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This from someone who has studied both Hebrew and Greek and knows the Bible.
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As far as Mary goes, we know that no human being is anything but a creation of God. And God’s creation cannot beget an omniscient God creator. You were correct in saying that in referring to her as the mother of Jesus, the writers of the Bible were merely describing her.

Indeed, I would think that it is idolatry to believe that Mary is the mother of God as if she were equal to or a god herself. We have only one God. The Bible says Jesus set aside his divinity to become a man. And to become a man, he had to gestate and be born by a woman. That does not make the woman the mother of God as if she can of her own create a divine being; she is a servant of God (as she referred to herself), whom God used to beget Jesus. The Trinity is a difficult concept. As they are one, but each part of the Trinity is also distinguishable.

For example, Jesus was crucified, died and was buried, but God, the Father, did not die that day. Jesus died and God resurrected him. Therefore, clearly there is a distinction between Jesus, the Son of God, and God, the Father. So, we also can say that Mary is mother of one and not the other. But Jesus and the Father are also One. It is not something our human minds can fully grasp, but God gave us metaphors to try to help us understand. And the metaphor He gave us for Jesus is that he is the “Son of God” and God is the “Father.” to help us understand that there is a distinction, but they are also One.

Mary is not referred as the “Mother” in the way God is called the “Father,” but she is simply the “mother of Jesus.” She is never referred to as part of the Trinity or is somehow equal to it. But Jesus referred to God as his Father, clearly making a distinction between himself in the form of the Son of God and God, the Father. Indeed, God himself distinguished himself from his Son at the transfiguration when he said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” Was He simply speaking aloud and referring to Himself? No, of course not. To believe that Jesus and God are the same for all purposes is to ignore how Jesus and God referred to themselves.

It is only sophistry to try to make Mary out to be the mother of God, the Father, as if she is somehow equal to or grater than God. Indeed, if you want to engage in such sophistry, then when at the time of his death, Jesus declared that Mary was now John’s mother and John was now Mary’s son, this may have been Jesus’s way of removing himself from the earthly mother/son relationship and restoring himself to his divine role as that of a member of the Trinity, but in a way to indicate that Mary was not a part of that divine nature. I’m not saying whether this is why he said this to Mary and John, but I could see an argument for it to avoid people declaring that Mary was somehow more than human or was part of the divine. Maybe he was aware that this was a risk.