Let’s not devalue mothers this Mother’s Day.

This was my column in yesterday’s Greenville News.  Happy Mother’s Day to all of the wonderful mothers out there!

Let’s not devalue mothers this Mother’s Day.

https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/05/10/devalue-mothers/8919973/

Women today have choices about their future careers.  There’s hardly a field where women aren’t prominent, and that’s a wonderful testament to the diversity of our culture. But often, when a young woman states that her goal is to be a mother, there’s a kind of disappointment leveled by others.  ‘Do you mean after you go to school and have a career?  I mean, don’t you want to accomplish something?  For you?’

I understand.  Everyone has dreams and goals, plans for greatness.  And the friends and family of these future mothers have their best interests in mind.  They don’t want their loved ones to subvert themselves and give all of their efforts and talents, all of their youth to someone else.  And yet…

Who among us does not?  In a very real way, most of us are ‘ancillary.’  I think about myself and my fellow physicians.  We are not the end purpose of medicine.  We’re here to allow everyone else to stay healthy and navigate illness and injury, in order to go back to their families, friends and jobs.  We succeed to the extent that they need us less and less as they grow stronger and more robust.

The same is true in business.  If our young woman, with dreams of motherhood, should climb the corporate ladder first, well good for her!  But for whom is she climbing? First of all for her supervisors, maybe later for the board of directors (all of it financially rewarding, we hope) and in the end, even if she is CEO, she works for whom?  Her customers and clients.

Do teachers accomplish their great works for themselves?  They may find their work rewarding, but they teach so that children can move off into the world and find their own work, their own families and lives, can support themselves…usually by working for others.

Women in the military serve the nation.  Women in higher academia serve the future of the institutions, their academic disciplines and their students.  Hard working women in small businesses or large serve the ‘customer,’ who is always right.  And in public service, police, fire, EMS or others, heroic women serve the good of the public at large.

As artists, whether in music, visual arts or literature, women may be very independent, but they still hope to please critics and buyers, and hope to advance the quality and expression of their particular art media.

So I wonder, if a woman says that she wants to stay home and raise children, why is that somehow a lower path in so many minds?  That woman, who may or may not have worked for any of the industries or groups I’ve listed (a small sample of the whole) will turn her attention to caring for, serving the children she bears or adopts.  They will be her customers (although not always right), her public, her industry, her small nation, her medium of expression.

The markers of her success will be theirs. Their health and happiness, their ability to care for themselves as adults, their entry into the world and into their own families. Those will be the metrics by which she will judge success or failure.  And in some cases, when children are very ill or disabled, their comfort will be the product she produces for years…or for a lifetime.  This isn’t just emotion.  The intact family is a very clear and validated predictor of future health and success for children.

I’m not in any way suggesting that women who work are failing their children; not at all.  I’m saying that motherhood is more than cribs, cuddles and laundry, diapers, mini-vans and soccer practice.  It’s too easy to reduce it to a set of visual cliches, so commonly attributed to motherhood in our society.  What I mean is that motherhood is not a lesser path, or a mere supporting role.  There are no mere supporting roles, for we almost all support someone, work for someone, help someone or produce for someone.  Even the President is a servant of the people.

But the role of mother, in developing the children of the nation, is foundational.  And her work, for work it is, is essential to the future of the nation and the well-being of our citizens.

So when young women choose that path, at reasonable ages, with husbands and sufficient financial resources, we ought to encourage them.  Motherhood, you see, is a choice the world cannot afford to devalue.

Happy Mother’s Day!