Maria Shriver is a journalist and the First Lady of California. When she appeared on the Oprah show in 2004, she made an observation that I totally agree with:
How do we get women to stop saying, “I’m just a mother”? Or, “I used to be such and such, but now I’m just a mother?” We need to market motherhood. So I came up with a saying: “Motherhood: 24/7 on the frontlines of humanity. Are you man enough to try it?”
We’ve discussed this quote before and most of you felt that we needed to start by taking more pride in what we do as mothers and not allowing others to disparage or belittle it.
Do you still agree with that? What else can we do to stand up for ourselves and our callings?
Do you have a quote from a famous mom? Submit it to famousmoms (at) mamablogga.com and we’ll discuss it one week, and you’ll get a link (if you include your URL, of course).
One reply on “Maria Shriver on motherhood”
I’ve had all kinds of challenging jobs and excelled at them, but being a mother is definitely the hardest and I never feel like I’m excelling at it! I wish non-moms got that point, and I’m all for marketing it…
Most moms I know, including me, already take pride in what they do, but one of the hardest parts of this job is there are no pay raises, no annual reviews, no awards, and not a lot of thanks. There are some terrific benefits, but if you’re used to the pats on the back of the corporate world, it’s easy to feel like a failure when you’re not getting that regular feedback.
I think public support, maybe even just from moms supporting other moms, could make all the difference in mine and others’ attitudes towards motherhood.