Returning Mothers to the work of Mothering
Throughout business cycles when supply does not meet demand, the public is greeted with headlines: bringing teachers back into the classroom... nurses back to the bedside... port authority and dock workers back to their jobs. But we have not enjoined the national conversation on how we can bring our working mothers back into the home. Not really. It is time for this conversation. It is time for our mothers to return home. For the sake of Clay Weeks. For the sake of children everywhere.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15069455/school-parents-boy-injured-daycare-georgia-clay-weeks.html
When our second son was born, I returned to bedside nursing within a week. The miracle of adoption was accompanied by the financial burden of court fees and also payment to the hospital for our son's birth. On a Saturday morning, pursuing an adoption was not on our minds. But God had other plans. Our son was born late that night. The granular details of this event will not be shared. But we went to court on Tuesday for managing conservatorship for the baby. With a car seat ready; a hastily assembled temporary nursery; clothing and diapers gifted by friends; I entered the hospital with the necessary legal documents. I collected my prize, and hurried home with our beloved second son. There are no words to match the depth of emotions. I was also forced into quickly returning to work part-time. It is the hardest decision which has ever been made regarding our children.
"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is His reward." Psalm 127:3
When working in what I called "middle management" in a mega church with several women's groups under my guidance I would always tell new mothers the same thing. It should be the most difficult decision, and not the easiest, to return to the workforce and leave your progeny to the fate of another.
At the worst end of the scale are women like Yvette Thurston, who viciously beat her one-year-old charge. And then there are the young adult men who work in daycare because they just love the children and the naked images on their cell phones. They are into file-sharing and not child caring. There are what I call the "night herons" who deprive the neonates of their baby bottles and diaper changes when they are crying. Maternal mercy is not within their nature. And the neglect is not necessarily limited to childcare facilities. That sweet-faced thirty year old "nanny" entering your home each day might be ignoring your child whilst texting with friends. Or she might be humiliating your son and dressing him up in his big sister's clothing.
We have made it difficult for our young mothers. The economy sucks. Fatherhood depreciates with each lousy paycheck. Mothers bear the brunt. The lies which we tell our daughters regarding what brings fulfillment sucks. And because culture is the mother of all "payback is a bitch", our children suffer the consequences of our folly.
If I had to do it all over again, if income had been sufficient, the choice would have been easy. Stay home and watch my children grow up. That was not the choice allotted to me.
How can government make it affordable for working mothers to return to home and new mothers to stay home and enjoy their babies and young children? It is the challenge for policymakers and our futurists to make this happen.
swoffordwrites@gmail.com
https://thelastenglishprince.wordpress.com/
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