Clicking on banner ads enables JWR to constantly improve
Jewish World Review March 17, 2000/ 10 Adar II, 5760

Kathleen Parker

Kathleen Parker
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
David Corn
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Arianna Huffington
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Wes Pruden
Debbie Schlussel
Sam Schulman
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports
Newswatch

Econophone

Trakdata


You want to be just a mom?
For shame!

http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
FORGET the world is your oyster. For today's girls, the world is an opera-length strand of pearls. From astronaut to athlete, there's nothing a girl can't do.

Well, except for that one thing. If they want any respect, girls best not grow up to be just a mom. So I learned recently while eating sushi with "Karen," the 20-year-old daughter of a friend.

"So, Karen," I said, "tell me what you plan to do after college. What do you want to do with the rest of your life?"

Tears. Big welling tears. What, you don't like sushi? Are you choking on a tentacle? Did I say something wrong?

Wrestling a lump in her throat, Karen managed to speak: "I know this sounds terrible, but, I, I, I want to be a mom."

I am not kidding, this really happened. Why the tears? I asked. What is it about wanting to be a mother that makes you so sad?

"Because," she said, chin trembling, "no one values being a mother. It's not important enough."

Indeed. In our rush to take our daughters to work, we failed to mention that being a mother is the most important job of all. We failed to communicate that careers, though valuable and rewarding, come second to families. That's what we meant to say, right?

So why didn't we?

Perhaps because we don't really mean it, that's why. Or because we're too guilty to acknowledge that we're not there for our own children.

Karen knows firsthand about children abandoned by their parents. A full-time college student three days a week, she works the other two taking care of other people's children, ushering them to soccer practice and piano lessons, feeding them supper, helping them with homework.

She's the au pair extraordinaire. She loves her charges but hates that she's filling in for the mother they're missing. Because of her experience, she wants to be a hands-on mom.

But just-a-mom has a hollow ring for women like Karen, who have been made to feel they're less a woman for wanting motherhood over career. What an ironic twist at a time when women have more freedom than ever.

Karen isn't alone. Perusing Boundless Webzine, an Internet publication of Focus on the Family (www.boundless .org) recently, I ran across an article by Bethany Patchin, titled "I Want To Be A Mom." Patchin told of a day four years ago when her 10th-grade English teacher asked the females in the class, "How many of you want to be at-home moms?"

When Patchin raised her hand, she says, the room got quiet and everyone stared.

Writing for Boundless four years later, Patchin recounted a discussion with her college adviser. When she told him she wanted to marry and have children after graduation, he said, "I wouldn't have expected you to be that type."

That type. Is it any wonder the Karens of the world get teary-eyed when they admit they want to be mothers? And they're right, of course. Society doesn't much value motherhood. Men who want to marry a stay-home mom are as rare as husbands who can get pregnant.

Somewhere along the way, we mistakenly assumed that motherhood was contradictory to feminism, that to be a stay-home mom was to surrender to patriarchal oppression.

In truth, the opposite is true, as Iris Krasnow, reformed feminist/journalist, told Washingtonian magazine:

"Motherhood," she said, "is about deciding not to fight that ancient and biological yank on the womb, that natural order of the soul that says you should be there. I'm a committed feminist, and there's nothing more powerful to me than refusing to abandon motherhood."


JWR contributor Kathleen Parker can be reached by clicking here.

Up

03/14/00: Colonoscopy: Important, but bad TV
03/10/00: I made a mistake about trigger-locks
03/08/00: After this school shooting, no easy target for our contempt
03/03/00: Car crash helps bridge our divide
02/28/00: Nasty politics? Americans like it down, dirty
02/14/00: College testing via Lego-building -- yeah, right
02/02/00: Bubba should spare us phony love theatrics
01/26/00: What sets off Those Who Speak for Women
01/13/00: Fools in love: Premarital counseling could help school kids
01/11/00: Who funds these studies!?
12/29/99: Grandparents' rights impinge on family autonomy
12/13/99: When did fathers become fair game?
12/09/99: Don't be stupid about at-risk kids
12/07/99: Pokemon is no substitute for a father
12/02/99: Blaming the victim --- men
11/30/99: Baby-killer's story has less-than-Precious ending
11/23/99: Pendulum swings back toward discipline, responsibility
11/18/99: Put the babies first in this mighty mess
11/11/99: Skip the applause for this baby news
11/09/99: Gore could benefit from a secret in Wolf's clothing
11/03/99: Who needs 'birds and bees' when we have MTV?
11/01/99: Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say
10/26/99: Children's needs must take priority in divorce system
10/19/99: The deadbeat dad is less a scoundrel than an object of pity
10/15/99: Bullying boys ... and girls
10/12/99: Divorced dads ready to wage a revolution
10/04/99: A father's best gift? His presence
09/30/99: Sorry, guys, Faludi is no friend of yours
09/28/99: Science's new findings: Scary future for families
09/23/99: The great blurring of need and want
09/21/99:Focus on more than baby's first 3 years
09/16/99: Commentary from kids sheds no light on day-care debate
09/14/99: Fathers' group seeks to right inequities
09/09/99: Son now has a license to grow up
09/07/99: A slap in the face of domestic violence
09/01/99: No, ma'am: Legislation on manners misses the mark
08/26/99: For better boys, try a little tenderness
08/24/99:The ABC's of campaign questions
08/19/99: Male 'sluts'
08/11/99: Language doesn't excuse bad behavior
08/09/99: When justice delayed is still justice
08/03/99: Unemployment? Not in this profession
07/30/99: It's not about race -- it's about crack babies
07/22/99: Tragedy tells us what's important
07/19/99: Study denouncing fathers sends danger signals
07/15/99:'Happy marriage' belongs in the Dictionary of Oxymorons next to 'deliciously low-fat.'
07/11/99: 'Brother Man': An American demagogue in Paris
07/08/99: Only parents can fix broken families
07/06/99: America is home, sweet home
07/01/99: Tales out of Yuppiedom
06/28/99: Men aren't the only abusers
06/23/99: Is the entire country guzzling LSD punch?
06/20/99: The voice remains -- as always -- there beside me 06/16/99:Stating the obvious, a new growth industry
06/14/99: Calling for a cease-fire in the gender war
06/10/99: We owe children an apology

©1999, Tribune Media Services