The AotC novelization makes it 100% clear that Shmi believes Anakin will come back to her some day. At the Lars homestead, Shmi regularly stands outside at night looking at the stars in the Tatooine sky, thinking about Ani and hoping one day to catch sight of his ship arriving. She talks about him all the time, to the point that Owen feels like he already ‘knows’ Anakin because Shmi told him that many stories about him. When Shmi is being tortured to death by the Tuskens, the thought of seeing Anakin again is the only thing keeping her going.
Whenever Shmi thinks about Anakin being a Jedi, she has a fairly romanticised view of how she hopes his life is. She imagines him in very heroic, noble scenarios, fighting against tyranny, standing up for those in need. She hopes it’s true, because she has to believe it was worth it. Shmi has no idea about the current state of the Republic or the Jedi Order. And she has NO idea that Anakin was initially rejected and is currently still struggling.
So the fact that some people want to claim Shmi of all people is somehow ‘representative’ of being a ‘selfless Jedi’ of the *old* Order is actually quite sickening.
Shmi is selfless, that's for sure. But it’s not because she’s some kind of embodiment of cold, impersonal detachment. In fact, it’s the polar opposite — she is motivated by the personal attachments of her family ties. Because she is a mother who unconditionally loves her son. Shmi is not without pain, worry, or regret with regards to Anakin's absence. A part of Shmi’s heart is always missing while he is gone.
If Shmi has something in common with any Jedi, it’s not with the ones most emblematic of the Prequels-era Jedi Order. Rather, it’s with her own son, whom she taught to be compassionate and to help others above all! And it’s with her grandson, Luke, who declares himself to be ‘a Jedi like my father before me’. In other words, a true Jedi who is moved to save others via the bonds of personal attachments… aka love and family.
The lesson here isn’t that Anakin should have been more like the old Order’s ideal of a Jedi. He tried that, and it ultimately lead to his apocalyptic fall into darkness. No, the ‘lesson’, if you will, is that the Jedi Order needed to be more like Shmi Skywalker, the only person who was responsible for the truly good person that Anakin was.
It was Shmi who trained the Chosen One, and it was her teachings that finally rose back up to the surface of his tortured soul and allowed him to shatter the chains of darkness and finally return to the Light.
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