WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Strength and Dignity: Honoring Our Mothers

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

In honor of Mother's Day, Michaela responds to a Ms. Magazine article that condemns motherhood as a forced trap. Rejecting this victimhood framework, Michaela emphasizes scripture's praise of a woman's self-sacrifice and the humility and service demonstrated by her own mom.

Welcome back to strength and dignity. This is Michaela Estruth, and you're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Well, a happy late Mother's Day to all those who are listening who are moms and daily sacrifice themselves and dedicate themselves to that role of being a mom and raising children in the way of the Lord. Thank you for all that you do, and I hope that you all have to. a wonderful blessed Mother's Day, given that Sunday was Mother's Day, I decided to make this episode kind of a tribute to Mother's Day, but also went just on a spur to Ms. Magazine to see if there

was anything about motherhood or any articles that had been written. And to my unpleasant surprise, there was an article on Ms. Magazine on Mother's Day and basically mocking the day, Mother's Day, and saying that our society fails mothers and does not honor them, but because motherhood is forced upon people, namely tying that to the overturn of Roe versus Wade in the Dobbs case, which was honestly just repulsive to read this article. It just completely twists the self-sacrifice of motherhood by demanding that it be a choice or this like glory position

or a place of entitlement and a place that you put all your demands on the table at a national level instead of a daily sacrifice, a daily pouring yourself out for the sake of your children and the sake of your husband, a daily invitation of Christ. So I wanted to quote from some of the article and kind of respond to it like normal while also adding my own commentary and some biblical references to truly frame what I see as the role of motherhood and what this article completely distorts. So the article by Danielle Campomore, she starts out and she says, quote, This Mother's Day, like the countless that have come before, conservative politicians who fancy themselves members of the party that upholds family values will sum up. social media posts praising the moms among us. They'll wax poetic about the decision to become a mother

and how it's the most selfless, most important job in the world. Some may even go so far as to task their speechwriters with crafting some moving message about how vital mothers are, how we're raising the next generation of prolific thinkers and world leaders, how we should be revered, not just today, but every day. And in the post world that they created with their anti-abortion policies that have forced people into motherhood, attacked IVF in fertility treatments, and left doctors terrified to treat pregnant patients to the point that women are slipping into comas, miscarrying in the hospital lobby bathrooms, and enduring unnecessary C-sections, instead of receiving common abortion care. It will be one big, giant pile of fill in the blank. So yes, that is her opening to this article where she basically

condemns all the praise, all the recognition of mothers as just flaunt as honestly as like a political maneuver from conservatives to push for further pro-life agendas and to push against LGBTQ or IVF or any of the things that she referenced. That's how she views Mother's Day, which granted many conservative outlets honor their mothers on Mother's Day and honor the gift of life. honor the sacrifice that mothers do daily, but it is not some coerced day for this underlying promotion of pro-life ideas. So let's dive into a little bit of what she says. I'm going to start from the last thing that I just read and kind of work my way backwards, but she mentions the anti-abortion

policies being forced into motherhood, the attacking of IVF in fertility treatments, and then just note the language that she uses, she says pregnant patients that doctors are nervous or afraid to treat pregnant patients. Notice the lack of a gender reference there. That's intentional because she never really goes so far in this article, but she wants, she's of the opinion that anyone can be a mother because it's a decision and it should be even outside of biology, according to her. And it was, she has referenced is too that women are slipping into comas, miscarrying in the hospitals under the unnecessary C-sections, which obviously all sound traumatic, painful, and my heart goes out to those women, but the world that she's pushing for that she is saying would be better with complete access to

abortion at a national level, a legalization of it at a national level, with complete access and no moral guidelines around IVF. And even with the abortion from not even medical doctors, but prescribed chemical abortions, she's painting a horrific world and horrific experiences for young women because I could very much retaliate with her images of miscarrying in the hospital slipping into comas in the C-sections. But I could counter that with the gruesome and painful

and just tear-wrenching thought of women taking a chemical abortion pill and being in pain by themselves in their home alone for the most part to watch a child be disposed of and just disregarded and watch that life be completely ignored. So I don't think that her attacks on almost like the dangers of motherhood right now. now are fair or legitimate and the world that she proposes is frankly much more frightening women have been giving birth since the beginning um and obviously it's the pain that the lord prescribed in the curse it's part of the curse of the pain that she undergoes but also just hearing from my mom and for my sister who just had her first child in August. It's the most agonizing pain and the most

glorious end and the most glorious result. And so at least those end with the gift of life, whereas the circumstances that she's presenting don't. They end with death. And okay, the last thing I want to dive into in this quote from the beginning of her article, is she puts it in quotation marks. She says that to become a mother, it's the most selfish, most important job in the world. And she's mocking it. But I want to latch on to those words and say, yes, it is the most selfish and most important job in the world.

