In his April 2022 essay “Are Women in the Workplace a Good Thing?” Jerry D. Salyer points out that feminism is so pervasive that even today’s conservatives consider traditional teaching on male/female roles to be distasteful.
Salyer describes “the extent to which many centuries’ worth of Catholic commentary about sex differences has simply been filtered out as if it were nothing. It is almost as if those responsible for handing down Catholic tradition would just as soon jettison whatever parts of said tradition happen to jar with modern sensibilities.”
It is not surprising, therefore, that many Catholics are unfamiliar with “awkward” Scripture passages such as Ephesians 5:21, “Let women be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord,” or with the “tremendous quantity of Catholic commentary about relations between the sexes.”
Even relatively recent voices like Pope St. John Paul II—an advocate for women if there ever was one—are now considered sexist for declaring that “a workman’s wages should be sufficient to enable him to support himself, his wife and his children.”
The answer to his title question, says Salyer, is not to insist on a rigidly patriarchal society, what he calls a “mirror-image of feminism.” In its own way, this is as strident as the feminism it rejects. He concludes that “what is called for at this moment is not the formulation of a new ideology but simply the jettisoning of an old one.”
The ideology he wants to jettison politely ignores phrases like “male and female He created them,” with its implicit acknowledgement of God-given differences between the sexes and all that stems from those differences. Yes, it’s getting old, in more ways than one. Like certain persistent liturgical innovations considered revolutionary fifty years ago, it is actually quite passé.
Nonetheless, it has settled into our societal mind to an extent most of us do not realize. This has been aided by a highly industrialized age in which male/female roles, in past ages, made crystal clear by the daily struggle to survive, feed, and protect the family, are blurred. That ill-defined image can make the whole idea of male and female roles odious. Or, in reaction, it may lead to a rigidly artificial mirror-image.
I propose that if we are to successfully navigate the two extremes, we must do more than simply jettison the old ideology. We must replace it with a concerted effort to honor and elevate motherhood. And not just motherhood in general, but mothers at home.
Surprising as it may seem coming from someone who has spent her life in the countercultural world of very conservative Christianity, I believe we have a way to go in doing this. In my quite sheltered world, motherhood is clearly protected, nurtured, and honored on a very practical level. However, there are signs that we are letting the world’s dim view of motherhood get to us.
Case in point: at a traditional, very faithful high school—certainly not a hotbed of feminism—the mention of male/female roles in theology class prompts eye rolling from female students. What gives?
Another example: A few months ago, in a leading conservative publication, I read a beautiful essay on motherhood and the presence of mothers in the home. As I read, I was moved to tears. Dismay followed as I scanned the author’s bio. At the end of a long list of personal and professional accomplishments, the author noted that she is a wife and mother. Perhaps she meant to save the best for last. Unfortunately, the impression was that her professional accomplishments gave her more credibility than her experience of motherhood.
We have children in their teens and twenties, so our family receives a great deal of college-related information. I peruse newsletters from some exemplary Christian and Catholic colleges. I never fail to be inspired by the outsize accomplishments of graduates from these often-tiny schools. They are impacting the world in a big way. Female alums are honored, and rightly so, for being physicians, lawyers, judges, and entrepreneurs.
Yet where are the full-time mothers in this picture? I’m saddened when they are routinely relegated to the alumni news and notes pages, if they get a mention at all. Faithful colleges, when was the last time you honored one of your graduates for using her degree to stay home and educate a small army of saints?
We talk about the liberal arts as education for life. What message are we sending when we never highlight the exponential effect of a liberal arts education used to educate little lives in the home?
Stay-at-home moms, how many times have you cringed when you filled in a form that asked “occupation?” When someone asks you what you “do,” do you say apologetically, “I’m just a mom”?
I have to confess, I sometimes feel like the Church is in on this conspiracy. Find me the saints who are mothers, honored as mothers; not mothers and doctors, not mothers and teachers, not mothers turned nuns. I challenge you to name more than a handful.
Before I go any further, let me make clear that I understand why many mothers work outside the home. My circle of dear friends includes moms who gracefully balance careers with family. Every circumstance is different, and moms are motivated to work by factors ranging from financial need to talents that need to find expression. Age and number of children are factors, as well as a myriad of other circumstances.
