Last weekend, advertising great Mother’s Day gifts, many stores promoted tabletop fountains. They were quite lovely and not terribly expensive, but not, I suspect, a very good gift for the average mom. Every time I heard the "restful" sound of flowing water, I’d be subconsciously ex-pecting a toddler’s voice to shout, "Mom! The toilet’s running over!"

That’s what having children does to a woman. Once she becomes a mother, she looks at the world differently. Gifted with the ability to see everything through her child’s eyes, she perceives wonders all around her, but she also perceives dangers. A toilet clogged with an entire roll of tissue flushed by a newly undiapered two-year-old is the least of her worries. Traffic roars faster and nearer. Dogs’ teeth grow longer, strangers smiles look like leers, and she begins to wonder if it’s even possible to raise a happy, healthy, moral child.

And then there are the children themselves. Shortly after my first child was born, a more experienced mom told me that God sends us children to drive us to our knees.

Elsewhere on this page is a guest column from a mother who has learned how quickly and quietly our children can escape our grasp, and how essential it is for someone else to be willing to take responsibility. She writes of being judged harshly, and for good reason. Parents have been severely criticized lately for everything that’s perceived to be wrong with America’s youth, and there’s no disputing that they bear the primary responsibility. Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, though, and something else needs to be said:

It’s the toughest job in the world, and every mother I know is doing the very best she can.

I won’t speculate on the challenges of child-rearing in any other era; I know it’s never been easy. But I also know that the forces opposing mothers have multiplied just since my own teenagers were born. Television, movies and music are more explicit and more offensive. Violence is more pervasive. The pressures on the family are severe.

I remember very clearly the first time I gave my son into someone else’s keeping. He was well past three years old; my husband and I had waited to have children and once we did, we saw no need for babysitters. Other than the few nighttime hours we spent at the hospital acquiring his sister, we’d kept him in our presence. Eventually, though, the time to broaden his horizons, and so there I was, standing at the preschool gate, when I realized that I was giving up the right to control every bit of information that entered his head.

That moment comes for every mother. For some, it’s the first day of kindergarten; for others, it’s necessary just a few weeks after the birth of a child. We select the best possible environment, bend down to kiss a tousled little head, and then we cede to the rest of the world a role in the raising of our child. We no longer live in a society where grandmothers and aunts are available to fill that role, nor do we have the rich tradition that once passed along to new mothers the wisdom of the generations.

We will all benefit if we give moral support to mothers. If we’re so convinced they’re doing a lousy job, we need to help them to do better. They’re not lazy and they’re not selfish; they have a big job and society undermines them at every turn.