14 Cachinnations

1. Red Said,

   I'm with you only you're "better than I"...we don't usually do cards or gifts for any "holidays" like this. I did this year since it was everyone's first mothers day from Grace, but as a general rule we don't do it. Rather, we just try to spend as much time as possible with the people who mean the most to us so they know our love for them.

   Posted on 5/09/2010

    
2. Graham N Said,

   Scott,
   A thought: Mother's Day is not only a celebration of those who are biological mothers. It is a celebration of the potential for motherhood (and ALL women, regardless of biological offspring, have potential to be mothers to someone - not just adopting, but nurturing and mentoring, etc), as well as the institution of motherhood, which DOES need to be officially recognized by a nation that values its families as the fundamental unit of society. But you're right when you say that every day should be a day in which we respect all women, mothers or not, for the people they are, the potential they have, and for all that they do and have done to make our lives better.

   Posted on 5/09/2010

    
3. Scott Baker Said,

   I get that, Graham. And I've heard that viewpoint expressed. I must say that I certainly strongly prefer it to the alternative. The problem is that the pervasive message and celebration isn't that embracing and healthy view. I'd certainly encourage anyone to celebrate it more in that vein, however!

   Posted on 5/10/2010

    
4. Kristina Kusa Said,

   Your words are even truer than you realize, Scott. This is a very difficult day for many people. The "hallmark" holidays go really well with those who fit the norm, but tend to ignore those who don' t fit into the standard categories.

   Posted on 5/10/2010

    
5. Scott Baker Said,

   I wish it weren't so, Kristina. But that's exactly why I insist that we must think through our words and deeds to their ends.
   
   I love you and miss you, friend.

   Posted on 5/10/2010

    
6. Anonymous Said,

   Lamont's article is the typical over-reaction of a society in which 20%+ of women will never have a child, mostly through the consequences of their and their partners' own choices.
   
   "But I bristle at the whispered lie that you can know this level of love and self-sacrifice only if you are a parent. "
   Of course, this is not an unalterable law like gravity. However, it is true on average and applies to huge swaths of society. It is an undeniable truth that parents' lives are far more other-centric than non-parents on average. For one thing, there just isn't as much the money to go eat out and pamper oneself once one becomes a parent.
   
   The fact is, mothers are more important than others to civil society. Our economy depends on a future workforce to grow. In the USA and other western countries, old people depend on young workers to pay for their healthcare and retirement expenses. In places like France and Russia, there are even monetary rewards for women willing to sacrifice in order to make sure society can propogate itself. Too many people today have declined to have biological or adopted kids in Western society to maintain the current rate of generational wealth transfer through social security type programs, but it doesn't lessen the dependence of society at large on these programs when most don't save squat for their old age.
   
   Everybody deserves some recognition, but mothers deserve special recognition both because of the extreme sacrifices that their job entails when done well and because of the necessity of their job to society at large.
   
   DouglasC

   Posted on 5/10/2010

    
7. Scott Baker Said,

   Douglas, I'm not sure you understood my point, but unfortunately I understood yours. Your reaction is quite cold to those "20%" you've cited. Assuming your number is correct, (and I have no idea where it comes from), you still didn't count the other women that I mentioned: those whose children have died, those whose mothers were monstrous, the abandoned, the neglected, those without opportunity to become mothers. And, as a Christian, it is my responsibility to care always for the least of these, for those in need, for the minority, for the under-represented, for the voiceless, for the marginalized, for the oppressed, and for the hurting. So even if I accepted your premise, (which I do not), the 20% are more than enough to deserve my voice.
   
   But I'm afraid you missed my bigger point. I'm not saying for a moment that mothers shouldn't be recognized. I'm not sure that your reasoning, practicality, is the right motivation. I don't think we honor mothers by reducing their role to function. I think mothers deserve celebration from love. And that celebration, and that love, should be shown and spoken daily. It should be expressed in every moment, not left to the day that the chocolate and flower companies have sanctioned for their enrichment.
   
   Most of all, I think we need to get holidays like Mother's Day out of the mouths of preachers in pulpits across America who do more harm to the minority than they even give thought to. Much like the preacher who harps on the virtue of virginity without recognition of the significant portion of people who have had theirs taken by force, we've got to think our words through. We can't allow the extolling of virtue become a convicting or shaming exercise. Similarly here, we can't succumb to the "Hallmark" propaganda at the expense of the self-worth and due love of the women for whom such a contrived day becomes a source of pain.

