oh thats awesome, and what i was hoping to hear...so basically a mother is just the plant forced to stay in veg state, and not pushing it to flower. thanks a lot man...this community is very helpful =)
You can even clone a mother that's starting to flower and immediately turn it into a budding plant. Not an overnight budder of course, but I've heard of people doing time-specific cycles of cloning and flowering that were very impressive.
I can't spare the space for a mother plant these days, I know some people Bansai them but I just clone my clones once they are big enough