April showers are over and May flowers are starting to bloom. This beautiful time of year has many people reflecting on the gratitude they feel for their many blessings in life. It is only appropriate, then, that we show this gratitude by celebrating the people whose sacrifices brought us into this world-our mothers. After all, if it was not for them, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy the fragrant flowers, mild weather, and sweet songs of the birds that accompany this time of year.
However, Mother’s Day has grown into something far more than a day to tell our own mothers how much we appreciate them, and I am not sure that the change is for the better. Indeed, it has grown into a day where the very idea of motherhood is glorified. Even those women who are not currently mothers are praised and given gifts just for the mere fact that they could someday become mothers, whether in this life or in the next.
This ultra-glorification of motherhood is evidenced in the new motherhood webpage that the Church has just released. There, motherhood is called the “highest, holiest service of mankind” and is extolled as the “definition of selfless service.” The webpage describes motherhood as a “heavenly job created by God before this life” and explains that “The divine role of motherhood is exhibited in all women, whether they’ve born children or not.” It would appear that “motherhood” has come to replace the word “womanhood” in the term of choice for describing women.
While these descriptions may seem like attempts to show appreciation and gratitude, the messages within them are deeply problematic. By continuing in this sort of rhetoric, we may be hurting others unnecessarily and perpetuating harmful stereotypes. Let’s take a look at the unintended consequences these messages can cause.
- Glorifying motherhood de-emphasizes fatherhood. The webpage begins with a series of questions, “Who helped you tie your shoes or learn a new piece on the piano? When you forgot your science project was due the next day, who made a late-night run for poster board and glue? It was Mom.” The problem is that none of those tasks are exclusive to mothers. Perhaps it was your father who taught you to tie your shoe. Perhaps an aunt or uncle helped you with your science project. Perhaps your big brother gave you a ride to the store. By describing each of these tasks as things that “mothers” do, fathers receive the message that those tasks are jobs only for women. This message can cause fathers to become less involved in their children’s lives. This is a shame. Fathers can be just as nurturing and involved as mothers. Isn’t that the ideal we should be striving for? Plus, ignoring the role of fathers throws those fathers who already are good fathers under the bus. Don’t they deserve some credit too?
- Glorifying motherhood makes real mothers feel inadequate. We have all been there. Mother’s Day is bound to bring at least one talk that talks about how the speaker’s mother taught them the gospel, kept the house spotless, drove them to five million activities, never got angry, sang like an angel, and raised twelve beautiful, never naughty children. The website itself speaks of this mythical perfection attributed to mothers, with phrases such as “Mothers are endowed with a love that is unlike any other loveon the face of the Earth”(Marjorie Pay Hinckley) and “There is no limit to what a mother can accomplish. Righteous women have changed the course of history and will continue to do so” (Julie B. Beck).
I will give the webpage credit for acknowledging that women often feel inadequate, but the webpage does little to counteract that and plenty to fuel those feelings. No woman is a perfect mother and stories of “perfect” mothers and all that mothers can “accomplish” only serves to rub that fact in our faces. We know we can never live up to the descriptions we hear in Church. We secretly want to plop our children in front of the television while we hide in the closet with a big bowl of ice cream or put on noise-canceling headphones while we allow our toddlers to fight like cats and dogs on the floor. We can sometimes be selfish or lazy or impatient. We are imperfect and we would love, for just once, to be told that that is okay.
- Glorifying motherhood alienates those who cannot have or choose not to have children. I can only imagine the heartache that is involved with the trial of infertility. Imagine how a woman must feel to be told that motherhood is her highest calling while she knows that she has not been called to serve in that capacity. Feelings of worthlessness or inferiority would be expected. I have spoken to many women in these circumstances and the pain they express after hearing glorifying descriptions of motherhood is almost unbearable. These women have so much to offer the world in other aspects of their lives, and yet the message they hear is that they are worth less.
