The Blunt Moms were debating this article about the true value of motherhood.
The gloves came off so we are posting this smack down (using our words because we are Moms). We asked two of our BLUNTmoms to take one big question:
“Is motherhood your greatest accomplishment?”
We know that this a loaded question, but we don’t shy away from taking on the hard ones. We invite you to read over their opinions, then to get out your sparring gloves and duke it out in the comments. Ready, steady, GO!
Mom Number One Point (by Lynn Morrison):
I am SO much more than my uterus
Wham, bam, thank you ma’am was all it took for me to get pregnant. It turns out that I am one of those incredibly lucky women who happens to be married to an incredibly lucky man, and all we have to do is look at one another without protection and I’m dry-heaving over the toilet. The act of going from not-mother to mother took me no effort.
Raising children, on the other hand, is hard work. But so are a lot of great things in my life. Like My degrees. My progress up the career ladder. My adventures. I want my kids to understand that they are also important to me. I want them to know I am proud of them for their goals and accomplishments, not necessarily (only) for the future generations they may bring into this world.
I am SO much more than my uterus. I believe in my inherent ability to make a difference in this world through my own actions and hard work. And I believe the same to be true for my children, and their children and so on. So no, becoming a mother is not my greatest accomplishment. Being someone that my children can aspire to become is.
Mom Number 2 Counterpoint (by Inga Batur):
Making Babies has been by far my greatest achievement
I had to read this article a few times just to see what bothered me the most. I think it’s offensive and trying it’s best to be judgmental. First of all I don’t think being a mother is a job, because I don’t just do nine to five and then I am off. But for the argument’s sake let’s keep it in terms of work. And so, yes it is tough and having kids is by far my greatest achievement. Nothing will ever come close to topping it. I am a working Mom, so I know that no project is as big as raising kids to become loving and content adults.
In all honesty it’s actually the only profession nature intended us to have, everything else we invented. I am not trying to diminish anyone else here nor am I thinking that Mothers are the only ones who have it tough. If we as parents are trying to do the job right I believe none of us have it easy. But propagating the species is apparently not as simple as it used to be for generations or perhaps we are making that much of a fuss, just because we can. Maybe we should follow the examples of our forefathers; shut up and just do it. But what fun would that be?
2 Comments
Of course the differing views are typical of many debates around the roles of mothers. Some day we should ask the kids what they think.
Anyway….
I think the point of motherhood being a woman’s greatest accomplishment is just a matter of the words we use in the description. Of course it is amazing beyond words that our bodies can replicate 50% of ourselves, and 50% of the 30 second participant we call “the Father”. And ya… so totally cool that our undercarriage morphs into a sea monster for a day and spits out a fully formed breathing creature. That is the bomb.
Let us not however continue to use that process as the measure of a woman. It is for sure the most interesting thing that can happen to us – inside our hearts and minds. It is so momentous that we call it our biggest accomplishment, but really what we mean is something a bit different. In the blink of an eye, our hearts begin to walk around outside of our bodies. That is such a huge shift that we put it at the top of our list of cool shit that has happened to us. But it happened inside us.
It is not an accomplishment to the outside world in the same way as say going to the moon would be.
Not that I would go to the moon… there is no Starbucks.
On the contrary, it is accomplishment to the outside world – these kids we are raising are there and they in turn are going to keep having impact on everything in their lives. Sort of ripple effect if you will. And it all starts with parenting them.