“Women were driving in and out of their neighborhoods leaving at the crack of dawn,” she recalled, “and coming back late in the evenings. I kept on thinking of all of the ironies of working so hard, but not having the time or children to actually relish in a family life.”
Pilarski remembers there being more nannies and daycares watching children than mothers where she lived.
“It really seemed eerie that many women who their entire lives looked forward to getting married and having children were giving up that privilege to a paid provider.”
The author observed that this dynamic can be traced to the basic problem that “motherhood is not valued in today's world.”
“The very thought that a mother is expected to have a baby and almost immediately go back to work is a clear indication that we are not valuing the mother,” she said.
“As a culture we are saying that it really doesn't matter who watches our children, so long as it's being cared for—that's all that matters. The mother child bond was not meant to be brokered into a financial transaction. The mother child bond is sacred and we as a culture have secularized it.”
She noted that many of the decisions families make in modern society “are based on the 'almighty' dollar.”
“Often when I ask moms why they are not watching their own children, they say, 'Do the math.' But there is more to family life than the bottom line, isn't there?”
Pilarski said her book challenges “our current North American cultural model of motherhood” and asks the reader “to prayerfully consider motherhood as a vocation a call from God.”
Marianne is a journalist with a background in writing and Catholic theology. When not elaborating on the cinematic arts, she enjoys spending time with people, reading thick books and traveling anywhere and everywhere.