- Glorifying motherhood harms those who do not enjoy motherhood. How many women have become parents who had no desire to be a mother? While it would be nice to say that all of these stories had a happy ending, the reality is that many of these women never do develop a desire to be a parent. Other women go into motherhood with high hopes only to find out that it is not all it is cracked up to be. They were told that “motherhood is exhibited in all women” and yet they cannot find it within themselves. Perhaps these women are not naturally nurturing and don’t do well with children. Hearing the glorification of motherhood only serves to make these women feel as though there is something spiritually wrong with them. They feel as though the people they truly are somehow are worth less than the women they have been told to be.
- Glorifying motherhood dismisses the pain of those who did not choose to become mothers. It is a sad fact of life that some women become mothers due to circumstances outside of their own control. Perhaps they were the victim of rape or their birth control failed. Whatever the reason, these women often experience great trauma in the birth process and in motherhood. These women are struggling every day to be the best mothers they can be, but, frankly, it is kind of insulting to suggest that their ultimate calling in life was to become a mother in those circumstances. This video released by the Church even suggests that all women “willingly accepted the divine role” of motherhood. This is flat out untrue. These women need support and a shoulder to cry on, not another talk or essay telling them how much they should love their situation in life.
- Glorifying motherhood reduces women to their relationships. Being a mother is a wonderful thing for most women. However, a woman’s role as a mother is only one of many aspects of her being. A woman is first and foremost an individual. She has unique interests, personality traits, talents, and pursuits. We spend so much time talking about motherhood that these other qualities are forgotten. In fact, these other qualities can even be looked down upon. Instead of celebrating a woman for success in a career, people often denigrate that woman for being selfish enough to take time away from her children. Women often even are called selfish for pursuing hobbies. This has got to stop. I am a mother, a wife, a daughter, a science teacher, a feminist, a friend, an intellectual, a happy-go-lucky Disney song singer, etc. Each of these qualities is important to me in its own right. If I were to forget about each of these roles other than that of “mother”, I would be worse off because of it.
- Glorifying motherhood impedes gender equality. I often sit back and wonder why the Church places such a hyper focus on motherhood. After years of reflection and observation, I feel very strongly that gender inequality is at its root. Women are not treated as equals in the Church. They are barred from most leadership positions and are not included in the top decision-making committees. Their voices are stifled because of this. I actually think that most people understand this at some level, including our leaders. In order to make up for this obvious gap, leaders place women on a pedestal to try to bridge the gap. Unfortunately, telling women how special they are because they have the gift of being mothers doesn’t fix the inequality. While it may make it less obvious to some people, the problem still exists and is not going away. This glorification of motherhood impedes real progress on the issue. Instead of tackling the issue head on, the Church has chosen to side-step it by trying to raise “motherhood” to the equivalent of “priesthood”. This is a shame. We should be brave enough to fix the problem that exists instead of trying to mask it.
While this list is not all-inclusive, it should help provide a little bit of insight into why the glorification of motherhood is upsetting to many women. Please do not get me wrong. Motherhood really can be a beautiful, wonderful gift and a blessing. Motherhood is a sacrifice but can bring great joy. However, the motherhood experience is very different from woman to woman. Some women will find it to be the best experience of their lives while others will find it to be the worst. Other women will never experience motherhood at all. Fatherhood, similarly, can be either the best or the worst experience of a man’s life and is not experienced by all men. I would love to see a shift in our dialogue from motherhood to parenthood. Parenthood, also, should be discussed as one aspect of a person’s life instead of the only aspect of a person’s life. Let us support people for who they are and who they want to be. We are not all the same and that is a great blessing.
So, this Mother’s Day and this Father’s Day, thank your parents for all that they have done. Acknowledge that raising you was probably not always sunshine and roses. Thank them for their sacrifices. Let them know that you love them not because they were perfect, but because they loved you first. Let them know that you love them for all that they are and not just for how they have served you. Thank them for being themselves, whatever that may be.
-by Olivia Seger