May I suggest that the bishopric and the ward council members be especially watchful and considerate of the time and resource demands on young mothers and their families. Know them and be wise in what you ask them to do at this time in their lives.
She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.
The mothers are the moving instruments in the hands of Providence to guide the destinies of nations. Let the mothers of any nation teach their children not to make war, the children would grow up and never enter into it. . . . Consequently, you see at once what I wish to impress upon your minds is, that the mothers are the machinery that gives zest to the whole man, and guide the destinies and lives of men upon the earth
The mothers are the moving instruments in the hands of Providence to guide the destinies of nations. Let the mothers of any nation teach their children not to make war, the children would grow up and never enter into it. . . . Consequently, you see at once what I wish to impress upon your minds is, that the mothers are the machinery that gives zest to the whole man, and guide the destinies and lives of men upon the earth.
As much as we might want to believe that management science is pertinent to all aspects of life, statistics and numerical algorithms will never apply to nuclear relationships found in the home. Children are not co-workers to whom you are beholden for advancement and favorable treatment in the “workplace”. The linear model of minimal-effort-for-maximum-return is hardly appropriate in parenting, and using the comparison is to turn apples into oranges.
Motherhood goes beyond the forced relationships and polite dynamics imposed on the workplace. Mothers are much more than task managers and office assistants in an organization.
We raise ourselves as we raise our children. We model for our children the behavior we wish for them to emulate, and we become better because of them.
Motherhood is the one thing in all the world which most truly exemplifies the God-given virtues of creating and sacrificing. Though it carries the woman close to the brink of death, motherhood also leads her into the very realm of the fountains of life, and makes her co-partner with the Creator in bestowing upon eternal spirits mortal life.
The noblest calling in the world is motherhood. True motherhood is the most beautiful of all arts, the greatest of all professions. She who can paint a masterpiece, or who can write a book that will influence millions, deserves the admiration and plaudits of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters, whose immortal souls will exert an influence throughout the ages long after paintings shall have faded, and books and statues shall have decayed or have been destroyed, deserves the highest honor that man can give, and the choicest blessings of God.
It is a fundamental truth that the responsibilities of motherhood cannot be successfully delegated. No, not to day-care centers, not to schools, not to nurseries, not to babysitters. We become enamored with men’s theories such as the idea of preschool training outside the home for young children. Not only does this put added pressure on the budget, but it places young children in an environment away from mother’s influence. Too often the pressure for popularity, on children and teens, places an economic burden on the income of the father, so mother feels she must go to work to satisfy her children’s needs. That decision can be most shortsighted. It is mother’s influence during the crucial formative years that forms a child’s basic character. Home is the place where a child learns faith, feels love, and thereby learns from mother’s loving example to choose righteousness. How vital are mother’s influence and teaching in the home—and how apparent when neglected!
Contrary to conventional wisdom, a mother’s calling is in the home, not in the marketplace.
Again, in the Doctrine and Covenants, we read: “Women have claim on their husbands for their maintenance, until their husbands are taken” (D&C 83:2). This is the divine right of a wife and mother. She cares for and nourishes her children at home. Her husband earns the living for the family, which makes this nourishing possible. With that claim on their husbands for their financial support, the counsel of the Church has always been for mothers to spend their full time in the home in rearing and caring for their children.
We realize also that some of our choice sisters are widowed and divorced and that others find themselves in unusual circumstances where, out of necessity, they are required to work for a period of time. But these instances are the exception, not the rule.
Motherhood thus becomes a holy calling, a sacred dedication for carrying out the Lord's plans, a consecration of devotion to the uprearing and fostering, the nurturing in body, mind, and spirit, of those who kept their first estate and who come to this earth for their second estate . . . To lead them to keep their second estate is the work of motherhood . . . Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels. To you mothers in Israel we say God bless and protect you, and give you the strength and courage, the faith and knowledge, the holy love and consecration to duty, that shall enable you to fill to the fullest measure the sacred calling which is yours. To you mothers and mothers-to-be we say: Be chaste, keep pure, live righteously, that your posterity to the last generation may call you blessed.
Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels. To you mothers in Israel we say God bless and protect you, and give you the strength and courage, the faith and knowledge, the holy love and consecration to duty, that shall enable you to fill to the fullest measure the sacred calling which is yours. To you mothers and mothers-to-be we say: Be chaste, keep pure, live righteously, that your posterity to the last generation may call you blessed.
Motherhood thus becomes a holy calling, a sacred dedication for carrying out the Lord's plans, a consecration of devotion to the uprearing and fostering, the nurturing in body, mind, and spirit, of those who kept their first estate and who come to this earth for their second estate . . . To lead them to keep their second estate is the work of motherhood.
No, what consigned McGinley to the dustbin of literary history was her politics. And in the un-personing of McGinley, we can get a glimpse of the Left’s simultaneous ruthlessness and cultural hegemony. Simply put, McGinley’s thought crime was that she was a happy, Christian, suburban mother and housewife who extolled both her life in the suburbs and traditional roles for women. For the Left, her failure to be miserable and angry at her situation was an unforgivable sin. The erasure of her voice and what it represented is a sobering thought for conservatives on this Mother’s Day. As with much else in our culture, absent voices like McGinley’s, we look at motherhood, even, through a left-wing lens.
