Thank Heaven for Little Girls

As I watched my 4 granddaughters playing ‘house’ in the backyard cubby last weekend I could feel my heart strangely warmed. The whole scene had a look of being just as it ought: little girls copying mummy and preparing for their own families one day. You can travel to any continent in the world and you will see little girls playing this game, which clearly indicates that homemaking and motherhood is part of our DNA.

Now, lest I lose my feminist readers, let me say that I was of the first generation that encouraged girls to pursue their education beyond high school, for which I am deeply grateful. Also, we will be doing everything we can to encourage and support ALL of our grandchildren’s education, just as we did their parents. (After all, I was a teacher!)
BUT, I part company with the modern feminist who denigrates fulltime motherhood as an occupation unworthy of an intelligent woman.

Firstly, I see motherhood and the making of a happy home as a calling, if not a career. It does not require a university degree, but it wouldn’t hurt if it did, such is the challenge and importance of raising healthy, confident and secure children to adulthood.

Secondly, if nurturing the young and making a happy home is part of our DNA, it is quite unkind to shame young women out of it by questioning their intelligence. The expectations on young mums to desert the home are immense, and those who do are rarely given the respect and encouragement they deserve. They deserve medals! School teachers would line up to deliver them.

Thirdly, as I have said before, our whole future as a nation depends on the women of Australia building homes as safe havens and raising healthy, happy children. Not only are our schools employing more and more welfare coordinators and psychologists, but our hospitals and prisons are bulging with young adults who are dysfunctional and desperately unhappy. Today’s children will either build our nation or bleed it.

So encourage your little girls when they play house and give them a healthy understanding of their God-given, awesome responsibility of bearing and raising children. By all means encourage them to study and learn… the smarter our future homemakers the better… but to also understand ‘timing’ and ‘priority’. Perhaps this way we will also have healthy and happy mums.