"Great mother" and "self-sacrifice" are labels that are easy to deduce from Xiaohua. To me she is more of a mother who knows how to respect her child as an equal, which is much rarer than the aforementioned qualities.
She really does let children choose their own path. Before they make a choice, she gives them a chance to see how those choices make a difference. The life of a human can be experienced at school, and the life of a wolf can be found in the mountains. In order not to delay, she carried two bags with only tens of thousands of yen in her pocket, and took her two children to live in a crumbling old house at the foot of the mountain.
For Snow, who wanted to be a human, she sewed a dress for her and taught her how to keep from becoming a wolf. What I admire most about her is when she got into trouble because of her wolf identity:
The boy who was scratched by the snow said that his ears were scratched by a wolf in order to cover up the snow. Xiaohua was shocked when she heard it. I thought she would transfer Xue and use paternalistic protection to avoid her identity being discovered. But even so, Xiaohua always believed in her daughter's desire to be a human being and respected her daughter's wishes. She didn't intervene in her interpersonal relationships casually because Xue didn't control herself to become a wolf and hurt others, and gave her infinite trust.
The same is true for rain. Rain didn't like human schools, so she went to the Forest Conservation Association to apply for a job, hoping that a wolf adopted there could teach him. Yu was going to go to the mountains to find a "teacher", so she went to thank the teacher with a thank you gift. Yu and Xue fought at home for their own identity, and she did not interfere to impose her "opinion" on the children. Although she is a mother, she is not a human-wolf hybrid, and she knows that there are some things she is not qualified to say. Even if the 10-year-old Yu wanted to leave her and go to the mountains, she was blocked because the little crying bag in her memory would not work without her. When Yu climbed the mountain, and the distant bark came, she knew that he was already a wolf, and she was relieved.
After reading it, I am more determined that if I am a parent in the future, I must respect the determination of the child. Although it can't be reached, my heart yearns for it.
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