I chose this painting to accompany my Mother's Day post because, as the viewer, you can see both mother and child contributing, from their own experience and abilities, to the requirements of the moment. Each is stalwart. They may or may not be aware of the other's efforts and emotions. It looks like the challenges they face are great and the stakes are high. We all have experienced some form of this experience in our lives. Maybe the people in the painting are accustomed to this kind of hardship. Maybe they don't know the stakes are high because they are always this high. Maybe the mother knows and the child doesn't or vice versa. Looking at this painting with an eye to our own experiences, memories, judgements of ourselves and others in the past or present can help raise possibilities of new interpretations of how we perceive our lives. Maybe you as a hardworking child had no way of appreciating what your mother was going through. Or maybe you are the mother who is not appreciated - or not appreciating your own effort. Maybe you as a hardworking child, took on too much and felt your mother's work was too much of a burden because you were not doing enough. Maybe you and your mother - or you and your child - are in a greater partnership than you realized. And, the internal mother and internal child you carry with you as part of your psyche can dialogue and integrate as you appreciate the many and complex possibilities in the mother/child relationship. I chose this painting because I think it holds endless teachings.