   Posted on 5/10/2010

    
8. Anonymous Said,

   Scott,
   
   If one googles "childlessness statistics" some US Census Bureau reports come up as the second link.
   http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/fertility.html
   The 2006 report says that 20% (roughly) of women aged 40-44 are childless.
   http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p20-558.pdf
   
   These statistics are longitudinal, and generations can experience drastic shifts, so one can't say that today's youth are going to have the same fertility as today's middle aged women. However, fertility has been on a downward trend for the last 50 years, so it seems safe to say that there will be at least 20% of today's youth who end up with no kids.
   
   Beyond statistics, I'm really not sure you really do understand my point.
   My reaction was against the Lamont article that said she "hated mother's day" and that mother's aren't any better than the rest of us. On the first point, her hatred is misdirected. On the second, she's dead wrong. Mothers are less selfish on average than non-mothers and parenthood really does change the average person for the better. That's just the way humanity is wired.
   
   Of course, mothers should be shown love daily in many little ways and one can't make up for such neglect at Mother's Day. All I'm saying is that 1) public commendation of mothers as mothers is good for society, 2) becoming a parent opens new horizons to the meaning of love for countless individuals every day, making them better people than they were before and 3) the above doesn't mean that non-mothers are ipso facto less worthy as humans.
   
   We live in a society with tremendous pressure on the upwardly mobile to delay settling down and having kids. At the same time, biology hasn't changed and fertility decreases dramatically with age. These societal, biological and personal goals compete, with the end result being a dramatic increase in fatherlessness and greatly diminished fertility levels, among other things. There is bound to be a backlash against days set aside to honor parents as the number of non-mothers and single/absent parents increases, but that doesn't mean that "hating Mother's Day" as a concept is helpful to society.
   
   Just as celebrating the incarnation and the resurrection needn't be diminished by Easter and Christmas, so too celebration of motherhood needn't be diminished by Mother's Day. Just as celebrating the incarnation needn't diminish our worth as "mere" humans, so, too, celebrating Mother's Day needn't diminish the standing of women who aren't mothers. From where I sit, many of the excesses in Mother's Day celebrations stem from our heritage as a Protestant nation. Protestantism has often taught against celibacy as contrary to nature and has never developed a robust sense of purpose among the single population. Indeed, not one in 100 Protestants even considers the consecrated single life that Christ lived as an option while growing up. Perhaps there are excesses in how Mother's Day is celebrated, especially in certain subcultures. I can understand one disliking the excesses of those celebrations, but "hating" Mother's Day itself strikes me as misdirected negative energy.
   
   Doug

   Posted on 5/10/2010

    
9. Scott Baker Said,

   Thanks for those stats, Douglas. And it's good to see you here again. I agree with a lot of what you said. You're absolutely right about the legacy of our Protestant heritage leaving much unanswered in regards to family and celibacy.
   
   But you say that "becoming a parent opens new horizons to the meaning of love for countless individuals every day, making them better people than they were before and 3) the above doesn't mean that non-mothers are ipso facto less worthy as humans." And that "Mothers are less selfish on average than non-mothers and parenthood really does change the average person for the better. That's just the way humanity is wired." And here, I completely understand, but profoundly disagree. There's nothing that you've said there with any empirical weight. You yourself admit that by hedging with words like "on average." You're hard-pressed to argue that Mother Teresa was diminished in her capacity to love by not having children or that she was more selfish for not having them. And the reverse is true when looking at any number of the women in the news for having killed their toddlers for getting in the way of a social life. Those mothers surely didn't become better people by having children.
   
   But I don't want or need to nit-pick examples with you. The fact is that Lamott is right about parenthood not automatically making you a better person than those without children. On the one hand, it's not true, and on the other it is incredibly cruel and damaging to say to the non-mothers in our society who need our shelter.
   
   I, for example, do not yet have children. My wife is no less loving for not yet having had children. She isn't incomplete as a person. She isn't failing in any way. I'm not diminished either. If we prove unable to have children, we will not be less.
   
   But, yes, saying that mothers are more loving and have a greater capacity for love does ipso facto mean that non-mothers are less worthy as humans. And that's not a statement that I'll affirm or hold to.
   
   We don't need Mother's Day to praise and thank the mothers in our lives. We simply don't need it. It's a contrivance. You're right that we don't give enough praise and thanks to the mothers in our society. And their work is often thankless. But that does not mean that Mother's Day is necessary. That thought simply does not follow.
   
