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Just as you do not know how the breath comes to the
bones in the mother’s womb, so you do not know the work of God,
who makes everything. (Ecclesiastes 11:5) Can a woman forget her
nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. (Isaiah 49:15)
As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall
be comforted in Jerusalem. (Isaiah 66:13)

A capable wife who can find? She is far more precious
than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will
have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the
days of her life. She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing
hands. She is like the ships of the merchant, she brings her food
from far away. She rises while it is still night and provides
food for her household and tasks for her servant girls. She considers
a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a
vineyard. She girds herself with strength, and makes her arms
strong. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her
lamp does not go out at night. She puts her hands to the distaff,
and her hands hold the spindle. She opens her hand to the poor,
and reaches out her hands to the needy. She is not afraid for
her household when it snows, for all her household are clothed
in crimson. She makes herself coverings; her clothing is fine
linen and purple. Her husband is known in the city gates, taking
his seat among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments
and sells them; she supplies the merchant with sashes. Strength
and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.
She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness
is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household,
and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and
call her happy; her husband too, and he praises her: ‘Many women
have done excellently, but you surpass them all.’ Charm is deceitful,
and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Give her a share in the fruit of her hands, and let her works
praise her in the city gates. (Proverbs 31:10-31)

Wives, in the same way, accept the authority of your
husbands, so that, even if some of them do not obey the word,
they may be won over without a word by their wives’ conduct, when
they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Do not adorn
yourselves outwardly by braiding your hair, and by wearing gold
ornaments or fine clothing; rather, let your adornment be the
inner self with the lasting beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit,
which is very precious in God’s sight. It was in this way long
ago that the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves
by accepting the authority of their husbands. Thus Sarah obeyed
Abraham and called him lord. You have become her daughters as
long as you do what is good and never let fears alarm you. Husbands,
in the same way, show consideration for your wives in your life
together, paying honor to the woman as the weaker sex, since they
too are also heirs of the gracious gift of life – so that nothing
may hinder your prayers. (1 Peter 3:1-7) For the unbelieving husband
is made holy through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made
holy through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean,
but as it is, they are holy. (1 Corinthians 7:14)

Samuel was ministering before the Lord, a boy wearing
a linen ephod. His mother used to make for him a little robe and
take it to him each year, when she went up with her husband to
offer the yearly sacrifice. Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his
wife, and say, ‘May the Lord repay you with children by this woman
for the gift that she made to the Lord’; and then they would return
to their home. And the Lord took note of Hannah; she conceived
and bore three sons and two daughters. And the boy Samuel grew
up in the presence of the Lord. (1 Samuel 2:18-21)

Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth,
and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things
in her heart. (Luke 2:51) …Meanwhile, standing near the cross
of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife
of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. (John 19:25)

….

The women’s movement in the 1960s was one of the
most profound social revolutions humans have experienced. Women
began to demand recognition, equality, and the right to choose
their vocation, whether mothering or career or a mix of both.
This aggressive feminism mellowed in the 1970s, as most women
affirmed that they were not anti-men, and allowed themselves to
celebrate their femininity and softness as strengths not as weaknesses.

The challenge in the 1980s and 90s is for women and
men to acknowledge their different biologies amd psychologies,
and to live with the issue of motherhood being a highly valued
vocation for women. Until fairly recently, women had children
soon after marrying, but now with more effective and safe contraception
and (unfortunately in my view) easily-available abortion women
are having fewer babies, and having them later, after five to
ten years of pursuing other relational, financial and career goals.
`We want our relationship and the mortgage to be manageable before
we have children,’ is a comment I’m hearing more often. Sometimes
the timing of the first baby is prompted by figuring out the parents’
ages when the kids will be adolescents: ‘We thought we’d better
start a family now, or we might not have the patience to cope
with teenagers in our fifties.’

