I bring to this subject a certain amount of fear and trepidation – fear because of something I have experienced my whole life and know nothing about (motherhood), and trepidation because I am in danger of revealing my ignorance. My thoughts on the subject were, however, triggered by a most unlikely event.
A couple of weeks ago, I went through an interesting exercise at the Democratic caucus to select a candidate to run for Abby Holman’s seat.
There were several people in the audience who had been prompted to ask me questions that were very thought provoking, albeit deadly ones for me in a left-leaning caucus.
The first question had to do with abortion, or, as many like to call it, a “woman’s right to choose.” A woman’s right to choose is a sacred right in some circles. Never mind that what led to the need to make such a choice was another series of choices made a few weeks earlier.
The second question had to do with minimum wage. I answered the first by saying that I was pro-life who voted pro-choice because of my oath of office to uphold the Constitution of the
You don’t have to be a progressive to believe in freedom of choice. Even God permits us freedom of choice. But you have to be clueless to believe that your choice is inconsequential to others around you.
To treat women as bearers of babies with no voice in the matter is to strip them of their personhood and objectify them out of the human family. That’s the approach taken by many pro-life folks. They would rather talk about fetuses than about women.
On the other hand, to treat a pregnant woman’s body as under her private and exclusive control is to do the same thing – to objectify her out of the human family. That’s the approach taken by many of the pro-choice folks. They would rather talk about women’s rights than about fetuses.
I submitted a Mother’s Day Op Ed piece to the KJ on this subject, maybe a bit late for Mother’s Day. What I was suggesting in that piece was that Rudy Guiliani, who is about to go down in flames because of his pro-choice position, would be better served if he talked less about a woman’s right to choose and more about a mother’s right to choose. That ties the woman and the fetus together in a social contract.
When we talk about a pregnant woman as a stand-alone, autonomous being, we separate her from the human family and from the social fabric of which she is a part. If she has the abortion for reasons other than her own safety, incest or rape, she risks further alienating herself from her social fabric because of her secret. Society loses, even though it may fail to notice the loss. It is cumulative.
To talk of a mother’s right to choose, on the other hand, connects the woman in a different way to her social fabric. It is an acknowledgment that the choices she makes impact not only herself but any number of other people in her sphere of influence. It is one thing to say that 45M women have chosen to have abortions since Roe v. Wade. If is quite another to say that 45M mothers have chosen to have abortions since Roe v. Wade.
Neither statement, however, says anything about the good news of those tens of millions who have chosen to bear their babies to term – mothers – good, bad and in between, to say nothing of the wide assortment of fathers.
There are a lot of other choices that fall into the same category. Often, the more obvious choices with which we are faced are the culmination of several not-so-good decisions. We can talk all we want about no-fault divorce, but there is usually enough fault in divorce to go around for everybody. Divorce is another choice that tears the at the fabric of society. Sometimes it is unavoidable, but anyone who goes through a divorce thinking that it is only about himself or herself is in delusion. No choice is made in a vacuum.
The point of elaborating on this on Mother’s Day is that we are celebrating the almost divine rite of motherhood, while 1.5M mothers a year are opting out mostly because of inconvenience. Maybe it is a reminder to us that Motherhood and apple pie do not always belong in the same sentence.
Of one thing we can be certain. We all have mothers. Some of your mothers have passed away. Some of you may have bad memories of your mothers. Others may have longed to be mothers but were unable. Even worse, your children may not contact you. What we need to get at, I think, is the common ground on which we all live. That common ground goes way beyond choice, or respective roles of men and women, or how successful your children may be or whether or not you have had the privilege of being a grandparent.
The common ground on which we live has to do with values. Values are carved out of the social fabric of our lives. We adopt and practice values, male or female, that either enhance or detract from life together in community.
The choices that we make as the people of God need to be weighed with regard to their effects on the human family around us.
Being a mother does not suggest a lack of initiative, education or ability. On the other hand, neither does it mean that our children have to be the focus of our lives. It does not mean freeing men from all responsibility in childrearing either. What it does mean is sharing responsibility not only for daily tasks but for the impact of our choices on others.
There is a stark reality to motherhood. The sentimental and feminine images dished out by Hallmark are images that only hurt those whose lives fall short. When you think about it, who do you know who lives up to such nonsense? Mother’s Day is too often a day for valorizing motherhood as a necessary and ultimate expression of womanhood. Too often, the church is inclined to suggest that “The greatest privilege and trust God ever gave women was motherhood.”
In reality, the greatest privilege and trust that God ever gave women was Godly choices – the same privilege and trust given to men. The notion that women’s lives do not begin until marriage between two virgins, a household that is financially secure, two or three children arriving just in time and a few housepets thrown in for good measure went out with high-button shoes.
Marriage between virgins is becoming increasingly rare. Nearly half of American adults are unmarried. The half that does get married gets divorced 50% of the time. One in five Americans struggles with infertility. Millions of others experience miscarriage, stillbirth, infant death or child death. Financial stress is the greatest contributor to divorce.
Not a pretty picture of the all-American family, is it?
We can turn to the Bible for stories about the lives of real women, and those stories are all over the map. Ruth was left childless and widowed at a young age but became the great-grandmother of King David. Rachel, Hannah, Sarah and Elizabeth were infertile. Eve and Mary lost sons under terrible circumstances – one by murder and exile and the other by assassination.
Some women are blessed to be mothers. Others are not. That is a sad reality. But the Bible makes it clear that we cannot rest our hopes and dreams on our families. Last week we talked about Hannah giving up her only son, Samuel. Families are human institutions that will let us down, and we will let them down from time to time. Our hopes and dreams rest in Jesus alone.
