel the warmth of this messaging through our vocals and fluid rapping.”

I know it feels like the world is falling and you can't make it through. There’s gonna be better days, better days, better days.

Ironically, it was my mom who introduced me to K-pop. She saw SuperM’s amazing performance online and thought I would enjoy it too. I am always thankful to her for giving me the power of my idols, allowing me to persevere through my most challenging times—even when the challenge is my mom! Even though they are not physically present, I treasure them as my sanctuary.

Kpop idols are infamously under constant scrutiny by paparazzi and Saesang fans who?? ??invade their privacy. These Sasaeng fans seek out celebrities at their homes and even steal personal belongings. Nevertheless, my Kpop idols still prepare the best stages, fan meetings and concerts. Their resilience allows them to surmount their adversity. I am always inspired by their unwavering spirit and emulate them to stay positive.

I understand some of the conflicts with my mom arise from her isolation from friends and family. We have not gone back to China since Covid-19 started, which has been difficult for both of us. Therefore, I have become her only ‘friend’ and her family in Singapore. External pressures have catalyzed and exacerbated our fights. Hopefully, when we both move back to our familiar China from Singapore and before I go to the US, we will be able to share our thoughts about our past years in Singapore, talking things out in a light-hearted way. Laughing together over funny moments in a Korean variety show at midnight until our tears drop, I am committed to restoring our unbreakable relationship.

College will be another adventure. I will again get to learn and adapt. I hope I can bring my compassion (and Kpop!) to those who are also feeling pressured and stressed in a new environment. If the power of Kpop and music can pacify my soul, I believe it can appease many more.

There’s going to be better days, better days, better days, around the corner, that’s true.

Essay #3

My long skirt clung to the back of my knees as I knelt forward onto the wooden bars below me. With my eyes ahead, I was blinded by the early beams of Saigon’s sunlight reflected in my grandmother’s pearl earrings. I was 6 when I could first recall my hatred of the pool of sweat gathering in my underarms and upper back each time I went to mass. There must be another way to love God without smelling for 3 hours each week.

The altar bells were ringing as the priest moved onto his homily:

“Women were created to support all things.”

After every 5 AM Sunday mass, my grandmother, Ba Noi, had always repeated that the priests’ words carry the true messages of God. I was to believe and trust in his words, in God’s words, and not have my own opinion. I did not question the truth behind the priest’s words, but I wondered if God willed women to sweat through their long sleeves and skirts in 85-degree weather.

I was 11 when I first understood the English that the priest was speaking in New Zealand. Each week, he would repeat: “God created us in His image; all are equal in God’s eyes.” The altar bells would resonate as they did in Saigon, but in a different key.

I was 16 when I heard the resonance of the altar bells at the Auckland Vietnamese Mass in the same key as when I was 6 years old.

“Women are supporters of all things.”

This time, in Auckland, the voice in my head disagreed with the priest. I went against Ba Noi's teachings of blindly believing in the priest. One thought remained in my head after the mass: was it God’s will to prevent women from thinking for themselves? I didn’t know which version of Catholicism I belonged in. In Ba Noi's parish, girls are expected to absorb everything that the priest says. In school masses, girls can understand, judge, and absorb what they want to absorb—actions of those Ba Noi would label as non-believers. Am I a non-believer?

The revving of my dad’s car drowned out the resonance of the altar bells in my head as we drove home. Instead of the usual Sunday conversation about the week ahead, the moving wind was the only sound present. Noticing my unusual manner, Dad broke the silence.

“Hien, if you disagree with Father Binh, you’re using your God-given ability to think: you’re following God’s will.”

I felt my heart race and my palms sweat. I didn’t only learn about Father Binh’s message from God, I challenged it. Terrified but excited, I wanted to know more, to challenge more.

In a similar way, I wanted to challenge concepts in my academic life; I embraced the freedom of questioning that I gained from Church. I didn’t want to just learn biology in Year 12. I wanted to evaluate and change it. I wanted to show other young women that they can also change science. I wanted other girls to freely think in a way that I was not permitted to when I was younger. I took action by founding the international organisation Rising Scientess to facilitate thinking sessions where girls can question and further develop scientific concepts of our world.

Having experienced two polar opposite expressions of Catholicism, I learned that the only thing I can be sure about is uncertainty and the only response I can have is to question, challenge, and produce new answers. The contrast between the keys of Saigon’s and Auckland’s altar bells laid the foundation for my curiosity and appreciation of small details.

Although the sounds I heard were altar bells, I look forward to hearing new sounds as I head to college. I’m unsure if this will result in harmony or dissonance, but I’ll know what to do next: to learn, challenge, and make it work.

As we celebrate Mother's Day, let's take a moment to thank the mothers in our lives for their endless love and support. Their influence is profound and far-reaching, and their role in shaping our futures cannot be overstated. Whether through a simple "thank you," a heartfelt note, or a special gesture, let's show our appreciation for the greatest supporters we could ask for.

Happy Mother's Day to all the incredible mums out there. You are truly the heart of our success stories.

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