Someone else is doing the mothering...

An old 2010 post by Ingrid Schlueter at The Hope Blog  (no longer posted) rebutted an article which arrogantly labeled women who choose to stay home to raise their children as "Neanderthals".  Even though this post can no longer be viewed, I am putting the parts I saved from it here:

".....[those who believe] mothers with small children should be home to actually care for them if at all possible are dismissed as “neanderthals.”   [These women hope] we’ll evolve to something higher soon.

"Two daughters of prominent feminist authors have recently written about their childhoods and their mothers. 

The daughter of Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, describes in heartbreaking detail the way she was made to feel as a child. A burden. A career killer. Unwanted. She has few kind words for the mother whose feminist ideology nearly robbed her of the joys of motherhood.

Another column recently by Molly Jong, daughter of the famous feminist author, Erica Jong, writes her own account of her childhood and the impact her feminist mother had on it. She’s staying home with her three children so she can have an actual part in their lives. 

~"Neanderthal"~.

Most of motherhood is about showing up for the job.

*You can outsource that job to someone else, 
but someone else then is doing the mothering.* 

Millions have no choice now as single parenthood has removed mothers from the daily care of their children because moms must work to survive. 

This is not an attack on such mothers. I once was in this situation also. But it was not a triumph for womanhood when I had to leave my babies and earn a living. It was a loss for me and my little boys that I still think about when I lie awake at night. I can never have those years back with them.

[this mother's] children need her as all children need their mothers. God is the one who established the unique gifts of womanhood that enable us to be mothers. We deny and suppress that as women and lash out at those who point out the obvious, 

*but the truth remains. Nobody can replace a mother, her voice, her touch, her presence in the heart and life of a child. 

*Daddies are wonderful things, but they are not mothers.

I was very sick one time as a child. My fever was so high that I was slightly delirious. All these years and years later, I can still remember sensing that my mother was hovering over me that night, and the cool feel of her hands as she ministered to my needs. She was there. 

That precious memory to me is what motherhood is all about. 

If that makes me a “Neanderthal”, then I plead guilty.

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I, personally, find it a pathetic irony and tragedy that our culture thinks so highly of a woman who is in the workforce in a "wonderful "career, and yet some other woman is raising her children most of the day and getting paid very little for doing so. 

In our culture daycare workers and caregivers are not "choice careers" for women either and yet, they "rock the cradle" for us.

In my day staying home to raise children was just coming back in popularity, but it has quickly faded away.  

LORD, help us!