Did You Just Say What I Think You Said?

I was getting ready this morning and the TV in my room was on. It was tuned to the Today Show and I was just half paying attention to it when I heard the promo for their next segment come on. It was entitled "Slacker Mom vs. Alpha Mom". The whole segment was to try and find out which was better the "Alpha Mom" who is picture perfect and everything in her life follows suit or the "Slacker Mom" who is more laid back. Her kids hair isn't perfectly done, clothes might be a little wrinkled, store bought cupcakes as opposed to made from scratch. Apparently I fall into the latter category. But would I characterize myself as a "SLACKER"? Uh, no. Are all of the mom's out there who aren't "PERFECT", slackers? Uh, again, I must answer a with a huge NO!


This is why I don't watch the "news", if you categorize the Today show as news. I can't stand the media. Seriously. They just severely irritate me. All of 'em. Where do they get off calling the majority of mothers in the world slackers. Honestly. Being a mother is one of the hardest jobs on earth and I just really would have to take offense if I cared enough about the media to be offended by them. But I don't, so I will just end it right here.


So I will go forward today, with my head held high, to serve my children cold cereal for breakfast, dig through the pile of clean yet unfolded laundry for underwear for them to put on, and bake them cookies by scooping the pre-made dough out of the container I purchased at Sam's Wholesale Club. But before I do that, I leave you with this rather large quote from Oprah:


I'm in awe of good mothers—those heroines all around me who sacrifice daily out of love for their children. In our society, we give motherhood plenty of lip service. We pat moms on the head, bring them flowers on Mother's Day, and honor them before crowds. But at the end of the day, we don't extend them the same respect we would a professor, a dentist, an accountant or a judge. Women who choose full-time mothering are often put in a box by their friends and former colleagues—a container labeled "just a mom."


I believe the choice to become a mother is the choice to become one of the greatest spiritual teachers there is. To create an environment that's stimulating and nurturing, to pass on a sense of responsibility to another human being, to raise a child who understands that he or she is created from good and is capable of anything—I know for sure that few callings are more honorable. To play down mothering as small is to crack the very foundation on which greatness stands.


The world can only value mothering to the extent that women everywhere stand and declare that it must be so. In our hands, we hold the power to transform the perception of motherhood. Whether we decide to work full-time while raising children, stay home with our kids, or bear no children at all, we need to understand that any put-down of the decision to mother is a threat to women's choices everywhere. We should no longer allow a mother to be defined as "just a mom." It is on her back that great nations are built. We should no longer allow any woman's voice to be drowned out or disregarded. As we affirm other women, and as we teach our sons, husbands and friends to hold them in the highest regard, we honor both the mothers whose shoulders we've stood on and the daughters who will one day stand tall on ours.