Another factor is the woman’s career: when is the
optimum time to opt out, with the risk that the mother might not
get her job back? Some mothers (a minority I believe) are comfortable
with the idea of taking a few months’ maternity leave, and entrusting
their baby to a creche. Most women have very mixed feelings about
daily child-care for their young. Our son Paul is a househusband
and a splendid father to our grandson Jay: Paul’s wife has a career
and they have chosen that route; Jay is (of course!) a very well-adjusted
little 18-month old. Most mothers feel some guilt in handing their
baby over to child-care: with good reason. The bonding of the
child to both mother and father is best done if they are around
more often than strangers, even caring strangers, who will exit
the baby’s life sooner or later. As I write Hilary Clinton the
wife of the U.S. President has announced her intention of making
child-care available to any mother who wants it: that would be
a tragedy in many cases. There are too many children neglected
by fathers; we don’t need a generation of children neglected by
mothers.

Mothering, with all its heartaches and messiness,
would have to be about the most strategic and rewarding vocation
open to anyone. A God of love couldn’t be everywhere, says an
ancient Jewish proverb, so he created mothers.

…..

There are exceptional women, there are exceptional
men, who have other tasks to perform in addition to the task of
motherhood and fatherhood, the task of providing for the home
and of keeping it. But it is the tasks connected with the home
that are the fundamental tasks of humanity… if the mother does
not do her duty, there will either be no next generation, or a
next generation that is worse than none at all…

Theodore Roosevelt, quoted in Dr. James Dobson and
Gary L. Bauer, Children at Risk: Winning the Battle for the Hearts
and Minds of your Children, Dallas: Word Publishing, 1990, p.155.
[76]

Dictionaries define a mother as a female parent.
Although that’s true, we all know she is much, much more. A mother,
a human being, a woman, a nurse, a counsellor, a cook, a chauffeur,
a philosopher, a teacher, a hostess, a cleaner, a homemaker, a
listener, a talker, a social secretary and nutritionist – the
list goes on and on.

In the eighties she probably has a full-time working
position as well. quite a job specification! All those duties
without experience; one could say a starring role without a rehearsal.
With almost no preparation, a new mother embarks on this huge
role and, generally speaking, makes a success of it. Many excel.

Marea Stenmark, Mum’s The Word, North Rocks, NSW:
North Rocks Press, 1988, p.41. [112]

Children under 15 add 132 minutes per day to household
work for men and women in fulltime work. For women out of the
workforce, the presence of children adds 135 minutes to their
housework on average.

Eva Cox, co-convenor of the Womens Economic Think
Tank, The Age, 7 January 1994, p.11. [33]

A widow shared with us her feelings when she learned
that her eighteen year-old unwed daughter was pregnant – a situation
prevalent enough today. Her first reaction was resentment, grief,
shame and anger – anger against her daughter, anger against God.
She felt put upon by the Lord and betrayed by her daughter. In
the midst of her anguish she prayed and after a while she found
an unexplainable strength, so that she was able to speak calmly
to her daughter: ‘I want you to know I love you unconditionally.
I’m not going to say I’m not hurt or humiliated or approving the
action that brought your pregnancy about. But you’re my child
and I love you.’

Further prayer brought the widow to a new level of
consciousness, enabling her to see within herself dark areas of
pride, possessiveness, false values, and a spirit exhausted by
sin. She saw the redemptive power of repentance and love, God
triumphing in the midst of sin, and loving her unconditionally
as she loved her daughter. Because of the daughter’s humiliation,
the family was drawn together, their love for one another increased,
their faith was revitalized and assumed a wholly new and higher
dimension.

Mary Clare Vincent, The Life of Prayer and the Way
to God, Still River, Massachusetts: St Bede’s Publications, 1982,
pp.23-24. [199]

On our most hallowed university campuses, young women
are being taught that ‘real women’ aren’t just mothers and homemakers
any more. When First Lady Barbara Bush was invited, in 1990, to
give the commencement address at Wellesley College, hundreds of
angry coeds protested. They argued that Mrs. Bush wasn’t a suitable
role model for young women because she had spent her life raising
children rather than pursuing a career for herself. These students
are supposed to be America’s ‘best and brightest’ women. What
does their protest say about the value they place on caring for
children or on children themselves?