Because, yes, as she says, you are raising the next generation. And what happens in the home is implemented in a child's life from, the moment of his birth all the way until post-graduation of high school, post-college, into his adult life. Like he will carry, he or she will carry those values, what he was taught, even if he doesn't know it, he or she doesn't know it, those are an innate part of who he is because of the raising of a good mother and a good father. In addition to that, the mother's role is the most selfless thing I think I could think of.

I think of my own mother. She was in her mid-20s. She got married and she was working at a very well-known business in Cincinnati in market research. And they didn't have kids for a couple years. And then she was pregnant with my oldest brother, Daniel. And there was some crises around his birth. He was born very prematurely. And ever since his birth, she's never gone back into the workplace.

He's still his cerebral palsy. he's still living at home as a 25-year-old. And she daily sacrifices for all of us, but I've seen it so much more as I've left the home, as the training and growth that she's given me to go out and go to college and to get a degree and to study and to follow wherever the Lord is leading me. That's the beauty of motherhood is like letting your children go. And yet she's still daily sacrifices for my brother Daniel, who will never be, out of the home who is completely and utterly dependent on her and on her sacrifice that she does

by the hour for him. And it's really humbling to watch. And so I wanted to counter this, Danielle's words, with Philippians 2, 3 to 7, which talks about, it's a common passage talking about humility. And I think it is the perfect explanation of what motherhood is. It says, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. And it continues on to talk about Christ's humiliation on the cross and then his exaltation at the right hand of God. But this is truly something that women as mothers, wives and mothers imitate every single day, that they count others as more significant than themselves.

my sister and I will talk all the time. Sometimes this year she's been such an encouragement to me when I call her and say, you know, sometimes like I just, it's really hard for me to sympathize with something that doesn't feel that overwhelming or like that crucial and someone's just constantly complaining about it. And it's my own sin nature, but I just get kind of annoyed. And my sister just so graciously and with such encouragement says, no, you're right. Like that's so true. but also being a mom has taught me to sympathize so much more that nothing's wrong and my son's crying

and he's completely fine like he's completely fine and I could get really frustrated or I could put down whatever I'm doing or put him first and take care of him and love him and support him and play with him or you know just dry his tears and that is an imitation of Christ it's an imitation of what the Lord does for us, that he sympathizes with everything that we endure, even if in his grand providential plan, it's really that one bad day is not a huge deal. And yet he sympathizes with us. And so motherhood, my point is that motherhood is an imitation of Christ. We as followers of Christ are called to imitate Christ and mothers do it daily and it's beautiful

to see. If you're just now joining us, thank you. is strength and dignity. I'm Michaela Estruth, your host of this show. I'm attributing this episode to Mother's Day, which was this past weekend, and I'm just talking about the role of mothers and their beauty in imitating Christ, and also responding to an article from the website Ms. Magazine that kind of mocks Mother's Day. And so continuing on in her argument, I'm going to quote from her again, she says, it's all a societal forgery. An empty exercise, the majority of us have all inexplicably agreed to engage in while simultaneously overlooking the many ways the U.S.

continually chooses to fail mothers. Since the Dobbs decision, however, the hypocrisy has hit a fever pitch. As the media hyperfocuses on the harm abortion bans cause people with wanted pregnancies, voters who may not have considered abortion to be a kitchen table issue are bearing witness to just how quintessential abortion is to family planning, and just how anti-family and anti-mom, anti-abortion policies truly are. So again, she's going back to the anti-abortion that we've referenced before, and she literally calls pro-life advocates anti-mom, because not having access to abortion automatically means that

you're anti-mom, and she thinks that abortion is essential to family planning. Well, just to break it to her, for the past thousands of years, family planning happened completely naturally without abortion, and historically yes like abortion often their children were discarded or if they were not wanted they were just left on the street which is horrific and a horrible what could be termed ancient abortion but that is not the typical family planning family planning does not depend on abortion at all and it's really frankly sad that she thinks so so Danielle is basically saying that this is all a societal forgery and what I want to counter with is a story that was in the Washington Post. It was an article written by Richard Just and it says,

