Tea at Trianon: How Does Society Measure Mothers?

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, March 14, 2021

How Does Society Measure Mothers?

From Theology of Home:

Some of the confusion can be attributed to the battle that once raged between career moms versus stay-at-home: the so-called "Mommy Wars." The dichotomy posed to women was something like: will you be a cultured and intelligent career woman, whose sophistication places you above the menial tasks of daily domesticity? Or will you be a nurturing, there to kiss-the-boo boos sort of mom, unconstrained by any need for the accolades that accompany the quantifiable achievements of a career? In many ways it was a battle waged in the media more than in ourselves or our communities.

In reality, most mothers' choices are driven less by simplistic narratives, than by the demands of the circumstances presented to them. I have rarely met an at-home mother who did not at some point think wistfully about the skills and gifts she no longer had time to foster and develop. Nor have I known working mothers of small children who did not often yearn to be with them more and dream and scheme of ways to hasten that possibility. The "Mommy Wars" for most, were more personal battles than external ones. Why did we complicate that which is already complex with the stoking of these wars?

The answer might lie in part with the self-declared victors. The point was to take an already fraught decision for many women navigating the realities of child-bearing and financial needs, and to tip the scales to one side. If nature and instinct pull most of us to desire to nurture our infants and spend more than a couple of hours with our toddlers, then a social engineering campaign is needed to counter those instincts with a one-size-fits-all narrative promising our fulfillment is found in our employment, and that our worth is found in our wage. (Read more.)