One of her daughters noted approvingly as an adult that McGinley’s home life with her husband, a telephone-company executive, was “a sanguine, benign, adorable version of Mad Men.” Even in more traditional 1950s literary circles, this was enough to make her persona non grata. In a 1959 review of her collection of essays, the Province of the Heart, one reviewer commented on her work being a summary of “the joys of being all the things modern fiction deplores: married, feminine, suburban, maternal.”
Of course, the contempt of the allegedly open-minded Left hardly surprised McGinley, who wrote in her poem The Angry Man: The other day I chanced to meet / An angry man upon the street / A man of wrath, a man of war / A man who truculently bore / Over his shoulder, like a lance / A banner labeled “Tolerance.”
McGinley saw women’s maternal role as absolutely central to their being. She wrote: Women are the fulfilled sex. Through our children we are able to produce our own immortality, so we lack that divine restlessness which sends men charging off in pursuit of fortune or fame or an imagined Utopia . . . the wholesome oyster wears no pearl, the healthy whale no ambergris, and as long as we can keep on adding to the race, we harbor a sort of health within ourselves.
Needless to say, this sort of maternally focused thinking couldn’t be allowed in modern feminism. As a Christian, her views on morality were similarly unappealing to the literary smart set. “Sin has always been an ugly word,” McGinley wrote, “but it has been made so in a new sense over the last half-century. It has been made not only ugly but passé. People are no longer sinful, they are only immature or underprivileged or frightened or, more particularly, sick.”
Yet McGinley was not simply some reactionary fossil preaching a revanchist view of American motherhood or womanhood. Rather, like any sensible traditionalist, she sought a balance. Her goal was not the destruction of the working woman, but the elevation of the homemaker and mother. At the heart of this vision was her advocacy of “casual motherhood,” one that respects a mother’s identity not just as a nurturer but as a person with her own life goals: “Love with a casual touch never says, ‘My children are my life.’ That mother makes a life of her own which is full enough and rewarding enough to sustain her. And she permits her young to let their lives be individual accomplishments.”
We celebrate this Mother’s Day at a time when American motherhood is under siege, with fertility at record lows and the traditional family often the subject of pop-culture mockery. At a time when dysfunctionality and despair are considered by many an essential part of the artistic temperament, McGinley is a reminder that great art can celebrate joy and health and that the maternal can stand on its own as an eternal human value and measure of worth.
In her new book, "Free Women, Free Men," Paglia explains that feminists have zero regard for procreation. “Feminist ideology has never dealt honestly with the role of the mother in human life,” she writes. Indeed it hasn’t. The truth is, women change when they have children. They care less about what they do for a living and more about how their children are faring. They also realize they’re needed at home in a visceral and primal way.
Whatever mothers do, it seems, they are expected to feel guilty about it. They also face a wage penalty as soon as they give birth. This is largely because mothers choose to work fewer hours, or in lower-paid but more child-friendly jobs, or not at all when their children are very young.
It’s natural to try to find a measuring stick for success as a mother. But no one hands out medals for juggling carpools, getting laundry done, and making sure kids finish their homework. Yet I continue to do these things.
We never know what impact our everyday acts of kindness may have for others.
The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.
The noblest calling in the world is motherhood. True motherhood is the most beautiful of all arts, the greatest of all professions. She who can paint a masterpiece, or who can write a book that will influence millions, deserve the plaudits and admiration of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters whose immortal souls will exert influence throughout the ages long after paintings shall have faded, and books and statues shall have decayed or been destroyed, deserves the highest honor that man can give, and the choicest blessings of God.
Family choices follow a similar pattern. In the Father's plan, the role of families is clearly set forth. In 'The Family: A Proclamation to the World,' we read: 'The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ.'14 It is fairly common in today's world, in another paradigm shift, to trumpet alternative choices in a positive way that are in direct conflict with this plan and that are unfavorable to marriage and family: The choice for both women and men to put education and careers ahead of marriage and family. The choice to purposefully have no or few children15 or to terminate pregnancy when it is inconvenient. The choice to engage in immoral conduct as a substitute for the sacred institution of marriage. The adversary has targeted women and has painted motherhood as a dead-end road of drudgery. He has targeted men and has painted fatherhood as unimportant and fidelity as 'old school.' The alienation and objectification created by pornography is an example of immoral conduct being substituted for the sacred institution of marriage. It underscores the horrific turning from truth and righteousness that the adversary seeks. Inappropriate alternative choices are painted as appropriate in helping to achieve the worldly goals of freedom and equality. As a result of such choices, the average number of children a woman will bear in her lifetime is declining dramatically. It is estimated that 46 percent of the world lives in countries in which the fertility rate is below 2.1 children'the rate necessary for the population to remain stable. Most European and Asian countries are below this level. Italy and Japan are both at about 1.3 births. Japan is expected to decrease in population from 120 million to about 100 million by the year 2050.16 This worldwide decline in population has been described by some as a 'demographic winter.'17 Many countries are not having enough children to replace the generation that is dying.
There is no place for a mother to go to resign.
May I suggest that the bishopric and the ward council members be especially watchful and considerate of the time and resource demands on young mothers and their families. Know them and be wise in what you ask them to do at this time in their lives.
Missing Reference