One of the things I find compelling about my friends who are in the workplace is the way they bring the “feminine genius” to their careers. The phrase was popularized by Pope St. John Paul II to describe the unique charism of women.
Seeing womanhood under attack as never before, he was inspired to reflect upon women’s role. He wrote his beautiful apostolic letter Mulieris Dignitatem during the Marian year of 1987-88, and, in response to the Beijing Conference on Women in 1995, he wrote his Letter to Women. The result was a much-needed articulation of women’s charism and how it enriches the family, society, culture, and the Church.
John Paul spoke frequently of the need for women to be more involved in every aspect of society and culture—but as women: not interchangeably with men, but with their unique ability to “see persons with their hearts.”
He made it clear that this feminine genius stems from women’s singular capacity to be mothers. Reading the popes and great spiritual writers on motherhood, one gets the clear sense that the call to motherhood is a bit different from man’s corresponding call to fatherhood. It has a special, mystical quality. To be a mother, physically, is to touch the divine, to participate in a special way in the creation of new souls.
The pope went so far as to say, “Each and every time that motherhood is repeated in human history, it is always related to the Covenant which God established with the human race through the motherhood of the Mother of God” (Mulieris Dignitatem).
The gift spills over into so much more than physical motherhood. This is why John Paul exhorts women to mother in whatever sphere they find themselves.
Much has been written about how woman takes her feminine genius to the world of work, politics, and education. Every woman is called to physical motherhood, spiritual motherhood, or both. And as Danielle Bean notes, spiritual motherhood is not just a “consolation prize” for those who can’t physically mother:
…nothing could be further from the truth! God did create the heart of every woman for motherhood, and that is the calling to life-giving, self-giving love. If people feel funny about calling every woman a mother, I remind them that “mother” is not just a noun. It’s a verb. We are mothers because we mother. We are called to love and care for the people God places in our lives in ways we are uniquely equipped to do because we are female. (Angelus, August 9, 2019)
For John Paul II, the question of women’s role was closely connected to the family. Male and female roles ultimately exist for the service of that “community of life and love” that reflects the Trinity.
The family’s deep eschatological (one of his favorite words) significance is a topic for another conversation. Suffice it to say that, while there is no cookie cutter situation, God established a definite pattern for the family. That pattern includes what John Paul calls the “iconic” complementarity of man and woman.
Feminism—and the devaluing of motherhood—is a diabolically clever strategy to destabilize the family. To counter this, we need to honor the archetype of motherhood, plain and simple. By that I mean motherhood in the home: physically present to feed, bathe, mediate, admonish, and teach a million unscripted, unscheduled lessons.
Just as there is no cookie-cutter pattern for the family, the decision to be home with one’s children takes many forms. A mother may work around her children’s schedule, or she may work part time in the home, or she may put virtually all outside tasks on hold while her children are young. What these moms have in common is that they choose to be physically present during their children’s formative years.
Motherhood, lived properly, is the antithesis of the devil’s non serviam. It’s no surprise, then, that the devil hates mothers. He hates Mary, he hates mothers. We see that hatred in the fervor with which our society preaches the gospel of choice and its sacrament, abortion. We see that hatred in the rage that bubbles up at the mere mention of traditional male and female roles.
True, many writers commend mothers who put their careers on hold to stay home with their children. However, along with their praise often comes a qualifier, indicating that the mom who is “just a mom” doesn’t have the energy or inclination to do anything else, or doesn’t feel called to do so.
It feels a bit backward. If the capacity for physical motherhood is the source of “feminine genius,” so closely entwined with woman’s psyche that it manifests itself in virtually every aspect of her life, there should be no need to qualify our praise for women who choose to devote all their energies to the ideal.
In theory, we honor motherhood. In practice, we give meager recognition to women who make the conscious choice for full-time motherhood.
As a young mother, I had an experience that has stayed with me over the years. In the affluent small town where we lived, I would head to the park with my sons. My younger son was about three, with a bent for self-destruction, so I was close behind him as he zipped around the tot lot. Other women hovered over their charges or watched from the sidelines, but it was clear that many of them were babysitters or nannies.
Every once in a while, I would look down and find a child looking at us intently. The look was unnerving and quite frightening: it was a look of anger. Not sadness, not jealousy. Anger. White-hot, stern anger. Anger that my son had a mother on that playground, and he or she did not.
