What makes an exceptional mother? Intensive, self-sacrificing care and protection of her children. As we step into a new year, I want to honor a woman whose life as an exceptional 20th Century mother is stretching into the 21st with an ever-expanding legacy of passionate mothering -- even though her own children are grown. In my estimation, my wife Victoria is the Mother of the Century twice over. Her grown children are now sharing their mother’s warm and compassionate attention with a new generation of 21st Century children.

At the dawn of the 20th Century, a cultural leader said, “Culture is what we build to impress our girlfriends.” Well, by the end of the century, girlfriends were not very impressed. The world seemed to be crumbling, and the women of 20th Century became some of the most pessimistic and disappointed of history. Why? Geoffrey Botkin concludes this five-part series describing what will become the foundation of a reverse trend: the ever-increasing optimism in the 21st Century.

Weak churchmen have bought into a theology of pessimism and are uncomfortable with virtue. There is widespread embarrassment over what the Bible says about Civilization and sin. . But moral derangement and moral bankruptcy hurt people. And then devastate society. Several generations of families have been ruined by moral disorder. And now a suffering society wants cultural foundations back.

21st Century science is getting smarter really fast, and wiser almost as fast. The knowledge base is growing. Much of science is being propelled forward by entrepreneurial energy rather than agenda-driven government elites. Computing power is growing exponentially. Internet proliferation is exploding even faster. In the 21st Century, scientists will see a world revealed to them which they have never seen, and the internet will be connecting this information to a new global community of scientists and innovators who are getting on line and sharing the astonishment. Two billion more internet users will be connecting in the next four to six years.

Today millions of parents, with their children, are dropping out of the institutional mindset to find a full human existence. They are finding intellectual and academic freedom in real books, real libraries, and a trillion pages of content on the internet. They are beginning to get real education by educating themselves in the stimulating environment of history’s most complex and promising century. Here are some of the first lessons learned.