59 Sermon Illustrations on Motherhood

"I Believe" series. Mother's Day 1990. (From 1983?)

1. The unquenchable love of a mother. (Ted Bundy's mom)

2. God as a mother.

a. Feminist theology.

b. Biblical feminine images.

3. God is like a human mother.

a. Protection.

b. Unconditional love.

4. Human mothers can be like God.

a. Many Christians influenced by godly mothers.

In a pediatrician's office there was a form which had beside the blank marked "occupation" these words: "If you devote the greater part of you time to loving, caring and making a home for your family, put a big star in this place."

________

Reader's Digest; May 1980; p. 200.

Has anyone ever told you that your mother wears combat boots? Unless your mother is active duty military this is an insult, not a statement of fact! Chances are your mother never joined the armed services. She probably shopped for shoes at Thom McAnn, not the Army Surplus Store.

However, consider the possibility that your mother is a soldier and that she may have been wearing combat boots for a long time! Paul tells us that "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Eph. 6:12). And just when you thought it was safe to go outside! In the unseen world (which is far more real than the one we see according to 2 Cor. 4:18) battles are raging this very moment. In every hour of every day eternal destinies are being decided. It is a war without headlines, a battlefield without front lines. Unsung heroes are carrying the day. And we knew it not.

One of the most decorated veterans of that war may just be your mother. In a society where commitment and loyalty are often devalued (unless it is loyalty to a product or commitment to a diet plan) motherhood is often underrated. Motherhood is long-term, heavy-duty, industrial-strength commitment. Who wants to give up opportunities for fulfillment and self-actualization? (As the world defines those terms.) Who wants to devote the best years of her life to changing diapers and wiping snotty noses?

In The Power Delusion (Victor, 1983) Tony Campolo speaks about the arduous task of character formation and pays tribute to "the hand that cradles the rock." As a college professor Campolo often attended gatherings where faculty members were expected to bring their spouses. Inevitably, he says, some lawyer or sociologist would ask his wife, "And what is it that you do, my dear?" Campolo's wife would regularly respond: "I am socializing two homo sapiens into the dominant values of the Judeo-Christian tradition in order that they might be instruments for the transformation of the social order into the teleologically prescribed utopia inherent in the eschaton." Campolo says when she follows that up with, "And what is it that you do?" the other person's response--"a lawyer"--just isn't that overpowering.

Mothers, God bless you! Your devotion above and beyond the call of duty is turning back the enemy on every front. While CNN and the front pages of our newspapers are filled with reports of battles seemingly more immediate, your valor in unseen realms is making all the difference in the world.

-- Roddy Chestnut

[see also HolwickID #4556]

A corporate lawyer named Jill Natwick Johnston was about to be rewarded for 15 years of grueling work: She was offered a prestigious promotion where she'd enjoy double the salary and the freedom to write her own job description.

But Johnston turned down the promotion. As she explained in the Wall Street Journal, "There was no way I could take the job unless [I] wanted [my] children to be raised completely by the sitter and [my] marriage further stretched."

Johnston's decision is certainly praiseworthy. But it's one "woman's choice" that America's feminists are not likely to support.

In her book, "Feminism Is Not the Story of My Life," historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese says that feminists have lost touch with the real concerns of everyday women. In particular, Fox-Genovese says, feminists tend to ignore the importance of children in the lives of most women.

While feminists insist that they respect any lifestyle choice a woman makes, Fox-Genovese writes, "it's difficult to find much feminist support for women who decide that their commitment to family must take precedence over their commitment to work."

For example, a few years ago the National Organization for Women held a convention offering hundreds of workshops on every aspect of women's lives. Only one workshop focused on children -- and that had to do with lesbian motherhood.

But mothers understand something that sometimes career-obsessed feminists don't: Children are not simply small appendages to their lives, something to put on their after-hours "to do" list. As Fox-Genovese puts it, to bear and rear children "might well be the most important and rewarding thing that most women... do in their lives." In fact, several recent studies reveal that many parents are doing exactly what Jill Johnston did: They're trying to find ways to cut down on their work hours in favor of spending more time nurturing their children.

For example, a 1993 poll by the Family Research Council found that "most working people would trade even early retirement for more time to devote to their children."

Scholar Dana Mack writes in The Women's Quarterly that "growing numbers of families are [renouncing] second incomes ... for the sake of their children's well-being." And a study reported in the book, "Staying Home," found that women who left their jobs in favor of full-time mothering said they did so in order to rear their own children "with their own values."

Teaching their own values: That gets to the heart of why both mothers and fathers are longing to spend more time with their children.

Proverbs 22:6 instructs parents to "train up a child in the way he should go." The verse tells parents that THEY are the ones who are primarily responsible before God for their children's moral education.

When parents strive to arrange their careers so they can nurture their children, as Jill Johnston did, they are fulfilling a Biblical mandate.

So three cheers for Jill Johnston, and for all the courageous parents across American who have made hard choices to slow down their careers to cultivate a richer family life.

Well-nurtured children are a much better "reward" than that next promotion.

