Scott Kamps
I appreciate Mother’s Day more as time passes, especially since it inspires nostalgic memories of a day when men couldn’t have babies and everyone could define a woman – and honor her.
There are negative aspects of Mother’s Day: principally, the sentimentality (and overpriced cards/flowers/gifts) masquerading as honor and the fact that undeserving moms who abdicate responsibilities get honored right alongside faithful mothers.
But as our culture shifts and secularizes, Mother’s Day’s positive aspects stand out, pointing us back to creation order: God made us male and female.
Another benefit of Mother’s Day (and Father’s Day) is the reminder that it doesn’t take a village to raise a child; it takes a mother and a father: to make them and raise them. I’m referencing Hillary Clinton’s book advocating a collectivist approach to raising children (i.e., that children are the responsibility of the community or state, not just the parents). There’s some truth in what collectivists like Clinton say, especially in emphasizing community and looking out for those living around us.
In Graham County, we see this kind of community care and action for others often – especially when there’s tragedy or big health needs around us. Some of what collectivists say sounds good, but, “the truth is in the details" – and the collectivist vision of child-rearing is fundamentally flawed in multiple places.
Consider the difference between love of a mother for her child and love of any governmental bureaucracy or department for a child.
Mothers’ honorable love has been recognized since before King Solomon’s day. Remember the case he judged between prostitutes fighting over one living baby that displayed the great wisdom he was given (1 Kings 3:16-28). He rightly understood that God made mothers to so love their children that they’ll normally sacrifice anything for the good of their offspring and ascertained the real mother by her willingness to give up her child to allow that child to live.
Consider Angeli Rose Gomez’s heroics on May 24, 2022. In the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, a lone gunman killed 19 students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas. When Rose heard an active shooter invaded the school her two young sons attended, she raced there and was disappointed with law enforcement’s inaction. According to reports, “Nearly 400 law enforcement agents rushed to the school but waited more than 70 minutes to confront and kill the gunman in a fourth-grade classroom.” Many officers had recently been trained in dealing with school shootings; the two officers in charge are being charged for endangering students (that case begins in October), but an independent review argued all officers followed protocol.
Ms. Gomez was threatened with arrest and handcuffed for trying to organize parents to intervene. When she was uncuffed, she raced past the officers: entered buildings unarmed and saved her sons.
It’s difficult to find a better illustration contrasting a mother’s and the government’s love. In God’s wisdom, He gave children to families, not the state; and in His goodness, He gave us mothers.
Scott Kamps writes a bi-weekly column for The Graham Star. He can be reached via email, thestableguy@frontier.com.