Look to your left: in this small park stands one of Mérida’s most symbolic and emotionally charged monuments, the Monumento a la Maternidad, also known as the Monumento a la Madre. Inaugurated on October 12, 1928, this white Carrara marble sculpture portrays a quiet, intimate scene: a mother preparing to bathe her baby while an older son leans in to kiss his little brother, a deliberately tender and everyday moment. The work is a replica of a Parisian sculpture titled Maternité, originally created by the French sculptor Charles Alfred Lenoir and reproduced for Mérida by his son, André Lenoir. This monument is far from ordinary: it was the very first monument of its kind in Mexico, erected sixteen years before the one in Mexico City. Its creation is closely tied to a specific political and social context. In the 1920s, Yucatán was at the forefront of feminist movements under the progressive government of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, who supported women’s suffrage, divorce and even the spread of information about birth control. These reforms, however, met strong resistance in a society that remained largely conservative, and Carrillo Puerto was assassinated in 1924 by insurgent military forces. In response, the Liga de Acción Social, an organization opposed to his reforms, proposed the construction of a monument dedicated to motherhood, not as an extension of feminist demands, but as a celebration of the mother’s role within the home. The sculpture arrived by ship at the port of Progreso in October 1928, and its inauguration became a major public event, with official speeches, music, poetry and a procession of thousands of schoolchildren scattering flowers at its base. Since then, the park has been known as Parque de la Madre, and the monument has become a familiar and emotional landmark for local residents. Its meaning, however, remains complex: a symbol of tenderness and maternal love for some, and for others, a reminder of a moment of political reversal in Yucatán’s history.