Children are not fooled easily. They know when they are number one in your life and when they’re not.
Writing this, I reflected on my own vocational path. As a young woman, I was confident that I had career choices: I had turned down a full-ride scholarship to a major university. But I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted to get married and be at home, full-time, raising a house full of kids. I was unapologetic about it, and there was a certain excitement—I knew I was making a choice that was radically countercultural.
Standing in the threshold of motherhood, I was struck by the power of my role: I didn’t need a sign, I didn’t need a bumper sticker, I didn’t need to say a word. With little ones in tow, I was a walking statement about life and the importance of motherhood. Within the walls of my home, I was raising saints who would help take back the world.
To me, being a mother at home didn’t necessarily mean baking pies and keeping a spotless house—thank goodness; I’d flunk both those tests. It did mean putting my college-educated brain to work forming little souls—a far more challenging task than I envisioned.
Ironically, to my own daughter, raised in a bubble where most moms stay home, my choice looks considerably less exciting. Nonetheless, in a society where the vast majority of women juggle family and work outside the home, a woman’s decision to give up a career in order to raise her children remains a radical choice.
My mother used to say, paraphrasing Aristotle, “Give me a child until he is three and I’ll show you the man.” Mothers, don’t ever apologize for staying home with your children. The payoff is priceless.
(Editor’s note: This essay, posted here with kind permission of the author, was published originally in May 2022 by Crisis Magazine.)
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Thanks for this essay.
I’m done with feminism and the devaluing of motherhood.
Thanks. Pope Leo could build upon his predecessors when teaching about what is a human versus machine. If all work becomes a hobby, so too will being a parent. Why will we need mothers if artificial wombs (and homes?) are coming? Will Catholics who form families be put on reservations? Perhaps it will be the opposite: The “meek will inherit the earth” as those addicted to the artificial become mentally enslaved in the metaverse. (Matthew 5:5)
“I have to confess, I sometimes feel like the Church is in on this conspiracy. Find me the saints who are mothers, honored as mothers; not mothers and doctors, not mothers and teachers, not mothers turned nuns. I challenge you to name more than a handful.”
Well, there is the Blessed Mother. She is the Theotokos and raised God. What other role model could a mother (or any Christian) need?
And we should not forget about the mother of the Blessed Mother, St. Anne. The first home for the Blessed Mother was as the Immaculate Conception in the womb of St. Anne.
Nor should we neglect St. Elizabeth. She is a towering Saint as the mother of St. John the Baptist. She is so critical that the Gospel tells of St. Elizabeth, pregnant with the Forerunner of the Word of God, being visited by the Blessed Mother, pregnant with the Christ, the Word of God Himself. Speaking of home school co-ops!
Next awesome mom on the list has to be St. Monica. She (somehow!) raised St. Augustine. This would make her another spiritual mother (after the Blessed Mother of course) to Pope Leo, et al.
There is St. Azélie-Marie “Zélie” Guérin Martin. True, she was the chief breadwinner as an entrepreneur, but she is remembered most for being a mom, having raised wonderful children like St. Thérèse of Lisieux, OCD of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face (a true spiritual mother to millions).
Sts. Perpetua and Felicity were martyr mothers. One at home, the other in the womb on the way. Their dramatic story captivated early Catholics. https://www.ssfp.org/pdf/The_Martyrdom_of_Saints_Perpetua_and_Felicitas.pdf
Recently, there is St. Gianna Beretta Molla. Yes, she was a MD. Her heroic sanctity, however, is because she was a mother.
Et al.
I have on my shelf two DK illustrated books called The Forgotten Arts and Forgotten Household Crafts. They describe the typical occupations of men and women in the preindustrial age. What strikes me about them is that while the men’s tasks were performed in fields and workshops and the women’s tasks in the home and garden, both men and women had to master a number of complex crafts that would have occupied most of their days, and that the women’s tasks would have contributed just as much as the men’s tasks to the wealth of the family. Women may have been close to their children the whole time, but they were not actively mothering them every moment of the day. They had too much work to do. The notion of the work of one man alone providing all the needs of a family is an historical anomaly at best, a romantic fantasy for most times and places.
