I remember wanting to be part of the “Motherhood club”. The one where you get roses at church one day a year and your Christmas cards look more complete (and cuter) and that tight knit group of fellow women ready to welcome you with open arms simply because you did the one thing women were “put on this earth” to do. Designed and destined for.
Now, I could not naturally bring a child into this world. Modern medicine saved mine and my babies’ lives. But despite my love for my daughters, I discovered that motherhood was not as fulfilling as I wanted it to be. I was so confused!
Pastors, theologians, leaders of the faith, older women everywhere, even politicians tell us motherhood is the highest calling.
Dads are not offered the same sentiments on Father’s Day. Where is the sacred calling for fathers? The recurring messages that men’s most important job they could ever have is to be a father? Or one of my personal favorites – a statement to all the SINGLE men in the Church – “Even if you’re not dads, you all have a fathering heart and you’ll be fathers someday.” Sound familiar? It is to women.
But most days, my heart doesn’t feel like mothering. Why doesn’t it feel like the most important thing in my life?
Is motherhood the highest calling? Let’s examine some points.
- Health and Happiness: Despite how the social narrative and church communities validate women who are married with children and pressures single women, the research shows that mothers experience higher rates of depression vs their unmarried counterparts. Moreover, these women will never admit their unhappiness when their husbands are in the room but will confess in private. Having attended countless mom’s groups, I can personally testify to this with women upset over their husband’s infidelity, his neglect, his mistreatment of them and how mommying their children is so stressful and more. Not to mention the moms breaking down over their fifth pregnancy when they didn’t want more children. Moms, in fact sacrifice their own health to prioritize their children. The old trope: Moms can never take a sick day. All in the name of fulfilling the “highest” calling.
- Moms as Islands: Despite how it takes a village to raise a child (i.e wealthy or working moms going all the way back to Biblical times had wet nurses and female servants – now we have nannies and daycare centers and frequent babysitters – while the poorer communities have large families living together to share the load), the Westernized Church and society has led moms to this place where they are islands. We are not living in the era of the fifties where moms could release their kids into the wild and they would return home for dinner – mostly unscathed. Now, moms are responsible for waking up earliest, dressing and feeding their kids, getting their kids off to school, doctor appointments, extracurricular activities, sports, friends, homework, and juggling all the meals for the family. Aka. THE MENTAL LOAD! Sadly, the same communities that glorify them for all this on Mother’s Day state they are not the overall leaders of their families or society. It’s no wonder moms have higher rates of depression and why they carve out time for one weekly women’s group break. I’ve known mothers who have taken on the mental load with the additional burden of abusive or alcoholic spouses. But no mom was meant to be an island. And if is truly the hand that rocks the cradle that makes the world go round, then herego, moms are great leaders overall. That can’t be argued. But does all this mean that this role is the “highest” calling?
- Procreation: The argument of motherhood as a sacred calling is often wrapped up in the Old Testament mandate: “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it” – Genesis 1:28. Yes, women’s fertility was extremely important to that culture. However, let’s switch over to the New Testament and examine the life of Jesus and how he interacted with women. I have not found one passage to date where Jesus honored a woman for her fertility or her caregiving ability as a mother. However, he did reveal Himself first to the Samaritan woman at the well and did not shame her for her misfortune of having multiple husbands divorce her or die. He also honored Mary of Bethany for sitting at his feet and listening. He commended the faith of the bleeding woman after his power instinctively left him to heal her. And yes, Jesus still honored and loved his own mother. But in an era of extreme overpopulation and when there are hundreds of thousands of children waiting to be adopted, there can hardly be an argument for the “highest” calling of procreation.
- The Barren and the Single: I remember how I felt before having kids every Mother’s Day when all the mothers of the Church were honored while those who were single were left out. The grief of those married women who have miscarried or are infertile is even heavier. Or the married woman with endometriosis or who had to have her uterus surgically removed due to her chronic bleeding. If motherhood is the highest calling, where does this leave them? A married childless woman I know stood in her church and received the leftover rose scrap by an older woman who promptly told her and her single friend “we’ll give you a rose anyway. You’ll be mothers someday.” The hurt is real.
