Jewelry for the Women Who Mother Us

Mother’s Day always gets me thinking about the women who have shaped us, encouraged us and loved us through all the different versions of ourselves. Sometimes that person is our mom. Sometimes she’s a grandmother, an aunt, a sister, a friend, a mentor or someone who stepped into that role somewhere along the way.

The truth is, mothering can take a lot of different forms. It can look like raising children, but it can also look like answering the phone when someone needs you, offering the advice they aren’t ready to give themselves, showing up again and again, or simply being the person who makes someone else feel a little more held in the world.

I think all of it is worth celebrating.

The Women Who Help Shape Us

For me, my mom is one of the most important people in my life. She raised me, my brother and my sister as a single mother while building a career in education, and I grew up watching her work incredibly hard without ever making us doubt that she was in our corner.

She always encouraged me to follow my heart, but maybe even more importantly, I watched her do the same. She went to graduate school in her 40s, became a vice principal and eventually a principal, and showed me through her own life that there isn’t some magical age when you stop being allowed to change direction, want more or try something new.

When I look back at the decision to start my own jewelry business, my mom is woven into that story in more ways than I probably understood at the time. Starting CMD required a pretty enormous leap of faith, especially when I was 26 and had no idea what the next twenty-plus years would look like. Having someone who believed I could figure it out gave me some of the courage to try.

I’ve written more about her in Ode to My Mom and the Woman Who Shaped Me, because there really is no way to tell the story of who I am without talking about the women who helped me become her.

Mothering Is Bigger Than One Definition

Of course, the people who mother us aren’t always our biological mothers. They can be grandmothers who become our North Stars, friends who know when something is wrong before we’ve said a word, mentors who help us see strengths we haven’t learned to recognize yet, siblings who keep showing up, or chosen family who become every bit as important as the family we were born into.

I’ve been incredibly lucky to have women like that throughout my life. Some are family, some are friends, and some entered my world through work, travel or the strange series of circumstances that make someone important to you before you even realize it’s happening.

There are invisible threads running through all of those relationships. They connect us across generations, across friendships and through the different versions of ourselves we become over a lifetime. That idea of connection has always found its way into my jewelry too, including pieces from the Kith & Kin Collection, which was created around those bonds between the people who help hold us together.

My Gram and the Women Who Came Before Me

My Gram, Agnes Higgins, was another enormous influence in my life. She was the matriarch of a very big family, with 14 children, 36 grandchildren and 39 great-grandchildren, and she lived to be 103 years old. She believed deeply in staying busy, doing for others and finding ways to be useful in the lives of the people around her.

She was the kind of person who became an anchor for an entire family. After she passed, I found myself thinking a lot about the idea of a North Star, something constant that helps orient you even when you can’t physically see it anymore. That idea eventually made its way into jewelry I designed with her in mind.

You can read more about Gram and the pieces she inspired in The Jewelry I Designed with Gram in Mind. I’m grateful I’ve written so many of these memories down over the years, because the stories behind the people we love become their own kind of heirloom.

Jewelry Can Say What We Sometimes Forget to Say

I’ve always loved jewelry as a gift because it has a way of becoming attached to people and memories. A ring can remind you who gave it to you every time you look down at your hand. A pair of earrings can become the ones you wear constantly because they came from someone you love, and decades later the jewelry itself may carry a story far bigger than the object.

That’s especially true when you’re choosing something for a woman who has played an important role in your life. It doesn’t need to be the biggest or fanciest piece. Sometimes the best gift is simply the one that feels unmistakably like her.

And sometimes the meaning isn’t about the jewelry being given today at all. It may be an old ring, a necklace tucked away in a drawer or a collection of family pieces that belonged to someone important. Through Reconstruction, I get to help people take those pieces and create something they’ll actually wear while preserving the connection that made the originals matter in the first place.

I love that jewelry can do both. It can mark a new relationship or chapter, and it can carry an old one forward.

Or Let Her Choose Her Own

There is, of course, another gifting strategy I’ve always been a fan of: let her pick it out herself. Jewelry is personal, and some women know exactly what they like. There’s something pretty fun about giving someone permission to choose the ring she keeps thinking about, add another piece to her stack or finally get the earrings she’s been eyeing.

If you want the gift to be more personal than choosing something already made, we can help with that too. Maybe there’s a family piece that could become something new, maybe you want to create something specifically for her, or maybe you just need another set of eyes while figuring out what would suit her best. You can always book an appointment with me virtually or in person and we can figure it out together.

Sometimes We Learn to Mother Ourselves, Too

There’s another version of mothering I’ve thought more about as I’ve gotten older: the care we eventually learn to give ourselves. The voice that tells us to rest when we need it, trust our own instincts, make the difficult decision, leave something behind or choose a life that fits better than the one we thought we were supposed to want.

Maybe we learn that voice from our mothers, our grandmothers, our friends or the other women who have loved us well. Eventually, some of their wisdom becomes part of our own inner language. We begin offering ourselves the same patience, protection and encouragement they once offered us.

I think that deserves to be honored too.

For All the Women Who Show Up for Us

I originally wrote about Mother’s Day because I wanted to thank the selfless women who inspire us, motivate us and remind us to be better people. All these years later, I don’t think the heart of that has changed. What has changed is how much more expansive my understanding of that kind of love has become.

So here’s to the moms, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, friends, mentors and chosen family who have loved us, encouraged us, challenged us and helped us become who we are. Here’s to the people who pick up the phone, give the hard advice, offer the steady hand and remind us who we are when we temporarily forget.

And here’s to remembering to tell them what they mean to us more often than one Sunday in May.

With love for the women who helped make us who we are,
Colleen

 

© Colleen Mauer Designs. All rights reserved.
Published: April 28, 2020
Updated: August 25, 2026