WHAT ABOUT MOTHERS?

By Ann Bales

When Peter addressed the subject of husband and wife relationships,
he urged first century married couples to treat one another with
honor. In a day of women’s liberation, his advice to women sounds
almost embarrassing. To the women he said, “Your beauty should not
come from outward adornment such as braided hair and the wearing of
gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your
inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. For
this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God
used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own
husbands, like Sarah who obeyed Abraham and called him master. You
are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to
fear.”(1 Peter 3:3-6). But before a husband could jump on the
chauvinist bandwagon and proclaim himself as the superior partner in
the marriage, he said “Husbands in the same way (Did you get that?
In the same way. What way? the way of expressing honor.) be
considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with
respect.” Two different expressions of honor -consideration and
respect. – Then he goes on to complete his thought by saying. ” as
the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the grace of life, so
that nothing will hinder your prayers. (verse 7). And don’t forget
what the Bible says about the way children are to respond to their
mothers. “Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.
Honor your father and mother – which is the first commandment with a
promise that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy a long
life on the earth.”

But how do we honor one another in a practical way. Erma said
“little things make a big difference.” But back before Erma, in the
early fifties a singer by the name of Kitty Kallen seemed to say it
best when she sang “Little Things Mean A Lot.” When we learn how to
do this in our marriage relationship, doesn’t it stand to reason that
it will carry over into the relationships with our children? Someone
has said that the best thing you can do for your children is to have a
good marriage. If we have a good marriage, then we will have learned
a lot of the lessons we just talked about. It will then be easy to
carry them over into teaching and relating to our children. Ruth Haley
Barton in her book Equal to the Task: Men and Women in Partnership
said a very important thing we need to remember: “Men and women have
different communication styles. How might we transform our world if
men and women deeply honored each other as equal reflections of God’s
image?”

I believe that God made us to be different in this area as
well as many others. And this is very useful in our parenting skills.
There are things that a Dad can accomplish that a Mom has difficulty
with and vice versa. An illustration in point is Mother-daughter
conflict that occurs especially in the teen years. We saw this
first-hand when our daughter Ruby became a teenager. I sometimes
wonder what would have happened if Norman had not taken on the role of
mediator. We are both thankful to have made it through that period
and today are very best friends. I’m still glad that we are a nation
of people who value motherhood. In our society today, more than ever,
we need to reaffirm motherhood as a ministry.

Since 1963 when BettyFriedan wrote The Feminine Mystique in which she
claimed that women are trapped in an unwanted life of domesticity, we
have seen assaults on the self-esteem of women who make motherhood a
priority. Many women have come to believe that it’s not personally
fulfilling just to stay at home and be a mother. But has the
attempt
to devalue motherhood actually been in the best interest of modern
women? Helen Young says of today’s woman. “She is the busiest woman
the world has ever seen, but often she is not happy. She is engulfed
in emotional difficulties. She is crowding the doctor’s office with
psychosomatic illnesses. She is nervous, irritable, filled with
frustrations.”

There was a time when motherhood was a status symbol
among women. In Genesis 30:1, the Bible records the distress that
Rachel suffered when she wasn’t bearing Jacob any children. She said
to Jacob, “Give me children, or I’ll die!” To Rachel her sense of
personhood, her self-esteem, her sense of dignity, her fulfillment in
life was connected to being a mother. But the structure in our
society today is in the opposite direction. The woman who has worth
and value is the one who runs a business, serves in a political
office or anchors the nightly news on television. I cannot say that
women shouldn’t do these things, but can’t we do something to let the
Moms of the world know that preparing meals, running the kids to
dental appointments and Little League games and putting a band aid on
a child’s arm are all valuable acts of service and even essential to
the development of children? And especially tell them the importance
of a hug, a kiss, reading a book and just listening to their problems
is even more essential to the child’s development.

We’ve even gone to the extreme to make a woman who stays at home and
raises her children feel her work lacks status and importance. On
top of that, motherhood takes a physical toll on the body. One woman
went so far as to say that many women don’t want to become mothers
because they have seen other women lose the good looks of their youth
and their husbands turn to younger women who don’t have varicose
veins from birthing four babies.

How many of us would be so brazen as to do what Peg Campolo did. Peg
is the wife of an East Coast College professor. She chose to stay at
home and raise her children. Since her husband was a professor,
occasionally she would go to a faculty party. And some of these
academicians would look condescendingly at her and say, “What do you
do my dear?” She would look them in the eye and reply, “I am
socializing two Homo-sapiens in the dominant values of the
Judeo-Christian tradition in order that they may be instruments for
the transformation of the social order in the teleologically
prescribed utopia, inherent in the eschaton.” That usually ended the
intimidation and probably the conversation.

I’m not sure I fully understand what Paul had in mind in 1 Timothy
2:15 when he said, “But women will be saved through child bearing –
if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.” For
whatever it’s worth, I will submit the possibility that he may be
saying that God designed a woman, emotionally, temperamentally,
physically and every other way you want to measure it for the task of
mothering children. And why would he instruct Titus to urge the older
women in Crete to “train the younger women to love their husbands and
children.” I would suggest that God knew what he was doing when he
gave the motherhood role to women. A man with an accounting
background agreed to watch his small children one Saturday while Mom
went shopping. True to his nature as an accountant he kept a record
of his experience.

Number of times runny nose wiped 5
Number of times shoestrings tied 6
Number of times children cautioned
not to cross the street 10
Number of times children ignored the
warning and cross the street anyway 10
Number of spankings administered 5
Number of disputes between children arbitrated 15
Number of times I will do this again 0

This problem is many times made worse by some of us in the church who
haven’t thought through what we are saying to mothers. I do not
attend most women’s programs or lectureship classes for women. I have
seen so many young women go to these and come away guilt-tripped by
what I describe as glib-talking females, with every hair in place and
enough jewelry hanging from their ears to sink a battleship. They
talk about their duty to become soul winners, to knock on doors, to
become spark plugs in the various ministries of the church. The poor,
young mother, who has three kids under the age of five, goes away
feeling guilty because she isn’t involved in the “Lords Work.” Then
she goes to a class or hears a sermon about the woman in Proverbs 31
who did everything from being a real estate broker to an entrepreneur
in tapestry. Again she is riddled with guilt because there is not any
way she can become a clone of the woman described there. In fact, she
can’t even see herself measuring up to the lady with the atrocious
earrings, much less the worthy woman in Proverbs 31. We need to
stress that the woman described in this passage is the IDEAL woman and
there will never be a woman who can measure up to this woman in every
aspect.

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• Is the Men’s Movement Dead?
• Making a Will

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