Hopefully they listened carefully to the First Lady’s
words. She courageously spoke up for family and parenting. She
told them:

‘The… choice that must not be missed is to cherish
your human connections; your relationships with friends and family.
For several years, you’ve had impressed upon you the importance
to your career of dedication and hard work. This is true, but
as important as your obligations as a doctor, lawyer, or business
leader will be, you are a human being first, and those human connections
– with spouses, with children, with friends – are the most important
investments you will ever make.

‘At the end of your life, you will not regret not
having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict, not
closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband,
a friend, a child or a parent.’

Dr James Dobson and Gary L. Bauer, Children at Risk:
Winning the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Your Children,
Dallas: Word Publishing, 1990, p.157. [241]

Shortly after feminist leader and poet Erica Jong
gave birth to her first child, she was invited to give a poetry
reading in front of an audience of activists in the women’s movement.
Like most new mothers, Jong was overwhelmed with the emotion of
bringing a new life into the world, and she chose to recite several
poems expressing those feelings. She was shocked when the audience
booed her off the stage. Jong has now become a critic of the feminist
movement because of its hostility to mothering.

Gary Bauer, Our Journey Home: What Parents Are Doing
to Preserve Family Values, Dallas: Word Publishers, 1992, p.103.
[88]

Still etched in my memory is a cold, rainy fall day
in which my wife Carol and I took our daughter, Elyse, to the
house of a wonderful couple who watched our children when we both
worked full time.

When Carol returned to the car, tears welled up in
her eyes as she told me that Elyse had just greeted the babysitter
by calling her ‘mommy’. I sat there patiently, trying to explain
why this episode should not be an occasion for heartbreak. I talked
about how the word probably meant nothing more than ‘female caregiver’
to our two-year-old.

I even suggested the episode might reflect how wise
we were to have picked a sitter who was showing our child so much
love. Carol listened and then demolished all of my rationality
with one devastating question. ‘How would you feel if she called
Mike ‘Daddy’?’ Mike was the sitter’s husband and the question
drove away any pretense of my objectivity. I looked at Carol and
confessed only partly in jest, ‘It would kill me.’

Dr James Dobson and Gary L. Bauer, Children at Risk:
Winning the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Your Children,
Dallas: Word Publishing, 1990, pp.133-134. [176]

A study of biographies written in the USA since 1962
confirms [that] although the eminent men studied usually had children,
almost 60 per cent of the women were childless. And only seven
of 82 women studied had sustained a lasting marriage and children
as well as a distinguished career.

Josey Bass ‘Three Hundred Eminent Personalities’,
San Francisco, 1978, quoted in Anne Townsend, Now and Forever:
Christian Marriage Today, London: Fount Paperbacks, 1986, p.62.
[46]

Children have no real understanding (why should they?)
of a mother’s inner feelings or frustrations, for these have to
be hidden for the sake of rearing happy, well-adjusted children.
I know, after I had my own children, I felt quite differently
about my parents. For the first time, I began to understand how
much they had done for me. Children are never aware of work or
sacrifice. In contrast, what I have observed in supermarkets,
in the streets, in living rooms, is the mother consistently being
in the position, not of being the loved parent, but the one who
is constantly saying No. ‘No, you can’t have that.’ ‘No, I can’t
afford that.’ ‘Keep still.’ ‘Keep quiet.’ ‘Don’t shout at me like
that.’

As children grow older they not only see their mother
as the disciplinarian, but someone to rebel against, to criticize,
and even worse, as a figure of fun. Mums are fair game. Generally
speaking, mothers spend most of their time building up their children’s
egos, not critizing them, but older children regularly tease or
‘put down’ their mothers. Mothers are expected to smile through
this, as they smile through everything else.

