2021 | Week of May 3 | Radio Transcript #1410
The late Phyllis Schlafly was one of my heroes. This diminutive in stature but giant in character woman fought battle after battle for our nation’s best natural resource—our nuclear mom-and-dad married families. During her lifetime, Mrs. Schlafly was given nearly every conservative award, honor and recognition you can think of, but she said that the highest honor she ever received was in 1992 when she was named Illinois Mother of the Year.
Here was a lady who was an attorney, an author, a leader of a nationwide organization, a sought-after speaker, an activist, a strategist and more but first and foremost she was a wife and a mother to six children–and she delighted most in that. Mrs. Schlafly devoted much of her life to fighting feminism and other attacks on the dignity of women and the family in general saying that the most important thing in her life, the thing that brought the most honor, was being a wife and mother.
Today, in many circles, motherhood has been demoted, derided and even degraded. Hollywood has managed to sensationalize pregnancy but says little about motherhood, while feminists have worked hard to make a mockery of being a mother.
Being a mother is much more than delivering a child. Motherhood is about absolute devotion, selflessness and lifelong commitment. It’s about giving and not getting. It’s about true love–which is always doing what is in the best interest of the one who is loved. It’s about sacrifice–over and over and over. Sometimes it’s even about giving up dreams and aspirations in order to be sure that the needs of children are met. It’s about adult desires being subjugated to the demands of young sons and daughters. Hollywood and feminists don’t talk positively about such things.
In her book Feminist Fantasies, Phyllis Schlafly noted that the research continues to pile up that children need their mothers. Mrs. Schlafly wrote that “a young child’s place is in the home and there is no adequate substitute for the bonding and attachment that take place between a child and his mother. A secure attachment in infancy provides the basis for self-reliance, self-regulation, and ultimately the capacity for independence combined with the ability to develop mature adult relationships.”
As Mrs. Schlafly noted, day care centers, even the best ones, can’t replace a mother who is there to comfort and provide security for a child as he or she moves out into the world and then flees back to the safety of home and mom. And that’s really as it should be. Nothing should be able to replace a mother. That’s God’s design and purpose.
While motherhood is the most demanding job I know, it comes with great rewards. Over the weekend, I saw a friend whose son had been in one of my junior-high classes a number of years ago. This mother, whose son is now grown and has children of his own, proceeded to tell me what her son was doing and how much he had grown spiritually and in every other way over the years. As she talked excitedly about her son and his pursuits and how God was using him, she teared up and choked up. And all of us listening to her understood. This was a mother who was reaping the reward of a job well done. She was justifiably and appropriately proud of her son and humbled by what God had done in him and how He was using him in His work. That’s what motherhood is all about–reveling in what this unique child entrusted to you becomes, through God’s grace and goodness.
The feminists would have us believe that being a mother is about self–having a baby when I want to, taking care of him or her if I want to, dragging him or her where I want to, and arranging his or her schedule according to my desires. That’s not motherhood. It’s selfhood. And selfhood is the reason we have so many children today who don’t know that their mothers love them. Words aren’t enough, especially to children. Children need to be shown that their mothers love them, and they see that love best when mom is there over and over and over when life threatens to upset them and their security. That’s motherhood.
To be sure being a mother is not for the faint of heart. It’s incredibly demanding. But it’s also the highest honor accorded women, as Phyllis Schlafly noted. This Mothers’ Day, I urge you to make a point of being sure your mother and the mother of your children, knows she is highly honored!
This is Julaine Appling for Wisconsin Family Council reminding you the prophet Hosea said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
Julaine Appling has taught on the junior high, high school, and college levels, and for five years was the administrator of a private school. In 1998 she was asked to become the Executive Director of Wisconsin Family Council, where her mission is to advance Judeo-Christian principles and values in Wisconsin by strengthening, preserving, and promoting marriage, family, life and liberty. In addition to regularly being interviewed for Wisconsin television, radio, and newspapers, she is the host of "Wisconsin Family Connection," aired weekly on almost 50 radio stations in Wisconsin including the VCY America radio network.
Learn more at WIFamilyCouncil.org