- Motherhood failings. If motherhood is the highest calling, then where does that leave those with poor relationships with their mothers? What about the mothers who were abusive or chemically dependent? Or the moms with mental health issues? We are left with a sense that these mothers either failed or do not get the same glorification as all the pretty moms. The ones that you see in the gushing Facebook posts on the second Sunday in May where a woman shares a memory of her mother, the ones in the cards praising all her selfless years of servitude, the ones in Pinterest pictures, blogs, articles, and mothering book covers. Do we simply shame the former and say they failed or could not fulfill the “highest calling” of motherhood?
- The Others: So, while some churches might include “honorary” mothers in their Mother’s Day acknowledgements, the “highest calling” message does seem to elevate one demographic over another. But what about other callings? What about married or single women rescuing youth from the clutches of human trafficking? Single women who give up their bodies to serve the elderly as personal care attendants or in nursing homes? Women who help other women and their children escape the grips of domestic abuse? Women who serve orphanages in third world countries? Women who put on masks every day and enter an ER of covid-19 patients? Are their callings not the “highest” calling they have not born or adopted a child or have no desire to? Thankfully, secular culture has granted all women an International Women’s Day on March 8th.
- Faith over Fertility: This brings me to my final point. I consider the examples of Ruth and Rahab from the Old Testament. Were they valued because they gave birth to sons that were directly included in the lineage of Jesus Christ? No, these sons were a result of their true value: their faith. They both forsook their homelands in different ways, they left their own people behind, and followed the one true God. They were both mothers. Even Sarah recorded as a Hero of the Faith in Hebrews was not rewarded because of her conception in her old age. No, she was rewarded with conception because of her faith – Hebrews 11:11. And perhaps the greatest example of a “mother” in the Bible is not titled as “mother” but as the “Wise Woman” of Proverbs 31. Yes, “her children rise up and call her blessed”. But she fulfilled multiple roles beyond motherhood. She was a charity worker, a businesswoman, a provider, a laborer, a trader, and an educator. But above all, she was a woman who feared the Lord. The Bible shows us the truth about faith over fertility. Just as men were not validated for fulfilling their “highest callings” of fatherhood, women, mothers and non-mothers, contrary to today’s messages, were not validated by God for their fertility but rather their faith.
The greatest woman I know happens to be a mother. Though I have only met her a few times, I consider her my greatest role model and a spiritual mother. Rebecca McDonald looks much like the woman of Proverbs 31. She is a mother to thousands of women and children! She is an international speaker, a writer, a rescuer, a businesswoman, an educator, a trainer, and various other roles for her international anti-trafficking organization, Women At Risk, Int. Rescuing, rocking, and shielding battered women and their babies is what makes her feel alive. None of these callings is more sacred or higher than the other. They are all of equal importance to her heart and especially to this world.
The single Amy Carmichaels of this world rescuing Indian babies are just as important as Amys wiping noses at home. Elevating my position of trying to keep a toddler and kindergartener from killing one another belittles the God-divined callings and struggles of other women all over the world. It also belittles the years of blood, sweat, time, and money I have invested in my books, my passion and calling that God gave me long before I had children. That ministry is just as important to my heart as my children.
In the end, I look to Jesus. I examine the Jesus who valued Mary of Bethany and defended her choice to “not go home” to the kitchen with her sister and instead to learn at his feet. I look to Jesus who valued a Palestinian woman’s extreme “breadcrumb” faith for him to heal her child. I look to Jesus who honored his own mother for her love and faith and not just the role she fulfilled. And how she found favor with God before she accepted the Holy Spirit’s conception. I look to Jesus who valued a former demon-possessed woman so highly to become the first evangelist, though the scriptures say nothing about her domestic roles.
I look to Jesus who frees me to be a woman and to follow Him first and foremost. Everything else comes second. In fact, motherhood must come second. As Jesus stated in Luke 14:26, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters–yes, even their own life–such a person cannot be my disciple.”
Yes, motherhood can be and is an important calling for a multitude of women. Single, married, adoptive, and honorary. As a woman, I validate the callings they have taken on. But is it the highest calling and most important? No. Following Jesus is the highest calling. Nothing else can compare.