Mothers Are the Key to a Thriving Nation
In a recent talk at the Natal Conference, Jonathan Keeperman (otherwise known as Lomez) wisely warned against accepting the political framing surrounding having children. He courageously called for the disbanding of the conference at which he spoke, explaining that the act of having children and starting a family is natural and pre-political: “The miracle of having kids belongs to God, not to Caesar.” The Natal Conference has a particular eye toward the falling fertility rate in America and around the world. Keeperman acknowledged the societal danger of fewer people having children but believes an effective response “requires stepping back from anxiety-driven politics and embracing a healthier, more natural relationship with parenthood itself.” For Keeperman, having children is not a means to achieve a political goal by outbreeding the Left, but is rather something to embrace as its own end.
Keeperman’s exhortations were appropriate and necessary given the tendency to over-politicize all aspects of life today. He was also correct to identify the folly of heavy-handed, coercive pressure to increase the number of children born each year. Children are not political trophies to be displayed, and his proposals are a breath of fresh air. However, it is also worth acknowledging the societal good of having children and becoming a parent.
Though his speech was given to an overwhelmingly male audience and was not directed toward women, they are the ones who need his message most. In America today, women are increasingly trending leftward. Politically, that means affirming abortion, LGBTQ+, illegal immigration, and soft-on-crime policies. But it also means rejecting the natural family and motherhood.
Keeperman’s desire for what is natural is good, but for women today, being a mother has become a personal choice—a choice that more and more women are declining. Our culture actively encourages and even incentivizes women to remain childless. The state of nature previously demanded men working outside the home, women in the home, and plenty of children. But in an age of decadence and abundance, women are given the option to pursue motherhood or to leave it behind. This begs the question: how can the Right effectively convince women to embrace motherhood amidst a culture so vehemently opposed to what is natural?
The political landscape is nearly the opposite for young men in America, many of whom hold a distaste for modern life. This gap between the sexes is particularly strong in the younger generations, and we are only beginning to see the negative consequences of this divide. While this turn toward the Right among young men is largely encouraging and hopefully continues, women cannot be ignored.
In order to build an enduring movement on the Right, the role of women cannot be neglected: motherhood must be part of the equation. Reaching them will be a difficult task for the Right, given the widespread adoption of feminism, which is a bipartisan pillar in America. Megyn Kelly, a major voice among conservatives, recently posted, “Ladies, it is possible to make your own money, have your own career, pay for your own swanky nyc apartment (etc). AND find a man who loves you, wants to have & raise kids w/ you & wants to be w/ you and only you. The only thing stopping you? Your decision to settle for less.”
A nation ought to have an interest in the health of its families, and yet our culture has told women they must be outside the home to make an impact in the world. What many in America today fail to recognize is that there is real work to be done in the home: work that has significant civic benefits. Motherhood is a good unto itself, like Keeperman observed, but there also is a relationship between the quality of American mothers and American greatness.
A physically healthy nation, for example, must necessarily consist of healthy families. Who helps make a family healthy? In large part, it’s mothers. They work in the home to care for the physical needs of their children: they prepare meals, clean, and train their children’s tastes and habits. The health of Americans greatly depends upon the work of mothers.
In his oft-referenced work Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam observed that women entering the workplace was a major contribution to the decline of social capital in the United States. When both parents work, civic engagement and community activities dissipate, because many had been organized and coordinated by mothers and women.
Or consider the educational influence of a mother—or lack thereof. Mothers who work outside the home are not able to provide the necessary educational support for their children, often resigning them to a failing public school system. As such, mothers who are devoted to the home and the raising of children are not only doing themselves and their families a service, but are actively shaping the future of our communities and nation as they raise little Americans.
Motherhood was traditionally respected and greatly valued as a social good in our nation’s history. When Alexis de Tocqueville visited early America, he famously observed that the women of the young nation were largely unseen, and yet essential to its success: “If anyone asks me what I think the chief cause of the extraordinary prosperity and growing power of this nation, I should answer that it is due to the superiority of their women.”
Founding Princeton Seminary professor Archibald Alexander wrote a letter of counsel to Christian mothers in 1844, in which he aimed “to arouse them to the consideration of the importance of the station which they occupy, and to persuade them to exert that influence which they possess.” Alexander acknowledged the concern of insignificance many women had, even in the mid-19th century—that their impact in society was minimal due to their station. Alexander called such a notion a “flagrant miscalculation,” and explained that their influence is real and effective. He went on to observe, “It may, in an important sense, be said that the Commonwealth has been preserved from utter destruction by the prudence, purity and piety of Virginian mothers. They have been the salt which has arrested the progress of moral corruption in the mass of society.” Alexander understood that mothers and the home were essential for any hope of reforming our social institutions, civil and religious.
In a speech in 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt compared willful childlessness to a soldier who runs away in battle. Roosevelt did not diminish the work of mothers in the home, but ennobled her duties by linking what mothers do to the greatness of America. He concluded his remarks by saying,
The woman’s task is not easy—no task worth doing is easy—but in doing it, and when she has done it, there shall come to her the highest and holiest joy known to mankind; and having done it, she shall have the reward prophesied in Scripture; for her husband and her children, yes, and all people who realize that her work lies at the foundation of all national happiness and greatness, shall rise up and call her blessed.
Keeperman’s fundamental point is correct: women should not be told to have children simply for the sake of revitalizing America or winning a political contest. But it is important to acknowledge that women who embrace motherhood as a vocation are doing our nation a great service. Children are not a burden or an obstacle for women, nor are they a means for a political end. Being a mother is a significant role, not only in the life of her children but also in the life of a community.
A woman devoted to her children and family has taken up a praiseworthy and noble task. We as a nation ought to honor and celebrate the responsibilities that come with the vocation of motherhood, especially when such a way of life requires going against significant cultural headwinds. It is in the home where women leave an indelible mark, not only on their families and children but also on the future of America.
Image Credit: Unsplash
