On the Box: The Glorification of Motherhood

This is an "On the Box" post. These posts are meant to express my own personal opinions on certain subjects, sometimes resulting in controversy or ranting. If you do not want to encounter critiques of modern church teachings and beliefs, please skip reading this post.

"Man for the field and woman for the hearth:

Man for the sword and for the needle she:

Man with the head and woman with the heart:

Man to command and woman to obey."

                                       -Spoken by the king in Tennyson's "The Princess," 1847

In honor of Mothers' Day and, presumably, in order to fortify and lovingly reiterate the LDS church's recent fight for traditional values, the church has released a webpage dedicated to mothers. The information on the page does not surprise me. Nor does it contain anything new or shocking. The not-so-subtle reiterations of the church's beliefs about womanhood and motherhood and marriage seem here to be so saccharine and so fairy-tale-perfect that I couldn't help but giggle at some parts.

That is not to say, let me assure you, that I am belittling the role of my own mother in my life or the role of any other mother. Any reader of my blog knows that I love and respect my mother dearly. I have always been close to her, and I have become much closer to her since coming out when I was 18 and even more so in the past year, due mostly to the struggles I've been going through. My mother is amazing. But I can say that because I know my mother, her faults and her strengths. I know her as an individual. It seems silly to point out, but saying that is actually very important in understanding this website and another one I will talk about. Is it fair to put ALL mothers under one umbrella? Is it fair to put ALL women under one umbrella? As a gay man, I've fought against the umbrella that society has tried to put over me, that the church has tried to put over me, for my entire life. So of course I am against any sort of large-scale generalizations.

But if one were really to take to heart the message underneath all the sugary-sweet-spiritual-heavenly wrapping paper of the church's Ode to Mothers, what images are we condensing women down to? What sort of lip service and patronization and placation is being paid to the growing number of women who are waiting to get married, choosing to have fewer children or no children at all, desiring to pursue their own careers, or demanding equal representation in the church by convincing them that motherhood is the "highest [and] holiest service of mankind"?

Then there is this sort of rebuttal or reaction to the church's website. What this article does, in essence, is points out the possible consequences of this uber-glorification of motherhood. The author, Olivia Seger, creates a list that points out these possible outcomes in summary terms. Among them are the possibility of deemphasizing the importance of fatherhood, making real mothers feel inadequate, alienating women who cannot or choose not to be mothers and those who do not enjoy motherhood, dismissing the pain of those who became mothers not on purpose, reducing women to their relationships, and getting in the way of gender equality. I agree with Seger's conclusions, but it seems she is trying to make her point by pointing out supposed faults of the church's page (with which I agree). But I also argue that these conclusions, these faults, are precisely what the church was intending, in part, at least.

The church's website is, for me, nothing more than a resurrection of the values of the Victorian era in both England and America made popular by writers such as John Ruskin, Daniel Wise, and Isabella Beeton. Indeed, even a perfunctory reading of Ruskin's "Of Queen's Gardens" (1865) shows obvious parallels with current LDS church teachings and beliefs. Daniel Wise published a book in 1851 in which he describes the home as being the "woman's world, as well as her empire." If we join this with Ruskin's view that "home" was literally wherever a woman went since she was expected to exude "home-ishness" from her very pores, then it could be argued that the world itself is woman's empire. What power women must have, yes?! Wise says, again paralleling the church's current teachings, in referring to a woman's proper "sphere" that "[their] sex is not necessarily inferior to the other because it is called, by God and nature, to act in a different sphere. [Their] exclusion from the stage of pubic life does not imply [their] inferiority, --only the diversity of [their] powers, functions and duties." He goes on to assure the reader that the place of woman is not "a whit beneath that of her more bustling and prominent companion -- man." Take solace, ladies! Being kept inside the home is not an act of submission or inequality! In Wise's introductory chapter, however, he describes a "great and fatal mistake" that women are too often tempted to make. What is this "deadly" mistake? It is that she should seek for personal fulfillment outside of herself, to wit outside the home. Wise, a Methodist minister, warned that something as simple as having friends and going on outings could make a woman's life "turbulent and uneasy" and accuses women who seek for pleasure in these kinds of activities as "mistak[ing] the false for the true [and] the evil for the good." (These final words should sound familiar to anyone who listens to current LDS conference talks or reads current LDS articles.) It is only man, poor things, who must "in his rough work in the open world ... encounter all peril and trial" (Ruskin). Wise encourages women to put their complete trust, time, thoughts, and efforts into God only, for only through this action will she be able to fulfill her destiny as being the closest to Heaven, thus attaining the highest degree of true happiness in their time on earth. But since, as Ruskin puts it, women are also expected to be "incapable of error" and "incorruptibly good," what kind of pressure does this put on women? And, really, how different are these 150-year-old expectations from those set forth by the church's webpage? Woman are, according to the church, "divine," and should have a "moral, steadying influence" over all whom they encounter, not just their own children.

To return to Seger's rebuttal, I say that the church, through its lofty, blessed rhetoric, absolutely intends on achieving the very consequences that Seger points out. The church wants to return to traditional gender roles. It wants this return so much that I am frankly surprised that it doesn't explicitly embrace Ruskin's (and Wise's) ideals and quote him directly, saying that man is to be "the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the defender," and that his energy is to be spent on "energy ... war ... and conquest..." and that woman should spend her intellect on "sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision [within the home]."After all, the church already has a song it teaches to children that states a father's job is to "provide" and "preside" and "lead," whereas a mother's job is to "prepare" and "care" and "nurture."

So does the church's webpage get in the way of the world's current movements to toss aside prescribed gender roles? Absolutely. Is that exactly what the church wants? Absolutely. Does the website reduce women only to what they do in the home and with their children? Yes. Is that what the church wants? I believe so, especially as it encourages women who want college degrees and careers to question their motives and encourages these women to ask themselves if they are guilty of escaping their Heavenly, non-negotiable duties, telling them, "Let your first business be to perform your duties at home" (source).  Does the website alienate women who want to put off having children or don't want to have children at all? Of course it does. Is this what the church intends? They wouldn't put it that way; they see it, I'm sure, as a gentle spiritual nudging of those women to rethink their radical ideas and return to what God intends of them.

As an ode to my own mother, I am so thankful that my mother was a doer, that although she was a housewife for many years, she still was active and had a social life of her own. I am thankful that my mom wasn't afraid to fight battles when she felt they were necessary. I am thankful that my mom wasn't afraid to teach me, a boy, how to cook and sew and create. I am thankful that my mom wasn't defined by her enjoyment of cooking and sewing and creating, but had her own interests and identity. This is not to say that my mom is a non-conforming radical. She is pretty traditional and conservative in her views and values. But she is so much more than her set of morals and values. And is she not a cookie cutter who fits neatly under the umbrella of femininity or motherliness.

But why should we think or be taught that certain characteristics are mutually exclusive between men and women? To quote Ms. Seger, "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."