Our experience of being loved and loving in turn does come not from what we produce but from a Godly love of each other regardless of our circumstances. For all of us, male and female alike, the mothering love of God is our hope, our help and our sustaining grace.
Emerson once said, “People are what their mothers make them.” Abraham Lincoln said, “All that I am or hope to be, I owe it all to my aged mother.” History is replete with dedicated mothers. History is also replete with people of all circumstances devoted to Christ. They called her “Mother Theresa.” She was a nun.
To be a Christian brings a different perspective to what it means to be human.
We hear too much these days in evangelical circles about how the man ought to be the head of the house and lord it over the woman. Such a notion runs contrary to Christianity. It was Jesus who taught us that the New Covenant would bring equality to women. The Apostle Paul tells us that in Christ there is neither male nor female.
The lasting influence that we make on others has less to do with our status as Moms and Dads than it does with our status of being the King’s kids. But even being a King’s kid carries with it no guarantees. In the case of Mary, answering the call of God brought on suffering beyond belief.
We have come through a tough time since Betty Friedan wrote her book, “The Feminine Mystique,” in which she claimed that women are trapped in an unwanted life of domesticity. Radical feminism assaults the self-esteem of women who make mothering their own children or those of others a priority. Women of that generation are finding out something that we men knew all along – how empty it is to chase success. Some long for the simple thrill of putting a bandaid on a kid’s skinned knee.
Like it or not, the stay-at-home Mom is not held in high regard in our culture anymore. She may be admired for what she has given up, but that is a long distance from being treated as an equal in a world of high achievers.
One woman who was tired of being asked at parties what she does developed a great line. “I am socializing two homo sapiens in the dominant values of the Judeo-Christian tradition in order that they may be instruments for the transformation of the social order in the teleologically-prescribed Utopia inherent in the eschaton.”
James Dobson is a pro at creating these motherhood myths. He is not such a pro, however, at coming up with answers that resonate in today’s world. He and Shirley were interviewed by Sean Hannity recently, when Shirley said that if the Ten Commandments had been on the classroom wall the massacre in VA might not have happened – “Thou shalt not kill.” If they are that far removed from reality, you have to wonder how much stock you can place in all those other notions of what constitutes a family.
What strikes me from this passage in Luke is how average Jesus’ life seems. His family was one of the crowd of people going to Jerusalem for the Passover. Like any other mother, Mary wanted to hang onto Him for as long as possible. But at 12 years of age, a tension was developing between the safe boundaries of Jesus’ family and His call to areas of greater concern – His Father’s business.
As this tension increased with time, how frightening it must have been to a mother who wanted to shield Him from the dangers she knew He would face. Finally, her worst fears came true, as she saw Him executed as a common criminal. A cross was all that this talk about His Father’s business had gotten Him, and Mary’s heart ended up as the angel had told her it would – pierced through, not by one sorrow, but by many sorrows.
A mother’s love and the Father’s business were two competing forces at work in Jesus’ life. We also are pulled by two competing forces. The test of true discipleship is not only the ability to take the right road – the Father’s will – but the willingness to let go of all that keeps us from carrying out His will. That lesson was a crushing one for Mary.
What is even more difficult is letting go of what we want in order to offer the best to someone else. There is not much payback in such a life, and it may not be much respected in our culture, but selflessness requires that our little acts of kindness – motherhood, if you wish – have service to God as their motive.
Mary had certain expectations of her children – that they would be tagging along with the crowd walking back home from Jerusalem. All day long they walked and talked. As evening came on, and she and Joseph gathered the kids together, they realized that Jesus was missing. Imagine the panic that set in when it took them 3 days to find Him – in, of all places, the temple courts.
What was He doing? We are taught to believe that He was teaching. But that was not only the case. He was listening and asking questions – learning about the human face of God’s redemptive work with the people of Israel, knowing all along that He Himself would soon be the rejected salvation of Israel. In addition to listening and asking questions, Jesus was offering His own thoughts, and we are told that they were amazed at His understanding and His answers to the questions they were asking of Him.
It was just a good old 3-day discussion. We have no idea where He slept or if He slept or where He ate – those critical matters of parenting. All we know is that what He was doing had priority over the panic that had gripped His parents. It was a message to His Mom that she had to begin to let go.
There are some who might have kicked Jesus out of the house. I do not imagine that Mary calmly asked him, “Son, why have you done this to your father and me?” There was probably a certain amount of screaming that preceded that question.
Jesus did not answer the question. Instead, he asked her a question, “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know that I had to be in my Father’s house?” We are told that they did not understand what He was saying to them in distinguishing His Father from his father. I am willing to bet that their anxiety was minimized a bit when the elders told them how amazing he was – perhaps a little pride crept in.
The best part of this story is in the 51st and 52nd verses: “Mary pondered these things and treasured them in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.” The act of motherhood, then, had less to do with making sure that Jesus did the right things than it did with His mother thinking about the significance of what had taken place and treasuring those things in her heart. She had given birth to God’s promise to Israel.
The pondering and treasuring were vital to her survival when she witnessed His friends and her friends abandoning Him in His hour of need.
I like that picture of motherhood much better than the one on the Hallmark cards, don’t you? That permits motherhood to be what it is, rather than what somebody else thinks it ought to be. That makes room for the childless woman to touch a life, for the unmarried woman to nurture a soul in turmoil and for the bumbling father to make a difference. That makes room for Big Brothers and Big Sisters. That makes room for foster care. That makes room for nieces and nephews who need another perspective in order to answer the pull toward the Father’s business.
That makes room for Jesus, who lives in and through the lives of those willing to be a mother to anyone who needs one at the moment.
Stan Moody is the author of "Crisis in Evangelical Scholarship" and "McChurched: 300 Million Served and Still Hungry
