Mothers are women who inhabit or perform the role of bearing some relation to their children, who may or may not be their biological offspring. Thus, dependent on the context, women can be considered mothers by virtue of having given birth, by raising their child(ren), supplying their ovum for fertilization, or some combination thereof. Such conditions provide a way of delineating the concept of motherhood, or the state of being a mother. Women who meet the third and first categories usually fall under the terms 'birth mother' or 'biological mother', regardless of whether the individual in question goes on to parent their child. Accordingly, a woman who meets only the second condition may be considered an adoptive mother, and those who meet only the third a surrogacy mother.

, released outside Japan as EarthBound Beginnings, is a 1989 Japanese role-playing video game developed by Ape and published by Nintendo for the Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System). The game is modeled on the gameplay of the Dragon Quest series, but is set in the late 20th century United States, unlike its fantasy genre contemporaries. Mother follows the young Ninten as he uses his great-grandfather's studies on psychic powers to fight hostile, formerly inanimate objects and other enemies. The game uses random encounters to enter a menu-based, first-person perspective battle system. It is the first game in the Mother series and was followed by two sequels, EarthBound in 1994 and Mother 3 in 2006.