Love, patience, and sacrifice: Lessons between mothers and children
It’s a fact of life—children learn a great deal from their moms. They are often our first and most patient teachers, our steady anchors in life. But mothers also learn from and grow with their children.
This Mother’s Day, we ask different personalities this question: What have you learned from your mothers? And we asked their mothers: What have you learned from your children?
Mimi Qiu Reyes, celebrity nail artist, and her mom Christine Siy, entrepreneur
Mimi: Honestly, everything I learned comes from my mom. She’s always been about hard work and putting family first, and she made sure we grew up comfortable but not spoiled. She always reminded us that nothing comes easy.
No matter how busy or tired she was, she still showed up for us and never gave up, even when things were hard. She also taught me to be kind and generous without expecting anything back.
Because of her, I learned how to stay grounded, be strong but still soft, and just lead with love in everything I do.
Christine: My children taught me how to love more deeply. As they grew up, I learned patience and to trust their own path.
Seeing them become kind, responsible, and achieve so much makes me a proud mom, it makes everything worth it. They remind me that happiness is really about family, love, and respect.
I did my best to raise them, but they’ve also made me a better person.
Tim Yap, eventologist, entrepreneur, creative director, and his mom Benita Yap, retired businesswoman
Tim: What I’ve learned from my mom is that love is something you show up for every single day. She taught us generosity, resilience, hard work and the importance of never giving up. She was the hardest working person and I grew up watching her achieve things for us, her children.
She has always been my number one fan—the kind of mom who keeps standees and cardboard cutouts of me at home and watches my shows repeatedly online because she’s genuinely proud. That kind of belief changes a person.
She was also the first one who introduced me to movies, television, theater, and the arts. She encouraged me to dream big and explore creativity at a young age, and I honestly wouldn’t be where I am today without her nonstop support and belief in me. I really got it from my momma.
Benita: What I learned from my children is that every child is different, and loving them means learning how to understand each one in their own way. Raising a big family was not always easy—there were sacrifices, worries, heartbreaks, and challenges along the way. But in the end, love becomes bigger than all the hardships.
Being a mother taught me strength I never knew I had. My children taught me how to keep going, how to appreciate life more deeply, and how to celebrate both the victories and the difficult moments together as a family.
Through everything we experienced—the joys, the losses, and the many seasons of life—I learned that a mother’s love never really ends. No matter how old your children become, they will always be your babies.
Erin Recto, partner, sommelier and operations director at Hapag and Ayà, and her mom Connie Angeles, executive director for health and medical programs at SM Foundation Inc., actress/TV host, former vice mayor of Quezon City
Erin: My mom has always been someone I deeply admire. Growing up, she was constantly balancing so many roles: doing foundation work, serving on the boards of different organizations, hosting a long-running TV show, and at the same time raising my sister and me with so much love and presence.
What I learned from her is that women are capable of holding many things at once, and doing so with both strength and grace. She taught me that you can care deeply for your family while still pursuing purpose outside of it.
Now that I’m preparing to become a mother myself, I find myself appreciating her even more. I only hope I can do it all with even a fraction of the grace, generosity, and heart that she always has.
Connie: What I’ve learned from my children is that love evolves beautifully with time. You spend your early years teaching and guiding them, but one day, you realize they’ve also been teaching you patience, openness, resilience, and even how to see the world in new ways.
My children have taught me to be more flexible, more understanding, and more appreciative of life’s simple moments. They remind me that while parents help shape their children, children also shape their parents into better, softer, and wiser people.
Most of all, they’ve taught me that motherhood never really ends. It simply grows deeper, richer, and more meaningful through the years.
Bryan Liu, VP for Strategy, Sales, and Marketing at Golden ABC, and his mom Alice Liu, president and COO of Golden ABC
Bryan: Growing up, I associated leadership with my dad. How to manage people, how to make decisions, how to run things.
But the older I get, the more I realize my mom was teaching me something just as essential: how to lead yourself. That your first reaction isn’t always the right one. That you can choose how something affects you. That being in control of yourself is what actually makes everything else possible. She didn’t lecture about it. I just watched how she handled things, and it stuck.
I carry that with me now, especially as a dad. A lot of what I’m trying to pass on to my daughters traces back to her.
Alice: One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned from my children is that parenting is never a one-way journey. While I may have raised them, they, in turn, have taught me the importance of seeing the world through a younger generation’s eyes. Watching each of them grow into the people they are today has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
What I admire most is how deeply committed they are to their work while still intentionally making time to be present for their own growing families. It is a balance they seem to understand so naturally—and one I wish I had learned earlier in my own journey through parenthood.
Markki Stroem, singer, theater and TV actor, events and radio host, and mom Lea Ana Ledesma Stroem, former head of Fitness International
Markki: I learned how to be a survivor from my mother. She worked very hard to get to where she is in her life at the moment—retired in Norway, traveling the world, and enjoying her life with my father. I have always been a hard worker and have not relied on anyone, including my parents, since I was 23. My mother was the same. She had me very young and worked hard to give me a great life. She is inspirational in every way, and I am so thankful to have a loving, caring, nurturing, and most of all, resilient mother! Happy Mother’s Day, Mommy Stroem and all the superwomen mothers out there!
Lea: Our boys have taught us a lot, especially after they all left home and found their lives outside the Stroem household. We have children and grandchildren from different generations: Millennial, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha. Each of them are different and carry with them the traits particular to their generations. We have learned to understand and work around all these special characteristics and continue to adjust to generational changes and advances. Now that we also have grandchildren, we have learned to accept that YouTube and Google may provide alternatives to child-rearing. It’s a different world! It’s important that we keep up with the times. I just hope that our kids also continue to value and learn from their heritage.
