Where's Mom?

There was a very disturbing and heartbreaking article on Washingtonpost.com yesterday. In Mom’s in the House, With Kids at Home, Lyndsy Layton tells the stories of several female members of congress who juggle political careers with being mothers of young children (defined in the article as those under 13 years old). The article begins with the following anecdote:

Before the sun rose over their Florida home, Debbie Wasserman Schultz pulled the thermometer from the mouth of her 8-year-old daughter, Rebecca, and checked the mercury: 103 degrees.
Stay home? Or go to work? It's a dilemma familiar to millions of working mothers. But her situation is complex: The job is 1,037 miles away, in Washington.
She got on the plane and flew to a New York fundraiser and then on to Washington for her workweek as a Democratic congresswoman. She knew her husband could handle Rebecca's fever.
Still, the guilt traveled with her. "It feels like someone's ripping my heart out," she said. "No matter how good your spouse is, kids want their mom when they're sick."

With the exception of the fact that the job is a thousand miles away, this same scene could be found in nearly any household across America. Throughout the nation mothers are leaving their children in order to go to work…to the detriment of the little ones they leave behind. Granted some mothers (particularly single moms) obviously must work to support their families; but many of the mothers in today’s workforce form the other half of dual-income households and work merely to attain a higher standard of living.

There are negative issues involved any time a mother works outside the home. One is the odd schedules that the children are typically subjected to. Ms. Layton tells of one congresswoman’s 5-year old daughter: “She attends preschool and a babysitter cares for her during the week….” She continues, stating that, “she often goes to sleep at midnight and eats just one huge meal a day, around 8 p.m.” What’s wrong with this picture? This is not a health lifestyle for a 5-year old child! Admittedly, most children with working moms do not have such extreme hours. Yet they still are awakened earlier than they should be in order to get to day-care on mom’s way to work. They eat at odd hours, according to mom’s schedule and many are too-well acquainted with the fast-food drive-up window. Then, in order to spend more time with mom, they are up later than they should be considering how early they have to get up the next day to start it all over again.

A second detrimental effect on these children is the loneliness. Children crave the love and affection of their mother. Not a babysitter, not a day-care worker and not a nanny. Even fathers cannot replace the kind of time kids need with their mothers. This point is well-made in the beginning of the article where Layton relates, “At Wasserman Schultz's home in Florida, Mondays can be the cruelest day. It's hard to watch her mother walk out the door, Rebecca said. "Sometimes, I regret that," the 8-year-old said quietly.” Nothing can replace a mother in the life of a child.

Lastly, children pick up on their place in their mother’s hierarchy of priorities. Again, there are some mothers that must work, but a child can tell when mom’s working just to “be more connected” with herself, or just so the family can have a bigger house, second (or third) car, or (worst of all) to be “more fulfilled.” All of these ideas are internalized by these young children and the interpretation they come up with is, “’I’m not as important as that new car, bigger house or next piece of legislation.”

Many times women say, “Let the father stay home with the kids, then!” But congresswoman Wasserman-Schultz said it best: "No matter how good your spouse is, kids want their mom when they're sick." And that's not the only time. Too bad, kid...mom's at work.

Dad isn't missing, he's been systematically excluded

There's a heartbreaking article in the Boston Globe today. In "Two Moms and No Dad -- For Now" Virginia A. Smith writes:

"When 10-year-old John was 3, he told me one morning as I was driving him to
preschool that not having a dad made him feel sad. He has said this on a number
of occasions over the past seven years. We do what we can to fill the gap. He's
very athletic, and we take him to play baseball, soccer, basketball, and ice
hockey, anywhere that men congregate to coach and cheer on their sons.
I have come to love the fathers of his teammates at the testosterone- soaked hockey rink who slap my son's helmet and say, "Way to go, John!" I love his first-grade teacher, who has become his unofficial Big Brother and who takes him to Red Sox and Celtics games, Northeastern hockey games, mini-golfing, and bowling. I love the father of one of my son's friends who takes him camping and teaches him to build rocket launchers. These men are godsends, but sometimes I wish we could have provided my son with a real live father."

This breaks my heart. You have a boy who wants a dad...who desperately needs a dad. But the selfishness of this woman has denied him that. I know this is going to sound harsh, but if women were meant to have babies without men, IVF would not be needed. Asexual reproduction would be possible in humans. Here we're seeing a glimpse of the damage done by the myth that children raised in homes with gay parents turn out o.k. They may seem normal and well-adjusted on the outside but all of the pain of what they're missing is internalized. They likely don't say anything for fear of hurting the parent but the pain is there nonetheless. She laments, "...sometimes I wish we could have provided my son with a real live father." Well, I tell you what, Ms. Smith...if you had thought of that before you decided to go off on your own and have a child in a decidedly unnatural way just to satisfy your own desires then all of this could have been avoided. But now you have to watch your son grow up wondering what it's like to have a "real live father." Congratulations. Good job. I'll pray for you and your son that God will work in your hearts and that this experience will help your son to see the harm done when children are denied a father (or a mother). I pray that God will draw your son to Himself and grant him salvation and that you, too, will be drawn to repent. I pray for your daughters that they don't grow up believing that "gay is o.k." I ask that God would grant them the wisdom to see how wrong any sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage is wrong and that God would lead them to be pure, chaste, godly women who seek after him and that they would marry and that God would bless them with many children.

My heart aches for this woman and her family. I hurt for this little boy who has no father, as I hurt for any boy in that kind of situation (whether in gay households or single-parent homes). Lord help them.

Love and Marriage

There's a pretty good article by Christine B. Whelan on OpinionJournal.com about the idea of pre-marital counseling. In her article Ms. Whelan compares the "counseling" concept in the new movie License to Wed with the actual counseling that takes place in churches/synagogues/mosques today. She shows that while Hollywood shows pre-marital counseling as some inane series of tests and tasks a couple must perform to be considered worthy of marriage, genuine pre-marital counseling is designed to help the young couples with communication skills and encourages them to think through ideas such as finances and child-rearing.

The focus of the article is primarily on the church's role in being sure that these young couples have thought through the more serious topics they will face in marriage before they make the commitment; but there is another aspect that I believe is missing in much of the counseling today that must be addressed -- the theology of marriage.

The current divorce rates among "Christian" couples is a shameful blight on the church in America and I believe that the root cause is that people have separated theology from marriage. The Bible is replete with references to marriage and the message is consistent: Marriage is from God, it is holy and it is for life. When this is forgotten and marriage is seen as an invention of man, is less than holy and not a life-long commitment we end up with disposable relationships designed to suit our purposes rather than God's.

I will write more on this on a later post.