------------------------------

Copyright (c) 1999 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

I read about a woman who telephoned a friend and asked how she was feeling, "Terrible," came the reply over the wire, "my head's splitting and my back and legs are killing me. The house is a mess, and the kids are simply driving me crazy." Very sympathetically the caller said, "Listen, go and lie down, I'll come over right away and cook lunch for you, clean up the house, and take care of the children while you get some rest. By the way, how is Sam?" "Sam?" the complaining housewife grasped. "I have no husband named Sam." "My heavens," exclaimed the first woman, "I must have dialed the wrong number." There was a long pause. "Are you still coming over?" the harried mother asked hopefully. --Bobby Moore

She waited for the call that never came;

searched every mail for a letter, or a note, or card,

that bore his name;

and on her knees at night, and on her feet all day,

she stormed Heaven's Gate in his behalf;

she pled for him in Heaven's high court.

"Be still, and wait," the word He gave;

and so she knew He would do in, and for, and with him,

that which she never could.

Doubts ignored, she went about her chores with joy;

knowing, though spurned, His word was true.

The prodigal had not returned but God was God,

and there was work to do.

-- From Sitting By My Laughing Fire, by Ruth Bell Graham

[Fuller version Holwick ID 7074]

A Mother's Watch

She never closed her eyes in sleep, 'til we were all in bed,

On party nights 'til we came home she often sat and read.

We little tho't about it then, when we were young and gay,

How much our Mother worried when we children were away.

We only knew she never slept when we were out at night,

And that she waited just to know we'd all come home all right.

Why sometimes when we'd stay away 'til one or two or three,

It seemed to us that Mother heard the turning of the key.

For always when we'd step inside she'd call and we'd reply,

But we were all too young back then to understand just why.

Until the last one had returned she always kept on a light,

For Mother couldn't sleep until she kissed us all goodnight.

She had to fear the world might harm the ones she loved the best,

So she took the care to do what she had to for us to pass the test.

More than once we heard her say, "When you are grown to women and men,

Perhaps I'll sleep the whole night thru. Things will be different then."

And so it seemed that night and day we knew our Mother's care,

That always when we got back home, we'd find her waiting there.

Then came the night that we were called and gathered 'round her bed.

"The children all are with you now".... the kindly doctor said.

In her eyes there gleamed again that old time tender light,

That told she had been waiting just to know we were all right....

(Author Unknown)

She never closed her eyes in sleep

Till we were all in bed.

On party nights till we came home

She often sat and read.

We little thought about it then,

When we were young and gay,

How Mother worried much and prayed

When we children were away.

We only knew she never slept

When we were out at night

And that she waited just to know

That we’d come home all right.

Why — sometimes when we’d stay away

Till one or two or three,

It seemed to us that Mother heard

The turning of the key.

For always when we’d step inside

She’d call and we’d reply —

But we were all too young back then

To understand just why.

Until the last one had returned

She’d always keep a light,

For Mother couldn’t sleep until

She kissed us all goodnight.

She had to know that we were safe,

Before she went to rest.

She seemed to think the world might harm

The ones she loved the best.

And once she said: “When you are grown

To women and to men,

Perhaps I’ll sleep the whole night through —

It may be different then.”

And so it seemed that night and day

We knew a Mother’s care,

That always when we got back home,

We’d find her waiting there.

Then came the night that we were called

Together ‘round her bed —

“The children are all with you now,”

The kindly doctor said.

And in her eyes there gleamed again

That “old time’s” tender light,

That told she had been waiting

Just to know we were all right.

She smiled the old familiar smile,

And prayed God to keep us safe —

From any harm throughout the years,

And then she went to sleep.

A few days ago I made a marvelous discovery. In the Hebrew language of the Old Testament the word for “compassion” comes from the root word, “womb.” The picture is of a birthing. Something new is being born. If I apply this in a human experience, it means that my compassionate acts always give the other person another chance. I do not hold past failures against them. I offer a “fresh start.” I want this for myself from others. Am I willing to give it to the other person? Such compassion will dramatically change the way we relate to each other.

________

Brooks Ramsey, Pastoral Counseling and Consulting Center, Memphis TN.

A partially deaf boy came home from school one day carrying a note from school officials. The note suggested that the parents take the boy out of school, claiming that he was "too stupid to learn."

The boy's mother read the note and said, "My son, Tom, isn't 'too stupid to learn.' I'll teach him myself." And so she did.

When Tom died many years later, the people of the United States paid tribute to him by turning off the nation's lights for one full minute. You see, this Tom had invented the lightbulb - and not only that, but also motion pictures and the record player. In all, he had more than one thousand patents to his credit.

Just like Thomas Edison, every child is capable of learning more than he or she knows today. Every child is able to find a new avenue of creative expression.

________

From "God's Little Devotional Book for Mothers," Tulsa, Oklahoma: Honor Books, 1999, p. 55

(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, SwanLC@aol.com, May 17, 1999

Yes, parenthood changes everything. But parenthood also changes with each baby. Here, some of the ways having a second and third child differs from having your first:

YOUR CLOTHES

1st baby: You begin wearing maternity clothes as soon as your OB/GYN confirms your pregnancy.

2nd baby: You wear your regular clothes for as long as possible.

3rd baby: Your maternity clothes ARE your regular clothes.

THE BABY'S NAME

1st baby: You pore over baby-name books and practice pronouncing and writing combinations of all your favorites.

2nd baby: Someone has to name his or her kid after your great-aunt Mavis, right? It might as well be you.

3rd baby: You open a name book, close your eyes, and see where your finger points.

PREPARING FOR THE BIRTH

1st baby: You practice your breathing religiously.

2nd baby: You don't bother practicing because you remember that last time, breathing didn't do a thing.

3rd baby: You ask for an epidural in your eighth month.