The industrial revolution sped up the age-long transition from a craft economy, where people largely made things for their own use, to a trade economy, where people made things to sell and used the money to buy things for their own use. This transformed the home and garden from a place of production to a place of consumption. For a woman to be productive and engage in complex and challenging work, as women had throughout history, she now had to leave the home.
This is in no way to offer an apology for the feminist idea of male/female equivalence. It is simply to point out that fitting the male/female division of child-rearing tasks into the nature of the modern trade-based, factory-oriented economy — which has provided a level of prosperity we would be mad to give up — is a genuinely hard problem. Most families will need the productivity of both parents, and so the problem of where the woman needs to be to be productive is one that has to be taken seriously, whether one thinks men and women to be equivalent or not.
Mother’s indeed had a great deal of work at home and on the farm in pre- industrial times but their children often worked alongside them.
Indeed. Training and supervising were among the many complex tasks that fell to women in the home in that period, and which have now been outsourced to the schools.
Thank you for this article. I was a stay at home mom, very rare in my generation and socioeconomic group. I never let anyone shame me about it. My own mother used to push for me to return to work saying she’d baby sit and I always turned her down saying “she raised her kids and I would raise mine”. I think she was a. Worried about our finances and b. Couldn’t brag about what her daughter worked at. My daughter is 28 now and I’m glad I put the time and effort in. She was a needy emotional child that everyone blamed on me being home with her, which makes no sense since I was the opposite as a child and my mother was home with us, sure my daughter was an only child but I shudder to think how she would have developed if I abandoned her to strangers or even my mother’s care to work outside the home.
Happy Mother’s Day.
Although I agree with much of what Ms. Seeley writes, I think that women need to not only be “gentle as doves, but “wise as serpents” and be prepared with a good education and degree/certificate (that they keep current) to hold down a job if necessary to support themselves and their children. Nowadays, being a “Tupperware” or “Mary Kay” lady usually doesn’t provide enough income to buy a lunch, let alone support themselves and children.
This doesn’t necessarily mean earning a college degree, but I see no problem with a woman delaying marriage until she has graduated from college or trade school with a degree or certificate that will definitely lead to a good job that guarantees a living (simple lifestyle!) wage. This will mean that she will probably wait until she is around 22 years old to get married–not uncommon even in my mother’s time (she and my father got married in the 1950s and she was in her mid-20s).
This doesn’t mean years of schooling (e.g., med school, internship, residency–until you’re 30!) and delaying marriage until fertility may be compromised. Nowadays, a woman can be trained in nursing in 2 years–and at this time in history, almost every hospital profession (lab, X-ray, respiratory, MRI, etc.) is dangerously short-staffed and jobs (including part-time jobs!) are plentiful and pay well with good benefits–and many clinics and medical centers are even willing to work with a mother’s schedule to allow her to come in later or leave earlier.
Like it or not, over half the marriages in the U.S. end in divorce–and marrying a good Christian/Catholic man is no guarantee of a lifelong marriage. Many men, especially those raised after the 1980s, struggle with self-image, work competition, sexual temptation, and their own masculinity (“Should I be more tough, or more tender? Should I join a gym and start getting up early so I can lose a little weight and develop a better body? Should I bring flowers or would she rather have a toolbox? I don’t earn enough money to buy a house and I don’t know how to use tools or be “handy” around a house, so I think I’ll just remain single and live with my parents! Maybe I’m gay?! etc.)
There are other options for mothers who find themselves single again due to a husband who “takes off to find himself” (often with another woman or even a man). Moving back in with parents is an option if the parents are still young enough to not require care themselves and still have the income to support their daughter and her children. But it can be hard on parents who are often still working, and had plans during their time off work to travel, buy a camper and drive around the country, etc.
Moving in with other women who have children is an option that most women don’t even think about, but I think it is becoming more common, and it’s a great option if the women are willing to work together to bring in adequate finances and also to take loving care of the children in the house.
I think one thing that young couples can do if they know that they can’t support themselves and children on a single income is to move closer to their parents so that they can utilize a parent as a babysitter (free childcare!!) for a few days a week while Moms works to supplement that family income. I take care of my precious grandson 2-3 days a week while his mom works in a hospital, and both he and I benefit from the experience! (Of course, he’s the best little boy in the world!)
