Why Have Mothers Day
3
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078 www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: [email protected] • 760/295-9278 ©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of the Ruth Institute. Why Have Mother’s Day? By Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse Published May 12, 2010, at the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview Well, we have survived another Mother’s Day. But what is the holiday really all about, besides an excuse to sell choc olates, flowers, greeting cards and a bit of guilt? Why should we “celebrate” motherhood, when motherhood itself is under attack, or at least, undergoing some kind of cultural renovation? The term “mother” is a natural concep t: a mother is the female parent, the woman who gave birth to a child. This word, “mother,” is perfectly intelligible to the whole human race. If we ask, “who is this child’s mother?” the natural answer is, “the woman who gave birth to the child.” When the mother cannot take care of the child for some reason, Western society has created adoption as a way of helping the child. When a child is adopted, the child receives a new set of parents who have complete parental rights. We don’t let the biological mother keep some rights, and pass out some rights to the adoptive parents. Western law has traditionally done its best to replicate biological parenthood as closely as possible. In addition to identifying a particular woman as a child’s mother, the law excludes all other women. The nice lady next door, your second grade teacher, no matter how dear they may be, these women are not your mother. The law recognizes one woman, and excludes all others, as mother of the child. WHY EXCLUSIVE PARENTAL RIGHTS MAKE SENSE As a woman who has given birth to a child, who has been an adoptive mother, and who has been a foster mother, I think I know what I’m talking about here. It really wouldn’t have been good for our son for us to share parental rights with his birth mother in Romania. And we actually did kind of share parental rights with the birth parents and the social workers when we were foster parents. The birth parents did not have custody of their children, but they still had the right to see their children. We had to take care of the kids on a daily basis, even though we didn’t have parental rights. We got to listen to parents second- guessing our parenting decisions, even parents who were making supervised phone calls from jail. It was a big deal for me to obtain temporary rights to make education decisions. The social workers had the final
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Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: [email protected] • 760/295-9278©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of theRuth Institute.
Why Have Mother’s Day?
By Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse
Published May 12, 2010, at the Chuck
Colson Center for Christian Worldview
Well, we have survived another Mother’s
Day. But what is the holiday really all about,
besides an excuse to sell chocolates, flowers,
greeting cards and a bit of guilt? Why
should we “celebrate” motherhood, when
motherhood itself is under attack, or at least,
undergoing some kind of cultural
renovation?
The term “mother” is a natural concept: a
mother is the female parent, the woman who
gave birth to a child. This word, “mother,” is
perfectly intelligible to the whole human
race. If we ask, “who is this child’s
mother?” the natural answer is, “the woman
who gave birth to the child.”
When the mother cannot take care of the
child for some reason, Western society has
created adoption as a way of helping the
child. When a child is adopted, the child
receives a new set of parents who havecomplete parental rights. We don’t let the
biological mother keep some rights, and
pass out some rights to the adoptive parents.
Western law has traditionally done its best
to replicate biological parenthood as closely
as possible.
In addition to identifying a particular woman
as a child’s mother, the law excludes all
other women. The nice lady next door, your
second grade teacher, no matter how dear
they may be, these women are not your
mother. The law recognizes one woman, andexcludes all others, as mother of the child.
WHY EXCLUSIVE PARENTAL RIGHTS
MAKE SENSE
As a woman who has given birth to a child,
who has been an adoptive mother, and who
has been a foster mother, I think I know
what I’m talking about here. It really
wouldn’t have been good for our son for us
to share parental rights with his birth mother in Romania. And we actually did kind of
share parental rights with the birth parents
and the social workers when we were foster
parents. The birth parents did not have
custody of their children, but they still had
the right to see their children.
We had to take care of the kids on a daily
basis, even though we didn’t have parental
rights. We got to listen to parents second-
guessing our parenting decisions, even
parents who were making supervised phone
calls from jail. It was a big deal for me to
obtain temporary rights to make education
decisions. The social workers had the final
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Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: [email protected] • 760/295-9278©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of theRuth Institute.
say so about health care and other things,
even though the social workers didn’t have
day to day contact with the children. Sharing
parental rights is a mess really, something to
be done only in dire circumstances, not
something to be made normal or routine.
ADULT DESIRES COMPETING WITH
A CHILD'S NEEDSBut the legal system is changing the very
idea of motherhood, at the urging of the Sex
Law Radicals. This is only in part due to the
desires for same sex couples to have
children. A whole variety of people would
like parental rights, without making
commitments to the child’s other natural
parent. So motherhood and fatherhood must
be redefined to accommodate these adult
desires.
Motherhood need not be an exclusive status,
they say. The Sex Radicals who authored
Beyond Same Sex Marriage believe that
“Committed, loving households in which
there is more than one conjugal partner,”
and “Queer couples who decide to jointly
create and raise a child with another queer
person or couple, in two households” are
just as worthy of public recognition and
support as any other households.
Children can have multiple parents, with
different sets of rights and responsibilities
toward them. Listen to law professor
Melanie Jacobs, for instance, in the abstract
to her article, Why Just Two?
Disaggregating Traditional Parental
Rights and Responsibilities to Recognize
Multiple Parents:
“At present, the establishment of legal
parentage entails all of the responsibilities of
parentage, such as financial and medicalsupport, and all of the benefits, such as the
right to custody and visitation. By delinking
and disaggregating all of these rights and
responsibilities, more than two individuals
may hold the designation of "legal parent"
yet each can make different contributions. I
suggest that disaggregating parentage should
allow for recognition of all the relevant
adults in a child's life, yet not grant equal
parental rights to all individuals, unlessspecifically agreed upon.”
Just like the foster kids. Great idea,
professor.
EVERY CHILD A FOSTER CHILD?
By the time the Sex Law Radicals are done
redefining marriage and parenthood, every
child will be a foster child, attached to adults
by the sufferance of the state. Biological
parents need not have any particular status
relative to other adults who may be hanging
around. And the adults who actually do the
work of parenting may or may not be able to
become the exclusive parents, since the
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Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse • 663 S. Rancho Santa Fe Road Suite 222 San Marcos CA 92078
www.jennifer-roback-morse.com • email: [email protected] • 760/295-9278©2007 No part of this document may be reproduced or disseminated in any way without the expressed written consent of theRuth Institute.
function of excluding people from parental
status will be irretrievably blurred.
Of course, recognizing the unique status of
the woman who gave us birth does not
dishonor the many other women whom we
celebrate on Mother’s Day. This holiday is
first and foremost one of gratitude to the
women who have nurtured us in a multitude
of ways. People honor their aunts andgrandmothers, their big sisters and their
godmothers, their stepmothers and their
special friends.
We choose whom we honor, based on what
they have done for us. Mother’s Day is a
celebration of feminine nurturing, in all its
forms. This is why it is quite possible for
Mother’s Day to have meaning, even if your
mother is no longer living, even if youyourself have no children.
But we decide whom to honor, from our
own perspective as adults. Allowing the
government to disaggregate parenthood is
not a service to children, or to human
liberty. The government is trying to redefine
parenthood, at the urging of the Sex Law
Radicals. I don’t believe anyone is going to
be happy with the outcome, with the
possible exception of the governmental
officials who will come to make their livings
from redefining and regulating other
people’s lives. The decent thing to do is to
leave motherhood alone.
Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. is aneconomist and the Founder and President of
the Ruth Institute , a nonprofit educational
organization devoted to bringing hope and encouragement for lifelong married love.She is also the author of Love and
Economics: It Takes a Family to Raise aVillage and Smart Sex: Finding Life-Long
Love in a Hook-Up World.
