Ukraine and the gift of fathers and mothers

“They bombed a maternity clinic and a hospital,” says a young Ukrainian mother at the train station, where she is on the run from the unfolding horror, a small child nestled in her arms. “We have to save our children. My biggest worry is that they stay alive. I’m ready to shield them with my own body.” She smiles, her face serene, resigned. Then, her smile turning pensive, she adds, “But even that might not save them.”

Ukrainian men ages 18 to 60 are being conscripted to fight against Russian forces, and the children are mostly in the care of women. Here in war, the natural distinction between men and women is being laid bare. Andrew T. Walker here at WORLD Opinions and Mark Regnerus at Public Discourse have written on the issue. It makes sense to have the men fight, what with their natural physical strength and bigger size and risk-taking bent. Now, at the risk of stating the obvious, it makes sense to have the mothers stay with the children.

Ukrainian mothers remain with (or flee with) their children while the men go to war because their children need them most urgently. It is most obvious in the case of nursing mothers, but older children need their mothers, too. Children need food and protection, and they need care from an adult. In the case of Ukraine, many children are left with the sole protection of their mothers as fathers have gone to war. Is this really any surprise?

Lest it seems like the mothers would rather abandon their children, a mother’s love for her child naturally makes her want to stay close to him, to care for him, and to protect him. He is her offspring after all. The child is a one-flesh union of his parents—one layer of the double meaning of “the two shall become one flesh.” And so, the child is his father’s as much as he is his mother’s, of course. But it was in her womb that the child was conceived and grew from a tiny baby to a full-grown infant ready for the light of day. It was she who labored and gave birth to him; it was she who sat and nursed him. The bond between them is real, and it is strong. If the psalmist learned to trust while on his mother’s breasts, we may say that a child grows under his mother’s wings. It is good and natural for a mother to stay close to her children.

Our elites have too often lost sight of this natural bent and role of women. We see, for example, the frequent push for the government to subsidize child care when that’s not necessarily even what most American women want. Many would rather be home with their children than to put them in day care, and many would rather entrust their children to a family member if they can’t personally be with them during the workday. On a more charged issue, the very terms “mother” and “father,” or even “women” and “men,” are embattled these days. It is as if the distinction between the two sexes is out of date, and as if mothers and fathers are exchangeable, disposable. Two dads for the baby, but no mom? Love is love. Two moms, no dad? So brave, according to the cultural revolutionaries. Full-blown polyamory? Three cheers, obviously.

This is not to say that no women are taking up arms in Ukraine. Some are joining in the defense of their nation with weapons. But as Mark Regnerus points out, that is rare. And when we see it, it is often “apt to upset,” almost by instinct.

As Anthony Esolen memorably put it, “Nature is conservative with females, because to them is given the whole biological future of the race. She is devil-may-care with males because they are demographically expendable.” That’s blunt, but it points to a basic truth of human nature.

And it is not for lack of courage that women stay back to protect their young, as showcased by what the Ukrainian mother at the train station said. She would willingly lay down her life for her child.

Rather, how the war is being fought in Ukraine—men taking up arms, women staying with their children—unveils the truth about the nature of men and women. If there is something apocalyptic about war—true to the root meaning of apokálypsis in Greek—it is, well, revelatory. Male and female He created them, we read. It may take war for the scales to fall from the eyes of late-modern Westerners: There is such a thing as men and women, and there is such a thing as natural differences between them.