Mother's Day

I've commented on this topic before here, but I wanted to add some more thoughts in light of this year's recent Mother's Day.

In the days leading up to Mother's Day, something was bugging me. And then I remembered: the way we celebrate the day is too gendered.

For example, yesterday Laura and I made dinner at my family's house, so that my step-mom wouldn't have to. From talking to other people this seems to be a relatively common practice. Yet, the ironic thing about it is that it implies that on all the other days of the year my step-mom has to make dinner. And, in practice, she sort of does. After all, in many families—mine in included—making the food is often the mother's job, whether she likes it or not. On the other hand, is that good? Shouldn't (typically gendered) tasks be more equally shared throughout the year?

The problem here, as I see it, is that some women probably would prefer to assume different roles in their families, but our cultural modes of celebrating mother's day tell them that they shouldn't (or even can't). (And, of course, this works similarly for men on Father's Day, though it seems to me, to a lesser extent.) In other words having the men in a household make dinner on Mother's Day suggests that that action is an aberration. It's a "favor" or gift that they're giving, not something that they're typically responsible for. Implicitly, this also suggests that a mother should cook, and I'd she doesn't she somehow a less adequate person.

Obviously lots of women like to cook, lots of men don't, and flipping individual roles isn't a huge deal. What is disturbing, however, is when these behaviors become codified and foisted on those who don't appreciate them. As I listen to men and women talk at church, school, work, etc., making dinner on Mother's Day is something that men are encouraged to do. Similarly, all the women at my church were given roses this year, and in past years the men and women were given very gender specific gifts. (Laura actually gave me her rose, because she didn't really want it and I did.)

My point here, I suppose, is that Mother's Day and Father's Day are moments when our cultural constructs regarding gender become painfully apparent. Woman-as-homemaker is simply an accepted role, as is Man-as-provider/worker. These roles are simply taken for granted and accepted as good. For some people they certainly work, but when a culture so easily accepts them and equates them with "good" or "appropriate" it also requires those for whom they don't work to accept them.

Staying Home… For a Gender Fantasy?

Every once in a awhile my church’s magazine, The Ensign, will include something alarming and objectionable.  Unfortunately, the upcoming August issue includes just such an article.  Covering a short three pages, “Staying Home…Again” (by “name withheld”) relays the story of a mother’s struggle to balance child-rearing and work.  While the subject matter is timely, the point of the story—that women have an inherent responsibility to stay at home and take care of kids and accordingly should sacrifice careers to do so—isn’t simply wrong, it’s offensive. 

 

The article begins innocently enough by describing how the anonymous author was essentially forced back to work because of the economy.  While her husband ran one business she had to assume the responsibilities of a second one when they were unable to successfully sell it.  Eventually, she began to enjoy work more than being home and struggled with how to raise her children. 

 

If the first page or so paints a refreshingly complex picture of the challenges facing modern parents, the rest of the article clings to painfully outmoded gender stereotypes.  Once the author realized that she was enjoying work more than home life, she felt guilty and, more disturbingly, described herself as having “veered” from the “path.”  Things only get worse from there: she decided to pray for forgiveness for “straying so far from my divine role” and asked God to help her to want to fulfill that role and provide her with a way to do so. 

 

Throughout the article I was astounded at how little was mentioned about the husband/father.  Why wasn’t he helping raise the children?  Why was it only the woman’s job to fix dinners and attend to household duties?  Why didn’t he feel guilt about not being at home enough?  Maybe he did feel these things, but what stands out is the fact that the author never indicates her husband was shirking his responsibilities.  Instead she insinuates that her “divine role” is to be completely domestic, while his is to gallivant through the professional world having a good time.  Not surprisingly, the article ends with a return to gender stasis: the mother stays home raising the kids and the father continues to be a semi-absent figure.   

 

The problem with this article isn’t that a woman stayed home to raise kids while a man worked (both valid choices, of course, if people find fulfillment through them), but rather that the author claimed that God required her to behave in ways that were mentally and emotionally damaging. What a person (male or female) does professionally and domestically is a private decision and shouldn’t be determined by wrongheaded social proclamations on gender roles.  In this case, the author didn’t just give up work, she also sacrificed her psychological health (and, I’d argue, her spiritual health) in favor of an absurd and unsustainable fantasy about motherhood.  In the end, I can only imagine that if this story ever had a sequel, it would resemble “The Yellow Wallpaper” more than the hollow “faith promoting” rubbish that it aspires to right now.

 

Ultimately, if The Ensign’s usual emphasis on simple hagiography is understandable, its inclusion of marginalizing gender propaganda is not.  Forcing people into roles that leave them unfulfilled will not increase anyone’s well being, nor will it bring them closer to God.  (The editors also apparently missed the irony of including in the same issue articles on computer addiction and postpartum depression.)  As a practicing Mormon myself these aren’t the values that I believe in and it saddens me when a publication that has so much potential to help people instead stoops to misguided didacticism.