Tea at Trianon: The Political Voice of the Full-time Mother

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, May 12, 2019

The Political Voice of the Full-time Mother

From The Federalist:

"The hand that rocks the cradle rocks the world.” I first heard that saying from my mother, who homeschooled five children. I hardly ever hear that proverb anymore, and now that I’m raising my own children, I often find myself doubting it. Every day, well-educated, economically stable women like me get the message that the hand rocking the cradle would be put to better use rocking the world in some other way, that full-time motherhood is a waste of our potential. As we busy ourselves with fixing lunches, scrubbing the bathtub, and herding a litter of tiny troublemakers through the checkout line at the grocery store, the thought might cross our minds that there’s something to the criticism.

I value my motherhood above any other responsibility I have in this life. I respect other stay-at-home moms (SAHM) for their commitment to raising their children full-time. But like so many other mothers who “stay home,” mothering and home-making are not all the work I do. In my case, I write and podcast. I don’t do it because I’m afraid of being judged for being a strictly SAHM. This work is my way of attempting to rock the world outside the comfort and relative serenity of my happy family. (Read more.)