Joyce Nicholson, The Heartache of Motherhood, Ringwood,
Australia: Penguin Books, 1983, p.81. [195]

Parents are amazed that they can go from relative
calm to utter frustration in a few seconds. An uneaten egg or
spilled juice at breakfast can turn a calm morning into a free-for-all.
In spite of parents’ best intentions, bedtime becomes wartime,
meals end with children in tears and food barely touched, and
car rides deteriorate into stress-filled shouting matches… Whatever
its source, we often experience parental anger as a horrifying
encounter with our worst selves. I never even knew I had a temper
until I had children. It was very frightening that these children
I loved so much, for whom I had sacrificed so much, could arouse
such intense feelings of rage in me, their mother, whose primary
responsibility was to nurture and protect them.

Nancy Samalin, Love and Anger: The Parental Dilemma,
New York: Viking Penguin, 1991, p.5. [129]

The pace of living has become so frantic that we
don’t have time for our kids. That situation makes us willing
to accept surrogate parenting uncritically from the ‘experts’
who meander through our lives. Some parents resist the cultural
mind-set, but the pressure to get out of the way and let various
authorities take over for them can be quite severe.

I’m reminded of a mother who told me that she took
her 14- year-old daughter to their pediatrician for a routine
physical exam. The mother was aware that her daughter was beginning
to develop physically and might be sensitive to her being in the
examining room with her. She offered to remain in the waiting
room, but the girl objected.

‘I don’t want to go in there by myself,’ she said.
‘Please come with me.’ After arguing with her daughter for a moment,
the mother agreed to accompany her to the examining room.

When the exam was over, however, the doctor turned
to the mother and criticized her for intruding. He said in front
of the girl, ‘You know, you really had no business being in the
examining room. It is time I related directly to your daughter.
You should not even be aware of the care that I give her or the
medication I prescribe. You shouldn’t even know the things that
are said between us. My care of your daughter should now be a
private matter between her and me.’

The girl had been going through a period of rebellion,
and the mother felt her authority was weakened by the doctor’s
comments. It was as though he were saying, ‘Your day of supervision
of your daughter has now passed. She should now make her own decisions.’
Fortunately, that mother was unwilling to do as she was told,
and promptly found a new doctor. Good for her!

I have discussed this conversation with several pediatricians,
and they have each agreed with the doctor in this case. They emphasized
the importance of a youngster having someone to talk with in private.
Perhaps. But I disagree with the autonomy demanded by the physician.

Fourteen year old boys and girls are not grown, and
their parents are still the best people to care for them and oversee
their development. It is appropriate for a physician to have some
private moments with his young patient, but he should never forget
to whom he is accountable!

Dr James Dobson and Gary L. Bauer, Children at Risk:
Winning the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Your Children,
Dallas: Word Publishing, 1990, pp.76-77. [397]

Here are the ten most common erroneous expectations
of Type E women that form the cognitive bases of their stressful
feelings and behaviours: 1. I have to do things perfectly. 2.
I should be able to accomplish more in a day. 3. I should be able
to do everything without feeling stressed or tired. 4. I have
to please others by doing what they ask me to do. 5. I have to
prove myself to everybody. 6. ‘Having it all’ should make me happy.
7. I can’t be happy until I ‘have it all’. 8. I can’t relax until
I finish what I have to do. 9. If I make people need me because
of everything I do for them, they’ll value me. 10. I should be
everything to everybody.

Each of the major areas of concern to Type E women…
is rampant with implicit or explicit erroneous expectations.

Harriet B. Brailner, Type E Women: How to Overcome
the Stress of Being Everything to Everybody, Sydney: Angus &
Robertson, 1987, p.151. [139]

Do something for yourself every day, even if it’s
painting your toenails. Do something physical every day, even
if it’s only 10 exercises. Spend some time alone every day. Most
of all, avoid the conflict of your husband demanding your time
when your kids are also demanding it. Openly discuss when your
special time together is each day and stick to it, even if you
all have mumps or all need attention. Organise your girlfriends
to take your kids one Saturday or Sunday afternoon and then swap.
At least you then have one glorious afternoon to enjoy together
– don’t do housework then.

