By LINDSAY McALLISTER
le6@email.byu.edu
I had a problem.
I was stranded at work, my husband had just left for school and I had just spilled my spaghetti all over my clothes. There was no way I could work with tomato sauce covering my body, and there was no way I could get home to change my clothes.
While I sat there panicking, I thought back to what I would have done if I was still a little girl -- I would have called my mommy. Sure enough, when I called, she was at home vacuuming. I told her of my misfortune and she dropped what she was doing to bring me new clothes and sympathize with my plight. My mother was there for me when I needed her, and she always has been there.
My mother has always been a 'stay-home mom.' She prefers to call herself a 'domestic goddess' and proudly signed my papers from school with a 'D.G.' following her name. Whatever she chooses to call herself, she has always been my role model, and I have always wanted to be just like her.
Some people don't see wanting to be a mother a worthwhile goal. A few weeks ago, a local middle school was invited to participate in a 'job shadow day' where students would be able to follow their parents around to experience an occupation first-hand.
My cousin, whose mom also stays home, asked her homeroom teacher if she could stay home with her mom all day to see what she did. My cousin then told this teacher she wanted to be a mom when she grew up. The teacher told her she wasn't allowed to stay home with her mom because being a mom is not a real job.
But being a mom is a real job, and the attitude some people have against the important role is wrong. In 'The Family: A Proclamation to the World,' the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said, 'By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children ... Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.'
Along with the LDS Church, many other Christian groups blame the calamities society faces today on the breakdown of the traditional family and the mother unnecessarily going into the work force. Many children are lost because they don't have a mother to call on in times of need. This breakdown of the family leads to participation in gangs and eventually violence and crime.
Women, as well as other role models like teachers and youth leaders, should stop shunning the important job of being a full-time mother.
Mothers contribute to society and right society's wrongs more than any social worker, journalist, lawyer, doctor or politician. Mothers are the special women who raise their children to become contributing members of society, therefore righting wrongs one child at a time.
If each child had a mother that could stay home and rear him or her with values and morals, society would have fewer wrongs.
Being a mother is a real job and society should recognize mothers as the important people they are.
After all, there is no telling the power a domestic goddess possesses.