It seems someone took umbrage at my reflection on Women’s Day, even going so far as to call it ‘vile’ – strong brew! – so thought I would offer an apologia, both in the accepted contritional sense of that term, as well as a reasoned explanation.
My point was not to claim that all women should ‘stay at home’. I have taught many students, more than half of them women. Some have gone on to professional careers, while others have chosen to become homemakers. Some manage to balance both, depending on circumstances.
Rather, my point was that women should not be coerced, nor even feel any pressure, social, psychological or otherwise, to leave the home, to abandon the noble and necessary work of maintaining a household and raising and educating children. This was the aim of the truly vile Communists, in their ultimate goal to fracture the family, isolate the individual, and so put the entire population under total state control.
Here are the gentle words of Pope Saint John Paul, who believed very much in freedom, and who puts it far better than I:
Experience confirms that there must be a social re-evaluation of the mother’s role, of the toil connected with it, and of the need that children have for care, love and affection in order that they may develop into responsible, morally and religiously mature and psychologically stable persons. It will redound to the credit of society to make it possible for a mother-without inhibiting her freedom, without psychological or practical discrimination, and without penalizing her as compared with other women-to devote herself to taking care of her children and educating them in accordance with their needs, which vary with age. Having to abandon these tasks in order to take up paid work outside the home is wrong from the point of view of the good of society and of the family when it contradicts or hinders these primary goals of the mission of a mother. (Laborem Exercens, 19.4)
Just so. While we value the contribution of women in many fields, we also need to re-examine, re-appreciate, re-discover the beauty and gift of women in their invaluable, irreplaceable and sacrificial work as mothers forming children, and the next generation, which has been, and still is, the primary vocation of the fairer half of the human race. Such was the vocation of Our Lady, most blessed amongst women. May the prayers of that same Mother of God inspire us all to strengthen family life, upon which all human life depends, and without which there can be no life.