Melbourne ‘Age’ reader Rosa, writing about being
a working mum in Marriane Latham, The Working Mother’s Handbook,
Blackburn: Dove Communications, 1984, p.123. [101]

Our culture has paid attention in recent years, and
rightly so, to men’s physical incest with their daughters, which
is hideous and revolting in its range and damage. And [there is
also] psychic incest as well between father and daughter. We are
aware of the number of sons who report sexual abuse by mothers,
as well as by fathers, uncles, and older brothers; but the culture
still does not take very seriously the damage caused by psychic
incest between mother and son.

Mari Sandoz in These Were the Sioux mentions that
the young Sioux boy never – after the age of seven or so – looked
his mother in the eyes. All requests were passed through his sister…

Much sexual energy can be exchanged when the mother
looks the son directly in the eyes and says, ‘Here is your new
T-shirt, all washed.’

Such precautions between mother and son seem absurd
to us, unheard of, ridiculous, inhuman. And yet the Sioux men,
once grown, were famous for their lack of fear when with women,
their uninhibited conversations in the tepees, their ease in sexual
talk with their wives. We recognize that the Sioux women were
more aware of the possibilites of psychic incest between mother
and son than we are…

American mothers sometimes confide details of their
private lives to their small sons, details that might better go
to adults their own age. Frank disclosure is often better than
silence, but it becomes harmful if the son feels he has to do
something about it. The boy in many a kitchen gets drawn to his
mother’s side, and he says in some form those terrible words:
‘Mama, when I’m grown up, I’m going to have a big house for you,
and you’ll never have to work again.’

Twenty to thirty percent of boys now live in houses
with no adult male present; and most speak these words, silently
or openly. But psychic incest is by no means restricted to single-parent
homes. The emphasis placed in recent decades on the inadequacy
of men, and on the evil of the patriarchal system, encourages
mothers to discount grown men.

Robert Bly, Iron John: A Book About Men, New York:
Vintage Books, 1992, pp.185-6. [356]

Far too many working parents find the weekdays so
busy that they put off everything to the weekends. It’s almost
as if they only truly live on the weekends. They struggle through
Monday to Friday figuring that Saturday and Sunday can make it
all come out right. This is like having a seedling of a precious
and beautiful plant and ignoring it five days of the week. Then,
when it looks sad and wilted, you drown it with water and fertilizer.
When a few weeds come up in the pot, the seedling is almost lost
from sight. So you yank out the healthy weed and the sickly seedling
gets uprooted too.

Parenting can be similar: days of ignoring family
matters followed by overly intense attention and some bad decisions,
and soon the main objective is lost from sight and family life
becomes sickly and rootless. Like young plants, our children thrive
on regular cultivation. A working parent can’t afford to be just
a weekend parent. I know, you are tired from your day at the office
and you think you need ‘me-time.’ But you can feel refreshed as
well by ‘us-time,’ good weekday moments with your child.

The weekend connection with your family will be much
more productive if you nurture your togetherness during each weekday.
I call these essential weekday times touch-base times. There are
six of them:

1. At breakfast. 2. From the office by telephone.
3. Reunion at home. 4. At supper. 5. The special evening hour.
6. Bedtime.

Caryl Waller Krueger, Working Parent, Happy Child:
You Can Balance Job and Family, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990,
pp.22-23. [249]