THE LAYETTE

1st baby: You pre-wash your newborn's clothes, color-coordinate them, and fold them neatly in the baby's little bureau.

2nd baby: You check to make sure that the clothes are clean and discard only the ones with the darkest stains.

3rd baby: Boys can wear pink, can't they?

WORRIES

1st baby: At the first sign of distress - a whimper, a frown - you pick up the baby.

2nd baby: You pick the baby up when her wails threaten to take your firstborn.

3rd baby: You teach your 3-year-old how to rewind the mechanical swing.

ACTIVITIES

1st baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics, Baby Swing, and Baby Story Hour.

2nd baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics.

3rd baby: You take your infant to the supermarket and the dry cleaner.

GOING OUT

1st baby: The first time you leave your baby with a sitter, you call home five times.

2nd baby: Just before you walk out the door, you remember to leave a number where you can be reached.

3rd baby: You leave instructions for the sitter to call only if she sees blood.

AT HOME

1st baby: You spend a good bit of every day just gazing at the baby.

2nd baby: You spend a bit of every day watching to be sure your older child isn't squeezing, poking, or hitting the baby.

3rd baby: You spend a little bit of every day hiding from the children.

Parenthood is quite a challenge. But it is a blessing from God (though we sometimes have to keep reminding ourselves!).

“Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.” (Psa. 127:3-5).

Some quivers are larger than others, but may all of you who are parents be blessed and encouraged as you raise your children in the Lord.

Have a great day!

Alan Smith, Boone church of Christ, Boone, NC

God knew there should be mothers

to hear each infant's cry, To pat

away the little tears

that fill a baby's eye . . .

God knew there should be mothers

to hear a child's first word, To

losten with attention

when a child's voice mist be heard . . .

God knew that each and every child

needs someone close each day To

help them out, to cheer them up

at home, at school, at play - To

teach them how to share this world

with sisters and with brothers -

And so in His great wisdom.

God created mothers.

- Jean Kyler McManus, on a greeting card

Erma Bombeck once wrote:

Someday when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a mother, I will tell them:

• I loved you enough to bug you about where you were going, with whom, and what time you will get home.

• I loved you enough to insist that you buy a bike with your own money, that you could afford.

• I loved you enough to be silent and to let you discover on your own, that your boy friend was a creep.

• I loved you enough to make you return a Milky Way with a bite out of it to a drugstore to confess that you had stolen it.

• I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your room, a job that would have taken me 15 minutes.

• I loved you enough to let you see anger, disappointment, disgust and tears in my eyes.

• I loved you enough to admit that I was wrong and ask for your forgiveness.

• I loved you enough to let you stumble, fall, hurt and fail.

• • I loved you enough to let you assume responsibility for your own actions at age 6, 10, or 16.

• I loved you enough to accept you for what you are, not what I wanted you to be.

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #6680]

The "Mother’s Day" concept has a long history of religious connections which in modern times seem to have been predominantly Christian.

In ancient Greece, the idea of paying tribute to motherhood was given expression with a regular festival tantamount to mother-worship. Formal ceremonies to Cybele, or Rhea, the "Great Mother of the Gods," were performed on the Ides of March throughout Asia Minor.

For Christianity, the concept seems to date back to establishment of England’s "Mothering Sunday," a custom of the people which provided that one attend the mother church in which he was baptized on Mid-Lent Sunday. Gifts were to be offered at the altar to the church and to worshippers’ mothers. The concept was divorced of any "mother worship," but nevertheless perpetuated its religious association.

U.S. observance of Mother’s Day, too, has been characterized by church ties from the start. The first general observance of the occasion was in the churches of Philadelphia after Miss Anne Jarvis campaigned for a holiday for mothers more than 50 years ago [1907 - now almost 100 years ago].

- Christianity Today

Leland Wang, the Chinese evangelist, told of an incident of his childhood which vividly illustrates the substitutionary work of Christ. On one occasion he had been very naughty and his mother, with a stick in her hand, called him to her to be punished. But he ran off, taunting his mother because she could not catch him. She had little chance of catching her small, lively son.

So she stood still and said, “I feel ashamed of myself that I have brought up a boy who is not willing to be disciplined by his mother when he does wrong, so I must punish myself,” and she began to whip her bare arm. This so touched Leland’s heart that he ran back to his mother, threw himself into her arms, and pleaded with her not to hurt herself but to punish him. But no further punishment was necessary.

Mr. Wang says that, as he grew older, the memory of this incident helped him to understand the great love of the Lord Jesus Christ who willingly took our place on the cross.

— Sunday School Times

Had I been Joseph's mother I'd have prayed protection from his brothers, "God, keep him safe. He is so young, so different from the others." Good thing she never knew there would be slavery and prison, too.

Had I been Moses' mother I'd have wept to keep my little son: praying Pharaoh's daughter might forget the babe drawn from the water.

Had I been Daniel's mother I should have pled "Give victory! – over this Babylonian horde, godless and cruel-- Don't let him be a captive – he’d be better dead, Almighty Lord!"

Had I been Mary, Oh, had I been she, I would have cried as no mother cried, "Anything, O God, Anything...—but crucified."

With such prayers my finite wisdom would correct God’s infinite wisdom. God, how fortunate your infinite wisdom did prevail.

We are sitting at lunch when my daughter casually mentions that she and her husband are thinking of "starting a family." "We're taking a survey," she says, half-joking. "Do you think I should have a baby?"

