Mom of *only* 5, so I guess my cerebral capacity won’t be called in to question…yet. So just in case, here are my stats: graduated in 3 years summa cum laude from @universityofga Honors Program. Booya. #postcardsforMacron
A few days ago on Twitter (that’s my tweet up above), I jumped on the very important #postcardsforMacron bandwagon. I shared a photo of my brood, mentioned that since I only have 5 children it appears that thankfully my own cerebral capacity won’t be called in to question, but just in case I proceeded to tout my own intellectual accolades.
Since then I’ve seen many beautiful photos of moms of many with their families as well as read their. potent words refuting the belief that motherhood and an education are mutually exclusive and/or the erroneous belief that the number of children a woman has (or continues to have) is directly correlated to her education.
(Just in case you don’t waste as much time on social media as I do, all of these virtual postcards and remarks were in response to this comment from France President Macron’s regarding African fertility: “Present me the woman who decided, being perfectly educated, to have seven, eight or nine children.”)
While I firmly stand by the big family brigade marching through social media as well as my own tweet, I have felt uneasy about a few things. First, I’m always sensitive to the fact that family size does not equate to maternal prowess, and that it can be difficult for some women to see their social media feeds overflowing with photos of big, beautiful families – especially in Catholic circles where there exists a temptation to use the size of a person’s family is sometimes as a barometer of her holiness. There are plenty of women who would have loved to have had more children, but life just didn’t work out that way. Perhaps they suffered from infertility or multiple miscarriages. Or they lost their spouse or never found a spouse to begin with. Or they had to grapple with mental illness, a special needs child, financial instability, and/or cancer, so their family size was not what they had perhaps hoped it would one day be. So they see all of these #postcardsofMacron, and their heart winces. This is no one’s fault. This is just a reality. I’m sure people shoveling snow in Buffalo, New York don’t enjoy seeing my Instagram photos of Georgia sunshine in the midst of winter. The fact is it can be painful for many women, Catholic or not, when motherhood is shared in all of its beautiful abundance. I only share this for any mom out there who finds she’s not as bothered as much by Macron’s comments as by the photos she’s had to endure of all the babies she regrets not being able to have. You’re not alone in that empty ache you can never avoid because everywhere you look, there seem to be happy mothers and children. (I, too, have known the pain of miscarriage when my womb has been emptied and left only with a sun-scraped void.)
What has also bothered me is the idea that “education” only comes in the form of college graduation or higher degrees. That kind of education is to be lauded and yes, championed for all women who have the desire to pursue these things. And for any women who don’t even have the option of education, we need to keep fighting for their rights and giving them a voice.
Yet, we have to be very, very careful to not reduce a woman’s worth to her formal education and/or career choice. A woman’s power is found in her femininity whether she graduated summa cum laude from college or has advanced degrees or not. Everything that makes women women is what makes them valuable to society. We cannot be reduced to how many children our wombs bear or how many children we adopt. Our value and “education” is in no way related to the number of children we have. I know ample women, my mother included, who might not have fancy degrees, but they are wellsprings of wisdom.
Which brings me to another important point: Wisdom cannot be acquired in any educational institution.
I watched the documentary Babies several years ago along with my two oldest. Unanimously, we decided we would want to grow up as a baby in Namibia. My kids seemed to recognize that the African baby was free to explore her world and was only limited by her own curiosity. She found joy in simple pleasures and was not scolded for eating dirt.
I admired the mothers. One of my favorite scenes in the documentary shows a group of Namibian women gathered around talking while sitting on outside on the dirty ground. Babies and toddlers are in their midst, and they clamber up to nurse when they’re hungry for food or attention while the women continue to talk. I remember thinking, “These women are so wise, mothering together.” Watching the scene unfold took the phrase “it takes a village” to a whole new level. These African women may have not been “perfectly educated,” but they knew what community meant, how to serve their sisters and their sisters’ babies (whether biologically related or not), and how to dole out love to their babies and to one another. They were very wise indeed.
Meanwhile, here I am back in America, surrounded by all of these women with formal educations, and we mothering on solitary islands. Smiling at each other during organized play dates or on the sidelines of a soccer field while finding “community” on Instagram or Facebook, which often only leaves us feeling even more isolated and lonely.
Interestingly too, the little one from Africa develops very similarly to the babies in the other settings in the documentary, including the babies surrounded by books and with stimulating baby “classes.” All the babies turn out just fine because they are students in a school of love.
In the United States, we are blessed as women because we can still do great things with a bigger family in our midst. Jessica Honegger, the founder of Noonday Collection and author of Imperfect Courage, champions the idea of choosing to be an “and” in an “either/or” world. No woman should have to exist in an “either/or” world any longer. Macron, like so many before him, is confining mothers in to “either/or” boxes with his remarks. Either you’re “perfectly” educated and obviously make “smart” fertility choices by limiting the size of your family. Or you’re a simpleton breeder who pops out babies with more alacrity than a Kardashian posts to social media. But motherhood, and certainly not femininity, is never so simple.
Women are tired of being put in to boxes, and we need to continue to convey to society and to young women who might fear motherhood will keep them from pursuing their talents that we don’t have to accept an “either/or” existence. Being a mother is an integral part of being a woman, and many women find fulfillment working with their femininity rather than working against it. “Fertility choice” is too often touted as a right and a sign of progress only when the choice involves limiting the amount of children a woman bears in to the world. If a woman chooses or is open to having more than a socially normative or acceptable number of children, then her fertility choice suddenly becomes a problem, a hindrance to progress, and an impediment to her intellectual growth.
Maternity changes a woman’s life. How a woman uses her gifts might change as well, but a woman isn’t going to be reduced to some lifeless shell as a mother.
You can still do great things even with a bigger family in your midst. This is a gift, and something to share. But you don’t have to. And this also seems to be missing from this discussion. You can be a mother and be smart and not ever obtain a higher degree or contribute to the gross domestic product. You can be “just” a mom and still be a strong, intellectual woman. A woman can be wise yet imperfectly educated by society standards.
A mother’s work, whether she has one child or many, is hidden, laborious. It’s also what quietly and surely makes the world move forward. Mothers build futures. That’s always something to celebrate far more so than a piece of paper – no matter how prestigious the university is that issued it.
When we “liberate” women from the menial tasks of motherhood, when we tirelessly defend the perfectible woman who can have it all (great education, career, a gaggle of kids, and maybe even a fit physique to boot) and do it all all at the same time as well, what we’re really saying is that being something other than Mom or making sure you’re something else in addition to being “just” a mom is superior to the role of a mother. We’re undercutting the gift of maternity.
What our culture so frequently seems to miss is that a woman’s liberation must truly be freeing her from things that are holding her hostage — not releasing her from a supernatural calling and something that can be good and sanctifying.
To women from the U.S. to Africa and everywhere in between, please don’t be afraid to be the person you were created to be. You are enough whether you have one child or 10. You’re also enough if you’ve never been a mother in a physical or adoptive sense. I love how the Catholic Church lauds all women and gives a special nod to spiritual mothers – any woman who nurtures and serves others. You are enough whether you have no formal education or several degrees. Women possess a special sensitivity and a sublime respect for the dignity of the human person; this cannot be taught in school. This is naturally woven in to our femininity. We are people who are inclined to follow the way of the cross, to nurture, and to hold the fabric of society together, not with high levels of productivity measured in output but with the generous gift of self.