While the Good Lord was creating mothers He was into
His sixth day of ‘overtime’ when the angel appeared and said,
‘You’re doing a lot of fiddling around on this one.’ And the Lord
said, ‘Have you read the spec on this order?’ She has to be completely
washable, but not plastic. Have 180 moveable parts… all replaceable.
Run on black coffee and leftovers. Have a lap that disappears
when she stands up. Have a kiss that can cure everything from
a broken leg to a disappointed love affair. And have six pairs
of hands. The angel shook her head slowly and said, ‘Six pairs
of hands… not possible.’ ‘It’s not the hands that are causing
me problems,’ said the Lord. ‘It’s the three pairs of eyes that
mothers have to have.’ ‘That’s on the standard model?’ asked the
angel. The Lord nodded. ‘One pair that see through closed doors
when she asks, ‘What are you kids doing in there?’ when she already
knows. Another here, in the back of her head that sees what she
shouldn’t, but what she has to know, and of course the ones her
in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and reflect,
‘I understand and I love you’ without so much as uttering a word.’
Said the Lord, ‘I’m so close to creating something so close to
myself. Already I have one who heals herself when she is sick…
can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger… and can
get a nine-year-old to stand under a shower.’ The angel circled
the model of The Mother very slowly. ‘It’s too soft,’ she sighed.
‘But tough,’ said the Lord excitedly. ‘You cannot imagine what
this mother will do or endure.’ ‘Can it think?’ ‘Not only think,
but it can reason and compromise,’ said the creator. Finally,
the angel bent over and ran her fingers across the cheek. ‘There’s
a leak,’ she pronounced. ‘I told you you were trying to put too
much into this model. You can’t ignore the stress factor.’ The
Lord moved in for a closer look and gently lifted the drop of
moisture to his finger where it glistened and sparkled in the
light. ‘It’s not a leak,’ He said. ‘It’s a tear.’ ‘A tear?’ asked
the angel. ‘What’s it for?’ ‘It’s for joy, sadness, disappointment,
compassion, pain, loneliness and pride.’ ‘You are a genius,’ said
the angel. The Lord looked somber. ‘I didn’t put it there.’

Erma Bombeck, Motherhood, the Second Oldest Profession,
NY: McGraw-Hill, 1983, pp.176-177. [410]

There are many… beautiful and uplifting accounts
of… inspirational mothers and children who overcome so much
– stories of mothers who become better people for having endured
difficulty, pain and distress because they help and are helped.
In their common grief they draw together in mutual support, forming
attachments which last and grow. They are givers and, therefore,
they receive. The dispensers rather than the consumers in our
society. I’ve heard it said ‘What I’ve gained is the joy – and
it is a joy – of having my child really rely on me’. We all know
that suffering is an essential part of our human drama. We realise
that it comes to every one of us in differing degrees. It is how
we cope which is important.

Marea Stenmark, Mum’s The Word, North Rocks, NSW:
North Rocks Press, 1988, pp.150-151. [125]

For them no trumpet sounds the call No poet plies
his arts They only hear the beating Of their gallant loving hearts
But they have sung with silent lives The song all songs above
The holiness of sacrifice The dignity of love.

‘The Women of the West’, by G.E. Evans, quoted in
Marea Stenmark, Mum’s The Word, North Rocks, NSW: North Rocks
Press, 1988, p.151. [42]

…..

Dear Lord, what sort of people am I teaching my children
to be? If I criticize them constantly, they will become critical.
If I undermine their worth-ness, they will become unworthy. If
I am impatient, I teach impatience. Much of what they will become
is my doing… or my undoing.

And I don’t think of this, Lord. I just try to blunder
through today – meeting today’s deadlines, tending to at least
a portion of today’s chores. I’m not so much raising them as just
puttering about while they grow up. And what an irretrievable
waste of opportunity this is.

Lord, you know what I’d like them to be – worthy
adults, real people whose hands will bless, whose words will bless,
whose lives will bless those around them.

I want them to be the kind of people who are at home
in the universe. Ah, so. One hand in theirs, Lord, the other hand
in thine – this is the only way I can lead them. Amen.

Jo Carr and Imogene Sorley, Bless this Mess and Other
Prayers, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1969, p.70. [166]

…..

A Benediction

Lord, bless every mother reading this. Give them
humour to see the funny side of some disasters; give them joy
as they do mundane chores for those they love; give them a sense
of destiny, as they shape the lives of those who will carry us
all into the future. For your glory, Amen.