"It will change your life," I say, carefully keeping my tone neutral.

"I know," she says, "no more sleeping in on weekends, no more spontaneous vacations...."

But that is not what I meant at all. I look at my daughter, trying to decide what to tell her. I want her to know what she will never learn in childbirth classes. I want to tell her that the physical wounds of child bearing will heal, but that becoming a mother will leave her with an emotional wound so raw that she will forever be vulnerable.

I consider warning her that she will never again read a newspaper without asking "What if that had been MY child?" That every plane crash, every house fire will haunt her. That when she sees pictures of starving children, she will wonder if anything could be worse than watching your child die.

I look at her carefully manicured nails and stylish suit and think that no matter how sophisticated she is, becoming a mother will reduce her to the primitive level of a bear protecting her cub. That an urgent call of "Mom!" will cause her to drop a soufflé or her best crystal without a moment's hesitation.

I feel I should warn her that no matter how many years she has invested in her career, she will be professionally derailed by motherhood. She might arrange for childcare, but one day she will be going into an important business meeting and she will think of her baby's sweet smell. She will have to use every ounce of her discipline to keep from running home, just to make sure her baby is all right.

I want my daughter to know that everyday decisions will no longer be routine. That a five year old boy's desire to go to the men's room rather than the women's at McDonald's will become a major dilemma. That right there, in the midst of clattering trays and screaming children, issues of independence and gender identity will be weighed against the prospect that a child molester may be lurking in that restroom.

However decisive she may be at the office, she will second-guess herself constantly as a mother.

Looking at my attractive daughter, I want to assure her that eventually she will shed the pounds of pregnancy, but she will never feel the same about herself. That her life, now so important, will be of less value to her once she has a child. That she would give it up in a moment to save her offspring, but will also begin to hope for more years - not to accomplish her own dreams, but to watch her child accomplish theirs.

I want her to know that a cesarean scar or shiny stretch marks will become badges of honor. My daughter's relationship with her husband will change, but not in the way she thinks. I wish she could understand how much more you can love a man who is careful to powder the baby or who never hesitates to play with his child. I think she should know that she will fall in love with him again for reasons she would now find very unromantic.

I wish my daughter could sense the bond she will feel with women throughout history who have tried to stop war, prejudice and drunk driving. I hope she will understand why I can think rationally about most issues, but become temporarily insane when I discuss the threat of nuclear war to my children's future.

I want to describe to my daughter the exhilaration of seeing your child learn to ride a bike. I want to capture for her the belly laugh of a baby who is touching the soft fur of a dog or a cat for the first time. I want her to taste the joy that is so real, it actually hurts.

My daughter's quizzical look makes me realize that tears have formed in my eyes. "You'll never regret it," I finally say. Then I reach across the table, squeeze my daughter's hand and offer a silent prayer for her, and for me, and for all of the mere mortal women who stumble their way into this most wonderful of callings. This blessed gift from God ... that of being a Mother.

Author Unknown

*

In 1963 Betty Friedan wrote a book about "the problem that has no name," referring to the alienation and meaninglessness experienced by housewives. The book was called THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE, and is credited with igniting the modern feminist movement and helping to drive millions of women out of their homes and into the workplace.

Thirty-six years and a generation of women later, Danielle Crittenden has written a book about what she calls "The Problem," but it's precisely the opposite problem Friedan identified: It's the misery today's working mothers feel about leaving their children every day.

As Crittenden writes in her book, WHAT OUR MOTHERS DIDN'T TELL US, young women today are told to fit motherhood into their careers and are warned against letting motherhood "define them." But many women are surprised to discover they like being mothers. Until you are holding your baby in your arms, Crittenden says, "you can't know how you're going to feel when you become a mother. This is motherhood's greatest joy and darkest secret. Suddenly, you can't stop thinking about your child."

The intense mother-child bond is usually ignored by our policy makers. "In all the policy discussion of the problems faced by working mothers," Crittenden says, the fact that "we love our children more than anything else and want to be with them as much as we possibly can-goes unmentioned." Instead, feminists try to convince mothers that "such feelings are imposed upon us by a sexist society." They dismiss full-time motherhood as "a servile and ultimately dangerous state for women to succumb to," Crittenden notes.

So-called solutions like cheaper child care or family leave acts don't help; they aggravate the problem Crittenden says, because they're based upon the wrong assumption: "that a mother wants and needs more help being in the workforce away from her children, not less."

Even if every mother had Mary Poppins as a nanny, Crittenden asserts, she would still harbor "the agonizing suspicion that what her child needs most is her."

That assertion, by the way, is backed up by polls showing that a majority of mothers say they'd prefer to stay home with their children if they could.

That innate desire is backed up by scripture, where some of the most striking images depicting God's nurturing concern for His people are those of mothering. For example, we read in Isaiah 66 that "As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you." And in 1 Thessalonians 2 we read, "But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children."

Danielle Crittenden is right. Instead of trying to find ways to make it easier for mothers to leave their children, we ought to help them find ways to stay home with them, if that's what they want to do. We should support changes in the tax code that would allow families to keep more of a father's income, so mothers are not forced into the workplace while their children are still in diapers. And we should encourage businesses to offer flex time and home- based work.

As we celebrate Mother's Day this weekend, we should commit ourselves to helping the mothers who must work to find ways to spend more time with their kids. And at the same time, we must remind mothers who choose to care for their own children that doing so does not put them in a "servile and dangerous state," as the feminists claim. Instead, motherhood is a sacred trust from God.

