On Raising the Next Generation

 Some expanded thoughts I posted in response to a post that highlighted a woman author of about 100 years:

"Having done nothing remarkable except produce the next generation."

This line, to me, is a slap in the face to women. It's great that women can do just about anything....but did it need to be said by slapping 'mere' mothers in the face?

My doctor is a woman and I can't say enough about her. She went above and beyond in our moment of crisis when I had emergency surgery days before our cross-country move in 2023, and her dedication to helping even a brand-new patient helped us make that move and transfer my medical care. One of our vets who has taken care of our dogs and our sheep in an emergency is a woman. I could go on and on about all the women I've worked with and for.

I personally played trombone semi-professionally for years in big bands and orchestras. I've written and played music, founded a school band. I've written and co-written 15 books. I've published another 40 or 50, curated poetry anthologies. I've earned a master's degree. I've built a publishing business. I manage our family farm which means feeding animals, hauling feed and tossing bales of hay over fences, marketing, selling, delivering goods, managing employees, processing animals and herbs, keeping accounts and occasionally getting trampled by a panicked ram that outweighs me, breaking up dog fights & dodging rolling UTVs, and I can do all of it. In short: I have no problem with women doing and being things other than mothers.

That said, I've also raised 9 children to be great adults and am now step-mother to a third daughter. They're all good people, working, giving to the world, helping others, living their faith, striving to put good into the world. This didn't happen by accident. It happened because I valued the job of raising my children. I find it disturbing that raising the next generation to be good and moral people is dismissed in this article as 'nothing except....'

One of my daughters holds a Ph.D. (and has now given up her job to raise her daughter, as has one of my daughters-in-law who has her degree in education), another is working toward her masters and the third wants nothing more than to be a wife and mother and I HATE it that today's society looks down on one of those daughters as wanting 'nothing except....'

I hate it that I felt, every time I saw the call to submit college notes, that saying, "I had a baby" was not acceptable. I felt I had to submit a 'real' accomplishment. I hate it that young women today are being raised to think that being a good and loving mother isn't enough. That that's not a real accomplishment. It is. It's a vital accomplishment.

Raising my children to be good and moral people is the MOST important job I've done. Raising the next generation is vitally important. Each of my daughters is following her heart and what she feels called to and the daughter who wants to raise the next generation is as important as the daughter who earned a Ph.D. The work she's called to is as important.

Much as I love writing, publishing, podcasting, music, and my work building our farm, my work raising the next generation is the MOST important work I've done in my life.

Frankly, our American society is in complete disarray right now with rampant crime, fraud, and other problems, and maybe what we need most IS parents--mothers and fathers both--who see value in raising the next generation rather than dismissing it as 'nothing except raising the next generation.' Our future literally depends on the next generation being raised well.

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If you like this article, you may also like:

Daley and the Dogs

Planning a Pyramid

Meeting Margaret: the Conclusion

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