Our daughter wanted a mummy, so she picked one of her dads. And I just think this article is really heart-wrenching if you read it because it shows that I think it was a three- or four-year-old who truly understands that something is wrong in her family structure because she has two men as her parents. and she wants a mom. And so that childhood innocence speaks to the natural created order of a man and a woman being husband and wife and raising a family. And so she's saying that anti-abortion is anti-mother. And I say that our society today is anti-mother because of the LGBT agenda and the push for complete disregard of the role of a mother versus the role of a father and how they are different.

and how two men can raise a family, which is truly not reality. It's a fake world that they're trying to push for, and this young girl could sense that from a very, very young age. Okay, continuing on, on mothers say the decision to become a mother is touted as just that, a decision. Those of us who have procreated are celebrated for choosing to become a parent. Yet for millions of people, the capacity to get pregnant in this country is no longer a choice. It's a government mandate.

and if you're privileged enough for motherhood to remain a choice, you're punished for it. Terrified reproductive healthcare doctors are afraid to treat you. Government officials refuse to pass policies that adequately support you. Managers think long and hard before hiring you. Employers will refuse to adequately pay you. Sadly, I don't think the mindset I've held since I was a child will change anytime soon. I love being a mother, but I hate how this country treats mothers. So that's how she answered article.

It's basically a summary of everything she said, basically saying we don't have abortion and therefore mothers are oppressed and it's forced upon them. She says it's a government mandate. It reminds me of the root of this feminist push and that is victimhood. This sounds exactly like Betty Friedan, the problem that has no name, the trap of the home that she got out of concentration camp. And it's called playing the victim card. My mom explains it all the time that anyone can play the victim card, can just look at their circumstances and decide that they're unhappy and decide that they're going to paint them in a negative light and say, wo is me, look at how hard my life is. And for all of these reasons. So that reminded me of a clip that I want to play from the movie Barbie that was released in 2023.

If you've heard my episode on Barbie, you know that I'm not a huge fan of this movie. This is the mom, not Barbie, so a real-life character, and she gives this long speech about basically victimhood about how hard it is to be a woman. Let's hear it. It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary. But somehow we're always doing it wrong. You have to be thin, but not too thin.

And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can't ask for money, because that's crass. You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean. You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas. You're supposed to love being a mother,

but don't talk about your kids all the time. You have to be a career. woman, but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men's bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you're accused of complaining. You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood,

but always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged, so find a way to acknowledge that, but also always be grateful. You have to never get old. Never be rude. Never show off. Never be selfish. Never fall down. Never fail. Never show fear. Never get out of line. It's too hard. It's too contradictory. And nobody gives you a medal or says, thank you. And it turns out, in fact, that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault. So there you go. That is her view. She says it's too contradictory that you can't tow the line, that everything is your fault.

And that's really a sad view. And it's not what women are called to be. She says that you have all of these societal expectations to stand up to. And really, frankly, the hardest thing about her logic is the fact that most of what she pointed out was a result of second wave feminism saying, oh, you have to be a mom, but you also have to be in the workplace. Oh, you have to like dress well and be presentable and be a career woman. but also do all of these things all the time. And it makes sense why she's stretched so thin because that is not the design. The design is not to have it all, do it all, be at all.

And frankly, the design is not about you. And when you put a mentality of me first, me centered, then you always feel like you're failing to meet the expectations that you're kind of forcing upon yourself. So in that light, let's turn to what actually is the design. Instead of painting yourself as a victim, Paul writes to Titus in Titus 2, 3 to 5, he says, older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be

reviled. I love this passage because it depicts an older woman training younger women, which I think is beautiful and necessary. And what does she train them in? She trains them in humility and she trains them in self-control, in purity and kindness, how to love their children and love their husband well. And the final verse to that he says that the word of God, may not be reviled. That points back to as a testament to all of the Bible, but even to what I was saying about Philippians too, that this is truly living out the gospel, that you're living out Christ to your family. And so do not revile that by painting yourself as a victim, by painting yourself as something that is not, like, is completely anti the posture of what it ought to be. With that, I want to

end with a classic verse, Proverbs 31, 28 to 31, in praise. of our mothers who daily sacrifice themselves and who don't need a day to be praised because they should be praised and thanked every day. But I am thankful for a day that we honor them and that we respect them and that we just give them tribute and that we just continue their legacy and continue teaching what is good that the Word of God may not be reviled. So let me close with Proverbs 31, 28 to 31. May these words be true of your Mother's Day and true every day. Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praises her. Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all. Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain.

But a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her works be praised in the gates. Thanks for listening to Strength and Dignity. I'm Michaela Estruth, and you're listening to Radio for Healsdale, 101.1.7. FM.