_____________________

Crittenden, Danielle. What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999).

_____________________

Copyright (c) 1999 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

A little boy forgot his lines in a Sunday School presentation. His mother, sitting in the front row to prompt him, gestured and formed the words silently with her lips, but it didn’t help. Her son’s memory was blank.

Finally she leaned forward and whispered the cue, “I am the light of the world.”

The child beamed and with great feeling and a loud, clear voice said, “My mother is the light of the world!”

Sure, she likes the limelight. But these days, "Everybody Loves Raymond"'s Patricia Heaton is more concerned about keeping it real, helping needy children, and teaching her own kids about God.

“I struggle to keep it simple. Obedience, sacrifice, and modesty are not real popular buzzwords out here. An issue I'm dealing with lately is, 'Do I have too much money, and am I being a good steward of it?’ In fact, I was talking to a friend about tithing — just giving your 10 percent as opposed to giving until it actually starts costing you something, which is what I think tithing is all about.”

Patricia had a traditional Catholic upbringing in the Midwest. Everything changed when her mother died suddenly of a brain aneurysm when Patricia was only 12. The loss of her mother hit hard. “I've always been an independent person, but that independence was in the setting of security,” Patricia explains. “Suddenly my sense of security shattered. It started me on this cycle of grieving and falling into depression, feeling a void for my mother.” Those emotions erupted in her 20s, when she went through rebellion against God and the values of her youth.

While living in New York, doing theater and odd jobs, she found herself partying late on Saturday night, then getting up for church on Sunday morning. “The religious acts were just that,” she confesses, “an act out of a sense of duty to God.”

She eventually moved to Hollywood, where she landed bit parts in movies like “Beethoven” and TV shows such as “thirtysomething.” She had eight times as many rejections as job offers, but she earned enough to scrape by.

During this period, Patricia also reconnected with God. (Today, she belongs to an evangelical Presbyterian church near her home.) While on a church-sponsored weekend trip to Mexico, Patricia says she experienced an epiphany. Headed across the border in two vans, the group arrived at an orphanage outside of Tijuana. Within a short time, they were laying sod and fixing a sewage pipe. At night, they slept on cots. They played ball and held a church service with the orphaned, poverty-stricken children of Mexico.

Back at home in West Hollywood, Patricia says she felt something she hadn't felt in her past years of struggle — peace. The weekend trip had changed something inside her. “I felt totally released from the need to make it as an actress. I had experienced complete fulfillment in something that had nothing to do with me being in the spotlight,” she recalls. “In fact, it was the exact opposite. It was about being involved in something that wasn't about me.”

It's a lesson she reminisces about even now: “I have to keep reminding myself: If you give your life to God, he doesn't promise you happiness and that everything will go well. But he does promise you peace. You can have peace and joy, even in bad circumstances.”

TAKING A STAND

Patricia Heaton is married to English actor and producer David Hunt and they have four sons — Sam, John, Joe, and Dan — ages 4 to 9. Most of the charity work that the 45-year-old actress is involved in focuses on children.

She is brazen in her decision to be pro-life in an unabashedly pro-choice town. Patricia is the honorary chairperson of Feminists for Life, a non-religious group that attempts to bring feminism back to its original meaning, which, she says, was about making the world a place where women and children can feel safe and protected and become whom they are to the fullest extent.

With the fame that “Everybody Loves Raymond” has brought, people notice when Patricia Heaton says or does something unusual. Last year, the actress was at the American Music Awards, waiting to go onstage and introduce a retrospective segment. The show was hosted by the Osbourne family — still riding the initial wave of popularity from their MTV reality show — and true to form, nearly every other word out of the hosts' mouths was being bleeped. The foul broadcast started to “embarrass” Patricia and she was increasingly uncomfortable with her participation in the show. “It wasn't like I made a decision to take a stand. At the time when I was there, I just felt mortified and horrified and did not want to get up on stage and be associated with it.”

So she left. She just got up and went home.

“I have to tell you, I got a thousand e-mails and letters about it,” she says. “So clearly people in America are very frustrated about what's coming through their television sets, and they feel like nobody in Hollywood cares. They feel alone and helpless about how to protect their kids from stuff.”

Patricia remembers that her mother used to cut offending pictures out of Time magazine and never allowed her children to watch grownup soap operas like Peyton Place. In the same vein, she and Dave don't allow their kids to watch much TV. “More than anything I want my children to have a personal, daily relationship with the Lord. We read Bible stories, and I try to introduce Jesus into the conversation as much as possible to make it a part of their thinking — a God-and-Christ consciousness.”

Patricia’s spiritual awareness is vastly different from her TV alter ego. “I can only believe that salvation is a process — from our perspective,” Patricia adds thoughtfully. “I mean, from God's view it's been done. It was finished on the cross. From our view, it's a process. You know, you have a great day one day and the next day you're really struggling. To me, the Christian life is a journey, and thank God that he is merciful to us. I mean, his mercy is the only thing we really have.”

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Copyright © 2004 by the author or Christianity Today International/Christian Reader magazine. January/February 2004, Vol. 42, No. 1, Page 18

You may have had a swing set in the backyard when you were growing up or, if your dad was especially handy, a tree house. Nowadays, among America's affluent class, a “mere” swing set or tree house might qualify as child neglect.