And of course, there is the option for young couples to stop aspiring to the typical HGTV home and lifestyle and live simply, in small houses like many of their parents grew up in with only one bathroom(!!) and only one TV and a backyard instead of a huge cedar deck and kids sharing a bedroom–like many of their parents (like me!) grew up in! It’s OK, honest! It’s actually kind of fun!
Seriously, I would love to see a return to the time of “Leave it To Beaver” and “The Brady Bunch”, but I think women really need to wise and recognize that the times we live in make it difficult for men to be husbands and fathers, especially if they compare themselves to current movie hunks and also to the men on HGTV who think nothing of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a house that in the not-so-long-ago past, would be considered a mansion!
Another problem that many modern men have is their addiction to their computers and various video games that, IMO, are fine on a limited basis, but take over a life once their online activities (e.g., gaming, social media, etc.) require hours out of every day and far into the night. I personally would discourage young children and teens from spending so much time gaming, but…in many cases, it seems to be a losing battle, and these young men and women are living in a fantasy world while their parents continue to feed and care for them.
And it’s not just video games–some men (and just as many women) seem to be addicted to their phones and never have them out of hand, and they are “online” via their phones and social media even when they are with their children. Of course, this behavior is often picked up by their children. The movie WALL-E is only a children’s movie, but it shows the awful consequences of humans who no longer have lives except through their screens. (Thankfully, the movie has a good ending where the humans realize that they are living through screens and they break free!)
Again, we women need to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves, and those of us with boys need to raise them in a way that will make sure that our little men are prepared with the skills and educations to work and support a wife and family.
In the 50’s and 60’s my Catholic family of 7 kids had an executive/working father, and a mother who was in our home raising us and sending us to Catholic school. My mother had a glow, a sheen of light around her, and the remarkable thing was that with every new baby, she radiated more beauty and more joy. As a young girl,I would study this “glowing” phenomenon with bewilderment, but I know now that what I saw emanating from my mother was God’s grace upon her for her loving ways, her gentle guidance, her goodness to us children, and the special Saturday treat of her baking cinnamon rolls, which intoxicating fragrance would fill our kitchen. Nothing and no-one, no successful woman in any office in the country could ever compete against her, and win!
So, I have a college degree and a Master’s. Worked a bit. Not stupid by a long shot. Never had an interest in a career. Always wanted to stay home with my children. Got what I wanted.
Too many women talk themselves into listening to the secular voices about the need for a career over family. If your sense of self comes from outside you, and from others, you will NEVER feel you measure up. Why would I want a hired stranger to raise my child? Answer–I didnt. Nor was my husband a multi-millionaire. We struggled a bit financially, didnt drive a brand new car, house needed work. So what? Whose approval are you trying to earn? Who are you competing with? Get over it. Get your education, yes, because you never know what the future brings. That doesnt have to mean spending the next 20 years in an office.
You need to make a choice at some point about what it is you REALLY value. An old observation I read years ago and have have repeated more than once: Nobody ever lay dying in bed and said “I should have spent more time at work”.
Of the things I remember when I was very small,
I mean so little, I was still coloring the walls,
If I lost my colors, a book or a shoe,
I would look a few seconds and then yell,
“Hey, Morn, where are you?”
When the time came for me to go to school,
To come straight home was one of the rules.
I was one of the lucky, I had no cause to be blue,
For I was always answered when I yelled,
“Hey, Mom, where are you?”
Te e n a g e years saw lots of fun, friends and dates.
When I came home at night, no matter how late,
I’d be dying to share it with Mom, so my excitement grew,
As I climbed the stairs, I’d want to yell,
“Hey, Mom, where are you?”
I now have my own family, and I’ll bet you can guess,
Going home for a visit is what’s really the best,
For no matter my age, it’s still so true,
As I enter the door, I love to yell,
“Hey, Mom, where are you?”
I’m sure when I go to my heavenly reward,
Our Lord and His Mother will greet me with love outpoured.
Then, without even my asking, they’ll point me to
My Mom, and say,
“There she is, waiting for you.”
Pat Carey Lavin
There’s a very moving piece today from “Peachy Keenan” that turned up in my emails. She writes about her mother and her childhood. I really recommend searching for it online.