Are Mothers Slaves?

Mothering Sunday

Mothers' Day in the UK is always three Sundays  before Easter. It is a day on which we give thanks to God for our mothers, and, I hope (if they are around for us to do so) we thank them too! I’m not an expert on slavery, but my guess is that a thanked mother doesn’t fall into that category—though there may be times when she feels taken for granted. I was reminiscing only this afternoon with a mum who was suffering broken nights: you don’t have a choice about getting up to clean up a sick child!

Female roles?

And before any Dads out there blow a fuse, I bet many of you know about that side of parenting too. The concept of male and female roles has blurred in the last century, with many potential benefits for both men and women and society as a whole. However, we risk losing something special if we view ourselves as entirely interchangeable, and there are enormous stresses in our society now because motherhood is so little valued and appreciated, and because economic or career goals are given priority. We may have exchanged one tyranny for another!

The price of the job?

What I want to bring out here is that I think there are few positions in life which don’t involve making choices—sacrifices, even, and I think motherhood is one of the choices which involves huge sacrifices. And once a choice like this has been made, it is irreversible. We become ‘slaves’ to our choice. Our only freedom is to determine what our attitude is. We can fret and resent, or we can recognise that what we are doing gives us an opportunity to express love.

Slaves of Christ?

St Paul describes the Christian life as being ‘slaves of Christ’ but also as ‘perfect freedom’. He told those who were at that time actually slaves, to serve their masters willingly, not just when they were being watched. There is paradox here, and hard things to accept, but the final word must be his description of Christ’s own example, who ‘although he was in his nature God, did not count equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself and became a servant, and was obedient even to the point of death on the cross.’ As we approach Easter, I think we mothers can’t complain!

Article originally published in the N21 Monthly March 2010