Instead, nothing less than a castle will suffice. Really. The “Atherton Castle” comes with a two-story, seven-foot-square “fort,” and a ten-foot bridge that connects to another five-level fort with a “crazy bar” climb — all for only $54,600.

If that price seems steep, there's a “pirate's haunt” for only $35,000. Or if you choose to spend more, you could pick the $166,000 “Napa Valley Chalet,” complete with cedar-shingle roofs, electricity, plumbing, and footbridge. Now that's a playhouse.

This is more than conspicuous consumption. Castles for tykes are some of the more extreme artifacts of the mania that many Americans bring to parenting. This “madness” was the subject of a recent Newsweek story by Judith Warner, author of the new book Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety.

Warner's experience and observations led her to ask why “arguably the most liberated and privileged group of women” in American history have “driven themselves crazy in the quest for perfect mommy-dom,” making “high-pressured, time-demanding, [and] utterly exhausting kids' activities” an essential part of parenting?

Her answer is that women “are unsupported, because their children are not taken care of, in any meaningful way, by society at large.” They must face the “harsh realities of family life” without “structures” that will allow them “to balance work and child-rearing.”

If that sounds to you like a brief for government-supported daycare, that's because it is. But even if such daycare were a good policy idea — I don't think it is — it wouldn't address the major source of this “madness.” Everybody knows that parenting is stressful. But why has it driven the women Warner describes crazy?

As columnist James Lileks put it, the “madness” Warner describes is what happens when “a preposterous ideal is [confronted] by reality.” Women who grew up believing that they “had fantastic, unlimited freedom of choice” find out that they can't be both “Corporate Warrior Princess” and “UberSuperPerfectRoleModelLove-GusherMom.”

Even women who don't buy into the “preposterous ideal” are affected, because the expectations of Warner's privileged class are spread by the media. A generation of American women — and increasingly men — is expected to be in the car and out of breath trying to keep up with their kids' schedules.

What they really need, as Lileks writes, is to ignore “the set of internally contradictory expectations thrown” at their heads “like a big frozen watermelon.” Instead, they should recall that parenting, as his mom taught him, consists of: “Be there. Be consistent. Be kind. Listen. Help.”

It's our presence, not their activities, that enrich our children's lives. If you can't enjoy your kids, the gifts and activities do not matter. You might as well start writing checks to their shrink now.

Of course, being present requires making precisely the kinds of choices Warner wants to avoid — which leaves many parents asking, castle or chalet?

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• Don't believe those expensive toys mentioned in the commentary exist? See Barbara Butler's Play Structures: http://www.barbarabutler.com/Pricelist_PlayStructures.html She accepts VISA.

• Judith Warner, “Mommy Madness,” Newsweek, 21 February 2005.

• See James Lileks's blog entry on Perfect Madness (17 February 2005).

• John Podhoretz, “Parenthood 101,” New York Post, 18 February 2005.

• Gregg Easterbrook, The Progress Paradox (Random House, 2003).

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 031118, “Bankrupt at Age Twenty-Five: Marketing to Teens, Tweens, and Kids.”

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Copyright © 2005 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

So much of the Mother’s Day hoopla undermines motherhood in a weird way. It suggests that every mom is the same, that we have universal tastes and needs and that all we need is a good brunch once a year to make us happy. They all work together to create this dreamy, perfect view of motherhood, something that is rarely dreamy or perfect. So if you don’t fit in to the ideal model of motherhood, all the lovely books and teacups and sermons end up being a reminder of how not like “all the other moms” you really are. I would rather see motherhood celebrated as the complex, mysterious, unique-to-everyone experience that it is. It is too incredible to be codified or sentimentalized. It is too profound to fit on a card or a plaque. It’s a relationship, not a Hallmark moment.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #12894]

Are stay at home moms a threat to civilization? Those of you who are shocked by this question should take note of the fact that ABC's “Good Morning America” program devoted segments to this question on two successive days, featuring the arguments of Linda Hirshman, a prominent feminist thinker.

“I am saying an educated, competent adult's place is in the office,” Hirshman told “Good Morning America.” In other words, moms who stay at home with their children have given themselves to a calling that no educated or competent adult should desire or accept

Hirshman threw herself into the debate over motherhood last year, when she responded to a spate of media reports that indicated an amazing trend -- large numbers of highly educated young women on elite college and university campuses indicated that they did not intend to pursue a career outside the home, but to give themselves to being wives and mothers.

Hirshman's response was vehement and verbose. Writing in the pages of THE AMERICAN PROSPECT, Hirshman argued that “feminism has largely failed in its goals.” As she explained, “There are few women in the corridors of power, and marriage is essentially unchanged. The number of women at universities exceeds the number of men. But, more than a generation after feminism, the number of women in elite jobs just doesn't come close.”

According to Hirshman's diagnosis, this problem is largely traceable to the fact that too many women are staying at home with their children. In particular, she attacked the notion that women should feel free to choose motherhood as a life calling. In attacking “choice feminism,” Hirshman asserts that women who give themselves to mothering undermine the status of all women and threaten the emergence of an egalitarian civilization.

In her article in THE AMERICAN PROSPECT, Hirshman reviewed a wealth of data. Interestingly, the statistics she expects her readers to find so disappointing will be the cause of surprise and hope for those who value the family, parenthood, and the responsibility of child rearing. As she explains, the census numbers for all working mothers have fallen modestly since 1998, after having leveled off around 1990.

