MOTHER’S DAY CIRCA 2012
I was born during the Hoover administration so I know something about change having seen my shoes go in and out of fashion thirty times and forget about swanky hats. And I’m not one of those relics who say “I believe in progress. I just don’t like change.” Especially when astonishing progress has given me a cell phone, Netflix and a cherished GPS (which lately, truth be told, mostly guides me to funeral homes).
Age does not guarantee wisdom but it does offer perspective. In addition to societal and technical changes I’ve also survived five wars and the feminist and sexual revolutions. And now, late in the day, with eight granddaughters to consider, I’m confronted with the recent War Against Women, a conflict which targets mothers inasmuch as the explicit issue is women’s reproductive health. I see progress threatened to be reversed by adversaries who are not turbaned Talibans but misogynistic white collared Christian men trumpeting their “family values”.
Historically women’s only significant advantage was first crack at the lifeboats. We’ve slogged through a protracted uphill battle to achieve parity with men and recently, bewilderingly, we’re sliding back down that slippery slope as birth control is being challenged. Birth control being the hard fought linchpin of women’s progress having factored opportunities our grandmothers never, ever, imagined. When women had no control over their own bodies their prospects were also beyond their control. Now we see priapic men in high places proclaiming that Viagra deserves to be covered by health insurance but women’s birth control must regress to a bewildering version of Russian Roulette.
If family values are at stake we must first appreciate that mothers are the backbone of every family. As a species we are mammals receiving our first food from the bodies of our mothers. Whose survival depends on mother and child being nourished and sheltered. Lip service is given to motherhood as “the most important job a woman can have” and children as “the hope of the future” but government subsidies go elsewhere.
In this new assault on women it doesn’t help that the feminist movement appears to have lost its mojo. For instance, in 1978, 100,000 women marched on Washington demanding equal rights. Currently called “The Women’s Equality Amendment” it still hasn’t passed. Also “feminism” egregiously overlooked the protection of mothers working outside the home. NOW has yet to address the embarrassment that, according to the National Geographic, 170 countries offer paid maternity leave and 98 of them offer at least 14 weeks off with pay. The United States is not one of them. In fact we are one of only four countries with no mandated paid family leave placing us in the fashionable company of Papua New Guinea, Liberia and Swaziland. How’s that for equality and “family values”?
Because you really can’t fool Mother Nature, I’m not convinced that leaders of the feminist movement respected the gravitational pull of motherhood for most women. Just look at the incredible lengths women these days go to trying get pregnant. Fertility specialists. In vitro fertilization. Surrogates. Thousands of dollars spent to achieve what, ironically, most of their mothers tried to avoid.
It also seems the height of hypocrisy that “family values” politicians have the effrontery to come up with unlimited funds for warfare while simultaneously trumpeting their commitment to the intrinsic value of every human life. Actually most of their positions are spectacularly incoherent inasmuch as they cut services to children and the poor while positing themselves as “Christians”. Makes you wonder how much they understand the compassionate nature of Jesus Christ. Or better yet, have figured out whose side He’d be on.
In the matter of faith, having been raised a Catholic, the niece of a Jesuit, I am particularly frustrated by the Church’s empirical disregard for women’s reproductive health. Saddened by a church that traditionally treats women as second class citizens (even their own devoted nuns). The prescient Fr. Charles Curran claimed, “Many men in the Church are only comfortable with their mothers or with the Blessed Mother especially if she’s an unmoving statue with glass eyes and a marble body.” Amen! And what celibate man could appreciate pregnancy and childbirth and the 24/7 care of a child? I absolutely believe that if bishops could get pregnant, objection to birth control would go the way of meatless Friday.
And then there’s the doctrinal dilemma. While the Vatican also vociferously opposes surrogate mothering is it concomitantly grateful that there was no such decree when Jesus was born?
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Notes – January 2012
I HAVE REALLY GOOD NEWS
Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker has written a book called THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE and it presents an encouraging and optimistic view of life today. He demonstrates that we are living in the most peaceful era in our species existence. Hard to believe when we see violence and hate everywhere but statistically only 3% of us die from man- made catastrophes where 13% of native Americans died of trauma and in the 17th century, the thirty years war reduced Germany’s population by one-third. Homicides are down all over and the murder rate in Britain has fallen by 90% since the 14th century.
Now all these statistics seem small comfort when the nightly news shows us horrors around the world but we definitely are going in the right direction. There is global consensus today that slaughtering civilians is an outrage and the pace of moral indignation has accelerated on issues like civil rights, the role of women and equality for gays. There is less tolerance for cruelty to children and animals. One comical statistic is that modern children’s television programs have 4.8 violent scenes per hour compared to nursery rhymes with 52.2.
Like everyone I hanker for the good old days. I miss the people I knew back then and the slower pace of life. But wouldn’t want to give up my cell phone and computer. And central air and heat that doesn’t involve a coal furnace. And television which brings me out into the world while I sit in my wing chair. One of my young grandchildren asked what kind of tv programs kings and queens in medieval days watched. He was blown away by the idea of a court jester instead of 200 channels. So I explained that we Americans are living in wondrous times, in a world however flawed where humans seem to be getting nicer.
One startling statistic is that of all the humans who ever lived on planet earth, 10% are living here now. And given that lesser populations produced Mozart and Michelangelo, a sizeable percent must have talent so how come we’re stuck with the Kardashians and Snookie? And wouldn’t you think the Republicans could come up with better contenders? Why do I keep coming back to court jesters?
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Book Launch
There was a full house at the Nyack Center in Nyack, New York, celebrating Terry Hekker's new book DISREGARD FIRST BOOK as the crowd thoroughly enjoyed an evening with the author and her friends, the actresses Elaine Stritch and Arlene Dahl.
The stars of stage and screen delighted the audience with their readings of book excerpts --- Ms. Stritch relayed the story -- in her inimitable way -- on how she came up with the title of the book (Chapter 1, AFGO). Ms. Dahl enchanted the crowd with highlights from Chapter 6, The Madam Was Adam, sharing the author’s views on the vast, and not-so-obvious differences between the sexes, and the possibility of the female as the original sex.
The author took questions from the audience, including inquiries about her next book and the fascinating people she’s met along the way, and autographed a mountain of books.
CLICK TO SEE TERRY AT THE NYACK CENTER!
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DISREGARD FIRST BOOK, Terry Martin Hekker’s second non-fiction book, follows the success of the 1979 bestseller, Ever Since Adam and Eve, hailed by Publisher’s Weekly as “a gem”. The book launched her as a national domestic authority for her views on the joys of motherhood and homemaking at the height of the feminist movement. Decades later, following Terry’s unforeseen divorce after a 40-year marriage, Terry decided to take life head-on, becoming the first woman elected mayor of her Hudson Valley village of Nyack.
In 2006, The New York Times ran a piece written by Terry about her divorce and recovery in their Modern Love column, which went around the world and triggered enormous media interest and hundreds of letters. Although there had been many requests that she write a book, Terry felt she could hardly write a sequel to her story of happy homemaking with the chronicle of a dumped housewife. Mostly, she couldn’t even think of a title. Until her long-time friend, the astonishing Broadway legend Elaine Stritch, came up with a perfect one, ‘Disregard First Book.’
Disregard First Book offers the author’s mixture of wit and wisdom as she tackles issues triggered by the cataclysmic changes fostered by the feminist and sexual revolutions. Readers will enjoy her odyssey of hope and love punctuated by uproarious anecdotes about her big Irish family.
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Click to read excerpts from "Disregard First Book"
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