"Mommy Wars"

I Corinthians 14:33-40

Mother’s Day - May 13, 2012

Reverend Dr. David C. Brown
Pilgrim Congregational United Church of Christ
400 Glenwood Drive, Chattanooga, TN 37404

We are now well into the season of another political campaign. It seems to me that most of the issues being raised are not only silly, but stupid. And none of these is more stupid than what has come to be called “the Mommy Wars.” It all began when Hilary Rosen, a Democratic strategist, accused Ann Romney, mother of five, of having “never worked a day in her life.” Working moms and stay-at-home moms alike bristled at the insult. What Rosen meant to say, of course, was that Mrs. Romney had never worked outside the home in an occupation. But this foolish comment, immediately went viral and became the stuff of countless talk shows. The real issue got lost.

Instead of fighting a phony political war over Rosen’s stupid comment, we needed to face the fact that in 2012 America most families cannot afford to have one parent stay at home with the kids. This is not about “lifestyles” or “family values.” The real issue is the growing economic struggle many women, particularly non-married mothers, face in today’s ruthless economic world. Our discussion should focus on the costs to our society coming from decades of stagnating or declining wages as well as the growing income disparity between the wealthy 1% of Americans and the 99% of the rest of us.

There is a profound inequity in this issue of what mothers should or should not do. Call it “class warfare” if you will, but the public debate for some seems based on the false notion that all two-parent families have a choice as to whether one or both will work outside the home. This is true in the world of wealthy Americans, but this choice is not available to most American families. They have had to send two people into the work- force whether they wanted to or not. Of course, single mothers, growing in number every day, truly have no choice; they must work so that they and their children can survive.

There is an important recent study by the Center for American Progress which describes the world facing mothers today. It should remind us that the upset over Mrs. Romney’s decision to be a stay-at-home mother is 30 years out of date, perhaps even forty or fifty years behind the times. The core conclusion of the Center’s report is this: “Most children today are growing up in families without a full-time, stay-at-home caregiver.”

The study goes on to say: “In 2010 among families with children, nearly half (44.8 percent) were headed by two working parents and another one in four families (26.1 percent) was headed by a single parent.

As a result, fewer than one in three (28.7 percent) children now have a stay-at-home parent, compared to more than half the families (52.6 percent) in 1975, only a generation ago.”

This radical change in American family life is driven by economics rather than by “Mommy Wars” disputes that only fuel the fires of political brawls. The Center also noted that “Breadwinning wives” are most common in families with lower incomes. Duh?! No surprise there. Working mothers, whether married or single, have had to work for the sake of their family’s economic survival. They had no choice.

If, for whatever reason, – theological, sociological, psychological – we as a nation want to have more families in which one parent can stay at home with the children, serious measures must be undertaken to raise the income level of average American families – especially poor or single-parent families. For millions of American mothers and fathers, debates about the evil results of feminism or the need to restore the family values of an earlier generation are completely irrelevant. It’s all about money.

Of course, if there are families in which mothers work outside the home because they want to and can afford it, that decision should be respected. Neither Mrs. Romney nor other mothers whose family income permits such a choice should be forced to defend themselves. But neither should other mothers who don’t have that option be criticized for what they must do.

Have I said enough to convince you that this is not an Ozzie and Harriet Nelson world today? By the way, quite off the subject, did you ever notice that Ozzie never seemed to go to work! He was always there in the home while Harriet did the housework. Given the times we now live in, religious and social traditionalists are living in a dream world if they believe they can somehow restore what they see as the glory days of the 1950’s family. It will never happen without a serious re-structuring of our nation’s priorities. We cannot have both guns and butter. We cannot afford our bloated military. And the idea that if we try to reduce the national debt by cutting social programs that keep the 99% out of financial disaster, we will be facing a national nightmare. Too many leaders in state governments and in Washington today are comfortably insulated by their high incomes and perks from the economic hardships so many Americans have to deal with. More and more it seems to me that America is becoming a plutocracy where the wealthy rule and there is less and less justice for the poor. I can only imagine what an Amos or Jeremiah or Isaiah would say about what is happening in our nation today.

Mentioning these biblical figures is a reminder to me that you have come to hear a sermon this morning and not an economic lecture. But please understand that there was no way I could preach a traditional Mother’s Day sermon eulogizing the role that our mothers have played in our lives without acknowledging the enormous economic burden many of today’s mothers have to carry. It would be insensitive and even cruel to lift up the lives of our mothers as examples for mothers today without acknowledging the challenges they face. Yes, many of us had wonderful mothers and we thank God for them. And yes, Thank God, there are wonderful mothers today, but in so many ways the task of mothering is far more difficult than in the past.

And what does the Bible have to say to guide women today? Certainly not the scripture lesson from I Corinthians we heard a few moments ago. And certainly not that passage in I Timothy that wants to legitimate a subordinate, submissive role for women as wives and mothers. (Cf. I Timothy 2:9-15) Since Paul is supposed to have written both these passages, many modern women would brand him as the worse kind of misogynist. Sadly, Paul’s words are frequently used today by religious conservatives to justify what they believe to be the biblical, God-given role for women which is the same today as it was in the first century.

Would it surprise you if I told you that Paul did not write either one of these passages? The paragraph that is our scripture lesson this morning is believed by modern biblical scholars to have been crudely inserted into Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians by a later editor. It was part of an attempt to force women into a role that would be more acceptable to the completely paternalistic Roman world. And the Letters to Timothy, while they purport to be from Paul, were also written by a later author attempting to make Christian women conform to the role women had in Roman society.

One of the precious gifts we are given as Liberal Christians is the right to use our minds when we read the Bible. When we do that we will discover that not everything written in the Bible is true or helpful. So much of the Bible reflects the world of the men who wrote it. Sometimes they were marvelously right but sometimes they were simply wrong when they claimed God’s authority for their very human message.

Rightly understood, I believe Paul should be seen as a champion for women today. He deeply valued the role that women played in the churches he founded. Frankly, women were critical leaders in Paul’s churches. The genuine voice of Paul can be heard in the marvelous words he wrote to the Galatians:

“(In the Christian Church) there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one (all of you are equal) in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28

Paul believed that the Church should be the model for all human society. Can you imagine how different our world would have been over the ages if that vision of the full equality of women had been our guide? Thank God, that all through history, in your family and mine, there have been mothers who claimed and lived that equality. My mother was such a woman and I hope you can say the same of yours. That kind of woman, that kind of mother, is the person we should celebrate today. Mothers like that share an equal burden with men to ensure that someday soon there will be full equality and justice – economic, political, social, and religious – for all families and all Americans. May that day come soon.

Happy Mother’s Day!

I am indebted in this sermon to an article by E. J. Dionne Jr. of the Washington Post Writers Group.