Housewife, Working Woman, or Supermom???

     A lovely lady named Dr. Savage spoke at an event that I recently attended. You can learn more about what she does here. Although I do not wish to plagiarize, I would like to tell you some of the great things she spoke to us about. So, with that preface, these were some of her main points:

     Her own life story illustrated her message. Her peaceful and joyous persona made us want to follow her advice. When she spoke, it was what like an old sage whispering secrets of life, gently correcting mistakes, and confirming previous hunches.
      She was a business woman, who rose quite high in her company. As she began to study church doctrine, she started to implement it into the company, which brought very good results. She got married later in life and then went back to school to get her Master's degree(s?). She currently teaches at the St. Paul seminary. Along the way, she adopted a baby and spent a few years as a stay-at-home Mom. While her life was not perfect(for example, she cried quite often for a few years when she was unable to get pregnant), she had one basic message: women have a place in the world, and it is through their motherhood. She neither wished all women to be unmarried company executives nor banished them all to the kitchen. Instead, she had an uplifting picture of womanhood. She had been happy as a single working lady, a stay-at-home mom, and a professor. Her message included the fact that women cannot "do it all." There is no way that a girl can feasibly raise a family and have a successful career.
     Yet, she did not think that day care was evil or that stay-at-home moms were parasites living off of their husbands (these were two extremes that she brought up). The idea she gave us of the world was more of a concrete and complex world-view. She suggested honestly appraising the situation and placing our role as women of God. For example, this really affects the place of the single woman in the world. While being single is a vocation in the church, it is important to recognize that motherhood is the calling of all women. Of course, this does not mean that every girl needs to have children or even be around children. To truly live our vocations we must examine if they are for ourselves or for caring for others. (This reminds me of the good old Baltimore Catechism which said that no one should be single unless they were caring for an older relative).
    This might seem unresolved, but seriously, its kind of the point of a life to figure out what we should do and how we should do it, right?