Concerned by these statistics, Hirshman decided to undertake some research of her own. She selected a sample of young women who had been identified as brides in the “Sunday Styles” section of THE NEW YORK TIMES in 1996. Hirshman believed that “the brilliantly educated and accomplished brides” of her sample would be indicative of the way this generation of young women is approaching career, marriage, and motherhood.

As Hirshman relates: “At marriage, they included a vice president of client communication, a gastroenterologist, a lawyer, an editor, and a marketing executive. In 2003 and 2004, I tracked them down and called them. I interviewed about 80 percent of the 41 women who announced their weddings over three Sundays in 1996. Around 40 years old, college graduates with careers: Who was more likely than they to be reaping feminism's promise of opportunity? Imagine my shock when I found almost all the brides from the first Sunday at home with their children. Statistical anomaly? Nope. Same result for the next Sunday. And the one after that.”

This section of her article is startling, to say the least. Like Hirshman, I must admit that I am surprised by her data. Nevertheless, the fact that so many talented, highly educated, and promising young women were giving themselves to motherhood is a source of genuine hope and encouragement.

Hirshman went on to describe additional findings in her research. “Ninety percent of the brides I found had had babies. Of the 30 with babies, five were still working full time. Twenty-five, or 85 percent, were not working full time. Of those not working full time, 10 were working part time but often a long way from their prior career paths. And half the married women with children were not working at all.”

Beyond Hirshman's data, research indicates that far more women than men drop out of the workforce to take care of their children. In addition to this, recent research indicates that women with graduate or professional degrees are only slightly more likely to remain in the workforce after having children than women with only one year of college. “When their children are infants (under a year), 54 percent of females with graduate or professional degrees are not working full time (18 percent are working part time and 36 percent are not working at all). Even among those who have children who are not infants, 41 percent are not working full time (18 percent are working part time and 23 percent are not working at all).”

From Hirshman's perspective, it only gets worse. “This isn't only about daycare,” she admits. “Half my TIMES brides quit BEFORE the first baby came. In interviews, at least half of them expressed a hope never to work again. None had realistic plans to work. More importantly, when they quit, they were already alienated from their work or at least not committed to a life of work.”

The very fact that these women turned their back on promising careers seems virtually inconceivable to Linda Hirshman. When a female MBA expressed her lack of connection with the men at her previous workplace who got so excited about making deals, Hirshman observes all this with incredulity.

In Hirshman's view, all this simply proves that the feminist revolution was not revolutionary enough. In other words, the revolution that opened the workplace to women did nothing, in her view, to fundamentally reshape marriage and the family power structure. “Why did this happen? The answer I discovered -- an answer neither feminist leaders nor women themselves want to face -- is that while the public world has changed, albeit imperfectly, to accommodate women among the elite, private lives have hardly budged. The real glass ceiling is at home.”

Thus, the problem of “the unreconstructed family” is the concern of Hirshman and many of her fellow feminists. Hirshman, retired as a distinguished visiting professor at Brandeis University, had previously taught academic courses on subjects such as “sexual bargaining.” Infused with the ideology of radical feminism, she now argues that the entire pattern of gender relations must be revolutionized.

“Great as liberal feminism was, once it retreated to choice the movement had no language to use on the gendered ideology of the family. Feminists could not say, 'Housekeeping and child-rearing in the nuclear family is not interesting and not socially validated. Justice requires that it not be assigned to women on the basis of their gender and at the sacrifice of their access to money, power, and honor.”

Clearly, what she argues that liberal feminism was unable to propose, she now intends to take up as her central argument. She clearly believes that housekeeping and child-rearing are NOT interesting and should NOT be socially validated.

In her appearance on “Good Morning America,” Hirshman attacked the notion that women can feel fulfilled and validated in the calling of motherhood. As the ABC report indicates, “Hirshman says working is also a matter of feeling fulfilled. She doesn't buy into the arguments of many homemakers who say taking care of the family is the most fulfilling thing they could imagine.” Hirshman's response is a demonstration of breathtaking arrogance. “I would like to see a description of their daily lives that substantiates that position,” she said. “One of the things I've done working on my book is to read a lot of the diaries online, and their description of their lives does not sound particularly interesting or fulfilling for a complicated person, for a complicated, educated person.”

Get that? Hirshman is telling America's moms that their work is fundamentally unimportant, uninteresting, and fundamentally unworthy of any “complicated” and “educated” person.

Women who stay at home with their children, turning their back on promising careers, “are letting down the team,” she asserts. They are rejecting the very feminist ideal that the radical ideologues have adopted and they are undermining the cause of all women, in Hirshman's condescending view.

Make no mistake -- Hirshman does not want women to have any real choice in the matter. “Choice feminism” is an abysmal failure, in her view, because it validates what should never be validated -- motherhood.

Her answer? “Women who want to have sex and children with men as well as good work in interesting jobs where they may occasionally wield real social power need guidance, and they need it early. Step one is simply to begin talking about flourishing. In so doing, feminism will be returning to its early, judgmental roots. This may anger some, but it should sound the alarm before the next generation winds up in the same situation. Next, feminists will have to start offering young women not choices and not utopian dreams but SOLUTIONS they can enact on their own. Prying women out of their traditional roles is not going to be easy.”

There is more. Hirshman argues that allowing motherhood as a choice is “bad for women individually.” Hirshman is ready to tell young women that they have no inherent RIGHT to choose a status lower, in Hirshman's view, from what they should seek and demand in the public sphere.