   As to the assertion that Lamott's words about "hating" Mother's Day are over the top, I'll concede. But perhaps that's the kind of rhetoric it takes to address an issue that so many people accept without a hint of a second thought. Maybe a little hyperbole is needed in order to help people question basic assumptions that would otherwise go unexamined. I think so anyway.

   Posted on 5/11/2010

    
10. Anonymous Said,

    Scott,
    
    Your perspective is that of a non-parent. Only a non-parent would argue that becoming a parent doesn't make a person less selfish. Parents have seen it in their own lives. I hedge my statements with the "on average" disclaimer because there are notable exceptions such as Mother Teresa and child abusers. However, those are notable exceptions for a reason. If you ask the average non-parent how many things they did for themselves this last week and then ask them 3 years after becoming a parent, that number almost always drops a lot. Becoming the primary caregiver of a child changes people and sucks up an amazing amount of the free time they used to have. Not many academics study the little things in life, and motherhood is the practice of the little things. I would encourage you to take an informal poll of the parents you know and ask them whether or not they have more time time, less time or the same amount of time for themselves after becoming a parent. 50-1 the answer is less for over 90% of your poll respondents. Perhaps there are formal studies on this subject. I don’t know If you are questioning commonly held wisdom, perhaps you should be the one putting forth the statistics on how non-parents are just as giving as parents and how becoming a parent doesn't change the amount of consideration a person gives to people other than themselves? I don't see how your own personal observations from the point of being a non-parent don't deserve backup with empirical evidence, but my observations from the point of view of having been a non-parent and now being a parent need empirical evidence.
    
    Regarding the following quotation, "I, for example, do not yet have children. My wife is no less loving for not yet having had children. She isn't incomplete as a person. She isn't failing in any way. I'm not diminished either. If we prove unable to have children, we will not be less."
    
    Is anybody arguing that your wife is incomplete as a person because she doesn't have kids? Is anybody arguing that your wife is "failing" for not having kids? How does Mother's Day imply this? The whole protest against Mother’s Day seems to imply societal judgment against non-mothers, which I don’t see.
    
    Is either your wife or yourself less loving for not having children? If you are like most people, yes. That was certainly the case for myself, my wife and all our friends who have had kids. Becoming a parent expands the capacity for love for the vast majority of people. Marriage does the same thing. Combining them, even more so. Perhaps you are an exception to that rule. It's a possibility, however unlikely. Certainly one can't state conclusively that one would is just as loving as a nonparent as one would be if one had kids. It is a conclusion based on an assumption devoid of experience to back it up. My own observations of tremendously loving people who aren't married or aren't parents are that the people who tend to do well in expanding their capacity for love outside of marriage and parenthood have to purposefully put themselves in positions where they are forced to love others day in and day out whether they feel like it or not.
    
    DouglasC

    Posted on 5/12/2010

     
11. Scott Baker Said,

    Big difference here though, Doug. You seem to be arguing that having children increases one's capacity for love. I don't see that. Do parents give less to themselves and take less time for themselves? Of course they do. That's a change in priorities, but not a substantive difference in essence.
    
    As for Mother's Day implying that non-mothers are failing or are not as intrinsically worthy as mothers, that's EXACTLY what it does. You say that you don't see it, but it's exactly what I see. And it's exactly what Lamott sees as well.
    
    Anyone, particularly a woman, who has not been able to have children, has lost a child, or cannot for some other reason have children who has sat through one of those awful and patronizing "Mother's Day sermons" in church knows exactly what I'm talking about. It's the same garbage as when pastors get up and do sermons about marriage as if that's what is needed to complete a person. Doesn't exactly love the singles in the congregation.
    
    My main beef with Mother's Day is how it is handled in the church. I'm horrified by the commercialization of expressions of love by the chocolate and card companies, but I don't really expect much from them. Those kinds of soulless whoring practices are part and parcel of their very existence. I don't expect them to act with any kind of love or moral compass. But I do expect more of the church. I do expect Christians to be accountable for their words. And I am firm in my assertion that we cannot allow the things we say about mothers on Mother's Day to hurt the non-mothers among us. The potential harm is far too great.
    
    We can do much better than Mother's Day or hideous "Mother's Day sermons" to celebrate our mothers while at the same time providing love and shelter for the dignity of the non-mothers in our midst.

