Steinem had this to say about me and the millions of other women like me: “[Housewives] are dependent creatures who are still children…parasites.” Okay, well, I wasn’t yet born when she said that, but I still find it quite offensive and degrading, especially in today’s culture that’s all about “empowering women.” And this is the woman who was awarded a medal—BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!
Carolyn Graglia is a lawyer who left her law practice to stay home and raise her children. In an article that she wrote for The Weekly Standard, she discussed Betty Friedan, “feminist” writer and activist, who also had a negative view of homemakers. Graglia wrote,
Friedan described the housewife in The Feminine Mystique as a ‘parasite’ who lives without using adult capabilities or intelligence and lacks a real function when devoting herself to children, husband, and home. Decrying the housewife's life as a ‘waste of a human self,’ Friedan likened her and her fellow matrons to ‘male patients with portions of their brain shot away and schizophrenics.’ Housewives are ‘less than fully human,’ she said, for they ‘have never known a commitment to an idea,’ ‘risked an exploration of the unknown,’ or ‘attempted . . . creativity.’ That this could be said of women, who literally create life within their wombs, indicates the degree to which feminism has sought to denature women, to reshape them in man's image.On housewives/homemakers, noted sociologist and “feminist” “scholar” Jessie Bernard declared,
[The] housewife is a nobody, and [housework] is a dead-end job. It may really have a deteriorating effect on her mind…rendering her incapable of prolonged concentration on any single task. [She] comes to seem dumb as well as dull. [B]eing a housewife makes women sick.Dumb and dull? Dependent creature? Parasite? Schizophrenic? Sadly, many on the left—especially women on the left—still harbor these hateful feelings toward stay-at-home moms. Being a homemaker, I’m taken aback and highly offended that people would not only think such nonsense but would actually speak or write it for others to read and hear, and there are many more such quotes out there, as you can imagine. I studied these loonies when I was working on my own sociology degree back in the 90s, but even then, as a college kid, I knew they were nuts.
I won’t argue that being a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom is intellectually stimulating at every moment, but it is what we make of it. No doubt, these “champions” of feminism want children to be in the control of the government at the earliest ages possible. They push for taxpayer-funded daycare and preschool, in addition to the massive public K-12 education system so that children can be properly indoctrinated for their entire young lives. I suppose it’s too logical that mothers would raise their own children. Of course, many of these so-called “feminists” think that the earth is overpopulated and that we shouldn’t be having children, anyway.
I will admit that I’m pretty dependent on my husband’s income, and I’m very thankful that he’s a wonderful provider for our family. However, there are two sides to the story. On the one hand, he has much more earning potential than I do because he has two graduate degrees, and he wants to work outside the home. On the other hand, he affirms that I’m much better suited to the day-to-day duties of childrearing, cooking, budgeting, and caring for our home (as I believe most women are).
I love having the freedom (That is what Steinem, Friedan, and Bernard championed, right?) to raise our children, to educate them, to stretch our dollars by couponing, to write books, to volunteer at church, to handle our family’s finances, to feed us and clothe us, to be involved in all of my kids’ activities, to care for our home, and ultimately to “be there” for my family.
I really don’t have to justify myself to anyone except the Lord. To be quite frank, I think He’s pretty pleased with homemakers and moms. After all, this is what He had to say about us many moons ago:
A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life…She is clothed with strength and dignity, she can laugh at the days to come. She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children arise and call her blessed, her husband also, and he praises her…Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. (Proverbs 31:10-12, 25-28, 30)(See this column at American Thinker.)
Michelle Thomas is a Christ follower, wife to and chief editor for Trevor Thomas, and a homeschooling mom to four amazing children. She is the author of the brand new devotional book for moms called Lord, I Need You, a book about her grief journey called Through Deep Waters, and a chronicle of their financial journey called Debt-Free Living in a Debt-Filled World. Her website is KingdomCrossing.com, and she can be reached by email at michelle@kingdomcrossing.com.
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