“A good life for humans includes the classical standard of using one's capacities for speech and reason in a prudent way, the liberal requirement of having enough autonomy to direct one's own life, and the utilitarian test of doing more good than harm in the world. Measured against these time-tested standards, the expensively educated upper-class moms will be leading lesser lives.”

This is stunning stuff. In Hirshman's view, a woman's choice to deploy her “capacities for speech and reason” as a mother is not prudent or acceptable. Beyond this, she seems to demonstrate an inherent dislike for children in general, and infants in particular. She accuses stay at home moms of “bearing most of the burden of the work always associated with the lowest caste.” She identifies these tasks as “sweeping and cleaning bodily waste,” and condemned mothers who were described in a press account as “vigilantly watching their babies for signs of excretion 24-7” as “untouchables” by choice.

The very fact that “Good Morning America” devoted two segments to Linda Hirshman and her attack on motherhood is a significant cultural development. Of course, the ABC program included voices that opposed Hirshman's arguments, but these arguments were considered newsworthy nonetheless.

Without doubt, Hirshman is speaking for a sizeable percentage of the cultural elite when she argues that “an educated, competent adult's place is in the office.” In the view of so many, the office and the professional workplace are the arenas where REAL life is lived and important work is done. The thought that motherhood could be a higher calling than law, medicine, finance, or any number of other professions is completely beyond her comprehension. Indeed, she sees the very logic of motherhood as undermining the entire feminist project.

Thus, when she argues that stay at home moms are “letting down the team,” she means to shame young women out of motherhood and back into the workplace. At the very least, she argues that mothers should have only one baby so that they can return to the workplace in short order.

The Christian response to this article must be a combination of refutation, amazement, and affirmation of motherhood. Hirshman's article and media appearances can serve to remind us all of the unspeakably high calling of motherhood and to the sacrifices that so many women make, day in and day out, to the raising of children, the nurture of the home, and the shaping of civilization itself.

I respond to Hirshman's arguments from a highly privileged position -- as the son, husband, and son-in-law of women who gave and give themselves to the calling of motherhood without reservation. They, like so many millions of other dedicated mothers, are the ones who demonstrate a wisdom and dedication that goes beyond anything a man can offer in terms of motherly intuition, loving devotion, and management challenges that would daunt the boldest FORTUNE 500 CEO.

Nevertheless, the best refutation of Hirshman's awful argument is the happiness experienced by so many mothers and the evidence of motherly love and attention in the lives of their children.

These women are not “letting down the team.” To the contrary, they are holding civilization together where civilization begins -- in the home.

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WHAT MOTHERS WOULD CHANGE IN THEIR PERSONAL LIVES

• Although nearly all mothers expressed satisfaction with their lives as mothers, fewer said they receive external validation as a mother.

Fewer than half of the mothers (48%) reported feeling appreciated most of the time and nearly one in five (19%) said they have felt less valued by society since becoming mothers. In qualitative interviews and focus groups, mothers called for greater appreciation and recognition of the importance of caregiving — within families, communities, and the society as a whole.

• Mothers want more time to spend on personal and family relationships, with almost 61% “strongly” agreeing and 22% “somewhat” agreeing with that statement.

Mothers who are neither married nor living with a partner are even more likely to express that wish (79% “strongly” agreeing, compared with 55% of married and 60% of mothers living with a partner). This is not surprising given that single mothers carry more responsibility for childrearing and financial support of the family and, in general, are more strapped for time.

• Mothers are nearly evenly split as to whether they want the father of their children more actively involved in their upbringing.

Mothers with lower incomes and fewer years of education are more likely to say they want greater father involvement. They also are less likely to be married, and they bear much more responsibility for both the day-to-day care of the children and the financial support of the family, so it’s not surprising they would call for more father involvement.

• There is a striking gap between mothers’ current work status and their ideal work arrangement.

Currently more than 41% of the mothers we studied work full-time. However, only about 16% of mothers across the entire sample said they would prefer full-time work if they could choose their ideal work situation. One in three mothers said they would prefer to work part-time and about 30% said they would prefer to work for pay from home. Overall, a majority of mothers today would prefer to be employed — but in positions that do not demand so much of their time.

About ten years ago, I found my mother sitting at the kitchen table. She was reading and chuckling in frustration, so I asked her what she was looking at.

She told me that she'd been studying Proverbs for her devotions and that she'd just read chapter 31, which lists the qualities of a virtuous wife. She was frustrated because she realized she could never be the woman God describes there. We talked about it some more, and my mom finally arrived at a decision that still inspires me today: she decided to take on the challenge, one verse at a time. She said: “I'll work on the first item in the list. When I've got that one mastered, I'll move to the next one-hopefully I'll be a virtuous woman before I die.”

I recently checked in with her to see how she was progressing. She laughed and told me she was seven or eight items into the list but was currently stuck on, “Her children call her blessed.” She said, “I might have to wait for all of them to grow out of their teens before I can accomplish that one.”

Last year, my sisters and I got together and made a Certificate of Completion in Proverbs 31 Training. We took every verse and came up with an example of when she had fulfilled that requirement. When the certificate was finished, it looked like a real diploma and listed her many accomplishments. We all signed it, including my dad.

I read it out loud to her, and when I got to the last verse, “Her children call her blessed,” one by one each of us said, “Mom, you are blessed.” She cried and cried - she had finally reached her life's goal!

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Source: Preaching Today, http://www.preachingtoday.com/