    Posted on 5/12/2010

     
12. Anonymous Said,

    Anyway, my main point is that Mother's Day is a fantastic idea, especially in an era where motherhood isn't valued as much as it used to be. Society institutes holidays to celebrate momentous moments in history: the incarnation, the resurrection, the settlement of the US by the pilgrims, the founding of our country, etc. While becoming a parent is a "little" thing, it is no less important to our society than the signing of the declaration of independence. Without motherhood, society would cease to exist. Without good motherhood, civil society would crumble. There is simply no substitute for a good mother.
    
    Instituting Christmas as the celebration of the incarnation doesn't diminish the rest of us mere mortals anymore than instituting Mother's day diminishes non-mothers. To argue that it does is to argue against commemorating other important holidays like Easter, Christmas and Thanksgiving on the grounds that they diminish the merely human, the nonChristian and the European. Celebrating Jesus life doesn't diminish those of us who aren't celibate males and likewise celebrating Mother's Day doesn't diminish those who aren't female parents. The important thing is to be sure that the path you has chosen for your life is the path God wants for you and not get uptight if the lives of others who are on a different path are celebrated.
    
    “To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.” -GK Chesterton
    
    And if being everything to someone isn't worth celebrating on a societal level, then what is?
    
    DouglasC

    Posted on 5/12/2010

     
13. Anonymous Said,

    Just saw your response. I think there is much that we agree on. I just can’t follow the line of thinking 100% of the way, though I appreciate you bringing this subject up and pointing out some harm that our society is doing with it’s imbalance and lack of appreciation for certain states of life.
    
    "Anyone, particularly a woman, who has not been able to have children, has lost a child, or cannot for some other reason have children who has sat through one of those awful and patronizing "Mother's Day sermons" in church knows exactly what I'm talking about. It's the same garbage as when pastors get up and do sermons about marriage as if that's what is needed to complete a person. Doesn't exactly love the singles in the congregation. "
    
    Totally agree. Children aren't absolutely needed, just as marriage isn't absolutely needed to fulfill a person. Much of the celebration of Mother’s Day in many (most?) congregations is overblown. Going to a church where the pastor is a celibate male, I think tends to minimize my own experience of the overblown nature of this celebration, so perhaps I’ve forgotten what it used to be like when I attended a church where the pastor used the sermon to gush unnecessarily over his wife/children from the pulpit… or when they would put some 3 year old kid up on stage who couldn’t remember even one word of the Mother’s Day poem he was supposed to recite and then gush about how cute it was.

    Posted on 5/12/2010

     
14. Anonymous Said,

    While one could argue that parents do more for others out of necessity, and not out of an increase in their capacity for love, again, that's something that most parents would profoundly disagree with. Assuming you have a child at some point in your life, you will understand.
    
    Sanctity is the practice of love every day, whether we like to or not. People who put themselves in positions to respond to others in love and have more opportunities to practice love tend to develop a greater capacity overall for love. Marriage and children provide LOTS of opportunities to choose to love people when we really would rather not. They also provide lots of motivation to choose rightly. Thus, they tend to make people more loving than they were before.
    
    Suffering is another path to sanctity and a way to increase one's capacity to love. Infertility is an incredible, constant suffering for those who earnestly desire children. The anguish of Elizabeth and Hannah in Scripture is palpable. Similarly difficult is the suffering of those who want to find that special someone and get married, and yet haven’t. For them to be reminded of the benefits of children and marriage in a sermon can seem cruel. Yet, that isn’t the intention, and people shouldn’t be shy about noting the truth of marriage and children as the ordinary paths to holiness for most people, just as people shouldn’t be shy about noting the truth of the sanctified single life and of suffering being alternate paths to greater sanctity in one’s life. If the anguish of Hannah, the imprisonment of Joseph and the singular focus of Paul despite the inevitable loneliness aren’t seen as equally valuable, worthy and in some senses/cases desirable for making us more like Christ, then people will develop resentment toward a society which seems to be holding up as the standard of Christian life only one path that some are unable or not called to take. This is reasonable, but does not necessarily mean that holidays like Mother’s Day, which extol the benefits of one path of life are in themselves bad. It does mean that the celebration of Mother’s Day out of context of a robust appreciation and theological understanding of the benefits of alternate paths to greater identification with Christ can do great harm. Pastors especially need to be cognizant of this fact. I think more sermons on the sanctified single life and suffering as paths to becoming as Christ-like as we can possibly be would do much in balancing out this trend toward appreciation of only one vocation and in lessening the perception of disrespect which some people feel toward their state in life.
    
    DouglasC

    Posted on 5/12/2010