Music teacher educators regularly mentor individual students, including in relation to academic progress and career goals (e.g., Conway et al., 2016; Kuebal et al., 2018). While researchers have studied mentors’ experiences (Bond et al., 2023), philosophical examinations into the nature of mentorship remain rare. When philosophers investigate mentorship, they often begin from a specific framework (e.g., Hendricks, 2023) rather than considering the benefits and limitations of contrasting conceptualizations of mentorship. The purpose of this theoretical essay is to explore the nature of mentorship through the existing philosophical frameworks of care, love, and gifts. In addition to considering when and why each type of mentorship might benefit preservice music educators, I explore how teacher educators might experience these interactions. Caring mentorship involves a reciprocal relationship between a mentor (one-caring) and mentee (one cared-for) (Noddings, 2013). The mentor is thoroughly attentive to the mentee, listening to their pleasure and pain and honoring what the mentee envisions as their best self. The mentor takes actions likely to bring about outcomes deemed favorable by the mentee (Hendricks, 2023). Simultaneously, the mentee responds by acknowledging the mentor’s concern and sharing their aspirations and appraisals (Noddings, 2013). In contrast, loving mentorship focuses on affirming a student’s being, regardless of their immediate or potential future achievements. Graham (2018) defines educational love as involving “deeply validating experiences” that encourage students to feel seen (p. 162). Such thinking mirrors hooks’s (2001) statement: “to be loving we willingly hear each other’s truth” (p. 49). Yet, Graham (2018) cautions that mentors should resist the tendency for love to become exclusive, paternalistic, or ambitious. Alternatively, Kimmerer (2013, 2024) emphasizes that Indigenous gift-giving considers both potentially unacknowledged present needs and what might sustain communities in the long run. I propose that mentoring as gift-giving occurs when mentors provide experiences likely to sustain mentees and their future students and communities. Unlike in caring relationships, mentees do not necessarily desire the gifted practices in advance. For example, mentors may need to gift mentees practices such as culturally sustaining pedagogy. Although care necessitates acknowledgement from the cared-for, the mentee in neither caring, loving, nor gifting relations fully returns the mentor’s labor. Through the mentoring process mentors may experience positive feelings, particularly joy (hooks, 2001; Noddings, 2013), but they might recognize how the unequal nature of mentoring exchanges can contribute to burnout. As such, mentors’ self-love may also play a crucial role in their mentorship (hooks, 2001).