In Defense and Praise of Motherhood

Despite the cultural left’s assault on traditional gender roles, Mother’s Day and the women we honor this day are resilient. And that’s worth celebrating.

This is one of my favorite days on Facebook. Mothers Day.

How it came about is a classic American story. It’s actually a national holiday, thanks to legislation signed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914. But Mothers Day, like so many other American traditions, began in the 19th Century. West Virginians and Pennsylvanians play prominent roles.

Honoring mothers is as old as time. The ancient Greeks did, followed by Europeans. In America, we have Anna Reeves Jarvis to thank, who began Mothers Day Work Clubs to help teach mothers how to care properly for their children, beginning in the Mountaineer State. Famous Philadelphia merchant John Wanamaker largely funded the campaign to enshrine it as a national holiday.

Given our current cultural wars and efforts to blur immutable gender roles in our society, we should be happy we’ve not seen any legislation in Congress to rename it as “Birthing Persons Day.” But then again, maybe I’m speaking too soon. From Newsweek magazine almost two years ago (June 7, 2021):

The White House's 2022 fiscal year budget replaced the word mothers with birthing people in a section about public health funding, prompting ridicule Monday from President Joe Biden's conservative critics.

The Biden administration's budget includes a public health section which addresses efforts to "reduce maternal mortality rates and end race-based disparities in maternal mortality." The budget specifically addresses racial disparities between Black, American Indian/Alaska Native and other women of color. But it is the replacement of the word mother with birthing people that drew the ire of conservative think tank leaders and right-wing media members Monday following the release of Biden's budget.

A Heritage Action lobbyist on Capitol Hill responded incredulously tweeting, "Why does Biden want to cancel mothers?"

I guess doing a direct assault on the legislation Woodrow Wilson signed would be a little too in-your-face. Best to begin undermining culture by subtly changing the language, hoping no one will notice or care until it is too late.

In modern times, this debate is best defined by the titles of two competing books from several years ago: Hillary Clinton’s “It Takes a Village” and former US Senator Rick Santorum’s “It Takes a Family.” Santorum, a two-term US Senator, two-time Presidential candidate, husband and father of seven children (and a personal friend) has long championed - and been criticized for - the role of stay-at-home moms. Of course, self-described feminists criticized Santorum for dissing working mothers, which he’s never done. But that’s politics.

Having been married to a working mom for nearly 39 years, I can testify to the challenge we’ve encountered during those years we were raising our two boys, especially our oldest, while living in expensive communities where it often takes two incomes to afford housing. My mom, raised in a different era, had no such challenges. She stayed home to raise her three children. I loved that she was always there when I came home from school, sports practices, or work (I started working part-time at age 15, and delivered newspapers before that). For a time, she would watch some of the neighbor kids after school.

Then there’s the ongoing debates over surrogacy, and the abortion issue. Those are posts for another day. Not this one.

The author and his mom at her favorite Mexican restaurant on Mothers Day Eve.

The choice of staying at home or working, for nearly all moms, is a personal one, even as women’s ranks grow in corporate board rooms, C-suites, flag officer ranks, and of course in the halls of Congress, governors’ mansions, and legislatures everywhere. But it’s been eclipsed by the new debate over gender ideology - that gender isn’t really immutable, gender dysphoria isn’t a mental disorder but instead a condition to be affirmed, even celebrated (and even taxpayer subsidized if you’re in the military).

It’s been further exacerbated by men dressed garishly as women to participate in “Drag Queen Story Hours,” all part of a effort to normalize gender “fluidity.” It’s misogyny.

Biological men are now competing against - and defeating - women in sporting events, from track and field to weightlifting and swimming. And we wonder why the latest CDC study tells us that up to a third of teenage girls have contemplated suicide. That, along with the growing backlash to commercialize the celebration of this ideology - Bud Light, anyone? - has finally begun to turn the tables.

Today, we celebrate and honor unique and vital role mothers play in all our lives. Not just their immutable and special characteristics, but their essential role in society. It is day of celebration and memories. It is a day of hope and excitement for expectant mothers. And it is a day of compassion for those who didn’t always have a mother at home, under a host of challenging circumstances. My mother’s mother died when she was 4, as her freshly-widowed father was conscripted to fight with the Big Red first infantry division during World War II.

I will now return to my Facebook feed and enjoy the great posts by friends and others celebrating wonderful memories of their moms, both alive and passed, and fellow Substack posts with great stories about how the mothers of famous people influenced not just their children’s lives, but society as a whole.

Pronouns will not need to be announced. We know.