Sonia Sotomayer is one of the most remarkable Supreme Court nominees in history. If her nomination is approved by Senate, she’ll be the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court, and only the third woman.

She was born in New York to Puerto Rican parents, and was raised in the Bronx. Her father died when she was nine, and after his death her mother worked six days a week as a nurse, sometimes working a second job, to support the family.

Even as a hardworking single mother, her mom, Celina Sotomayor, never stopped encouraging her children to focus on their education. She bought a set of encyclopedias for her two children, much talked about in the media in the last few days for being the only set in the neighborhood, and worked extra hours to pay for the tuition costs and send her children to the nearby Catholic school.

Sonia’s brother is a doctor, and after graduating from Princeton university, Sonia went to law school at Yale. She then worked in private practice briefly, but has spent much of her career in public offices, first as an Assistant District Attorney in New York, and then as a Federal District judge and a Court of Appeals judge. During that time, one of the organizations she was involved in was the Maternity Center Association, now called Childbirth Connection, a non-profit organization working to improve the quality of maternal care.

As well as education, Celina said that her parenting focused equally on character. She says that “I always taught my children to study and be honest and be good.”

In a speech at the White House with Barack Obama on Tuesday, Sonia paid tribute to her mom.

“I stand on the shoulders of countless people. Yet there is one extraordinary person who is my life aspiration. That person is my mother, Celina Sotomayor. My mother has devoted her life to my brother and me. And as the President mentioned, she worked often two jobs to help support us after Dad died. I have often said that I am all that I am because of her, and I am only half the woman she is.”
Celina’s neighbors and friends also spoke of her devotion to her children, and of how her kids were always her first priority.

Sonia has worked hard to get to where she is now, but her story is powerful proof of how good mothering can make a huge difference in a person’s life. Not all our children will end up on the Supreme Court, but we hope that they will achieve the things that they dream of. But how does what we do as mothers affect the lives of our children, and how can we help them become successful in their own lives?

I think perhaps the best thing Cecilia did for her children was to love them unconditionally, and be there for them through all the tough times. And so they grew up with an unshakable foundation and the certainty of their mother’s love that has helped both Sonia and her brother achieve things that aren’t usually expected from kids from the Bronx.

Some woman have a fool-proof life plan that goes something like: healthy happy childhood, happy healthy teen hood with just the right amount of mischief and mayhem while getting straight A’s and joining the Glee club, apply for several Ivy Leagues but promise yourself you’ll be satisfied with a halfway decent school, rinse and repeat mantra from high school, kiss a load of boys but fall in love once, move out together after college both working at high end jobs making decent money. Travel. Own a dog (telling yourself it’s practice for a baby) wait until you are both successful enough to afford a house, or two bedroom apartment and you convince yourself that you don’t care about cellulite and stretch marks before you start to try and get pregnant. Get pregnant. Spend nine months worrying how you’re going to never fit back into your old jeans while simultaneously eating cake. Good smooth labor. Six weeks of maternity leave, spent dieting, attempting to breast feed, taking thousands of pictures of baby and catching up on novels. Purchase breast pump. Hire responsible nanny (slightly chubby, and nonthreatening, note: nanny cannot be sexy). Cry the first day back to work, but secretly are pleased you will have adult conversation and a latte. Maybe repeat ?get pregnant? in a few years…

Yeah, nice plan.

Here was mine:

Crappy childhood (see alcoholic father, emotional neglect and bankruptcy), teen hood with an abundance of mischief but certainly more mayhem in the form of pot smoking, class skipping, lying and staying out all night, and therapy. Some normalcy (in bits and pieces), college eventually (county college), class skipping and pot smoking, divorce, moving around to several apartments, one or two emotional breakdowns, a crappy boyfriend, several hundred passionate short lived friendships, and finally moving out on my own for approximately two weeks before deciding to move in with my best friend, and love. Yes, I had one through eight years of crap.

On paper, I seem (to be frank) like an irresponsible moron. I might have been, but squashed into the paragraph of my seemingly horrible life thus far there was a wrong diagnosis of bipolar disorder, unfair medication pushed upon me for five years, and a father who bounced from sober to dead drunk in the blink of an eye. I’m not really a crappy person; I love to read, I worked at a nursing home for two years making arts and crafts with old ladies, I write essays, and short stories, told my brother and mom I loved them more than everything almost every night, I’m in love with a wonderful caring man who understands me, and now I’m a mom.

But what makes a good mother? Is it the girl who had the textbook perfect childhood? The well balanced up-bringing, and warm confident smile? Is it the girl who screwed around for a few years before learning she was capable of being a loving wife, and an even more loving mom? Is it the single mom who finally left her abusive husband and works three jobs so her little girl can have new sneakers? Is it the working mom, or the stay at home mom?

I think it’s the mother who wants the best for her child. The mom who listens well, and offers a shoulder to cry on, the mother that formula feeds, or breast feeds, uses cloth diapers to protect the environment or gets excited for value packs of Pampers. No mom is perfect, but we can damn near try…