To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, “There they go again.”
Wednesday’s New York Times contains an essay and online video titled, “Motherhood Should Come With a Warning Label” – a piece highlighting reader feedback from women discussing their path to parenthood.
As the Times regularly does, motherhood is presented in a somber and heavy-handed manner.
Finances take center stage in the presentation. From having less monthly income to negatively impacting personal retirement accounts, the casual reader could easily be left wondering why any woman would trade the office for diapers and carpool lines.
Dig into the article and we read about the so-called “motherhood penalty” – the financial hit women take when they either postpone or suspend their professional careers to care for their children.
Then there’s the decline in mental health that mothers supposedly endure.
Overall, the entire tone of the article is that mothers are victims. We’re told they’re not only underpaid and underappreciated but also disrespected and even disdained.
It quite literally takes until the last three sentences for the author of the piece to share any positive sentiment about motherhood at all.
“Was it worth it?” asked one reader. “100 percent,”
Clearly, The New York Times and the majority of its readers whom the paper chose to highlight disagree. Not only that, they feel quite aggrieved and convinced that society is somehow conniving to find ways to punish mothers – or in the very least, not doing enough to accommodate them when it comes to employment outside the home.
The wearisome diatribe is just one small piece of a larger anti-natalist cultural campaign that aims to rundown and discourage couples from having children. We regularly see astronomical numbers about how expensive it is to raise a child as studies quote figures in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
What’s so insidious about this offering is how they weaponize and exaggerate age-old realities regarding the typical challenges of parenthood.
News flash to those coming of childbearing age: motherhood and fatherhood have always taken the measure of women and men.
No matter the economy, raising children costs money – money that you won’t have to sock away in a retirement fund or use to buy the boat or country club membership.
Since time immemorial, mothers have endured moments or seasons of feeling underappreciated. Children can be difficult, demanding, exhausting and even exasperating. There’s a reason God included the commandment to “Honor your father and your mother” in the instructions given to Moses (Exodus 20:12).
This has always been the case – what’s changed is the introduction or expansion of an entitlement mentality that life should be self-focused and comfortable. According to this inward focus, Heaven forbid that adults are inconvenienced or forced to sacrifice. This “me”-focused mentality is why there are more dogs in San Francisco than children.
It’s also why the majority of the readers of America’s leading liberal publication, some of whom are mothers themselves, appear so down on the institution itself. Brainwashed by the leading lights of anti-natalism, they’re bombarded with propaganda suggesting parenthood itself is some sort of handicap.
Yes, motherhood holds its share of challenges, but like that lone reader acknowledged, it also holds countless joys.
In fact, what the Times and groups predisposed to discourage having children should do would be to highlight those who deliberately avoid having children. If they did, they would discover that intentional childlessness often leads to selfishness and emptiness.
Years ago, the late legendary talk show host Larry King was being interviewed by Charlie Rose.
“You’re not a father, are you?” Larry asked Charlie.
“No,” answered Rose.
“You miss the great joy of life,” reflected King, who was father to five.
A lifetime of success at work will never outpace the pleasures and satisfaction of pouring yourself into the task and privilege of raising a child.
