When Mothering is a Sacrifice

Mothers are not as appreciated as they should be. Not yours, not ours. One low point of ingratitude that many readers will recall is the melodic line from Saturday’s Warrior that intones, “Zero population is the answer, my friend.”

However, we first-world nations are getting a rude wake-up call. A primary and ever-worsening concern in most developed countries is “below-replacement level” population rates low enough to weaken the base of the population pyramid in nations like the United States. Harvard-trained economist Catherine Pakaluk recently summarized in her book-length study Hannah’s Children,

The political and economic consequences of these trends cannot be overstated. Below- replacement fertility in the United States imperils every New Deal-era entitlement program, every state pension program, and the future of economic prosperity as workers become scarce.(1)

So, given that zero population growth is not the answer but the problem, what is the answer? Pakaluk demonstrates that social policy has little power to push the fertility needle upward and posits that significant commitment to “religion [is] the only effective family policy”(2) that can promote measurable change in some families. Indeed, social science has repeatedly found that religiously involved women are more likely to remain married, to become married mothers, and to have more children.(3) Perhaps we should go back to the beginning—Genesis, to be precise.

At the Beginning: Eve as the Mother of All Living

In connection with God’s command to “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Genesis 1:28), President Dallin H. Oaks has taught that Eve’s act was “a glorious necessity to open the doorway toward eternal life” and that we are to “celebrate Eve’s act and honor her wisdom and courage in the great episode called the Fall.”(4)

Former counselor in the General Relief Society Presidency, Sheri Dew, observed, “Of all the words they could have chosen to define her role and her essence, both God the Father and Adam called Eve ‘the mother of all living,’ and they did so before she ever bore a child. … Motherhood is more than bearing children. … It is the essence of who we are as women.”(5)

To read the entire article: Public Square Magazine