Ask the Editor: Meaning in motherhood

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, November 4th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. We receive a lot of emails with questions, concerns, and suggestions. We present some of those during our regular Listener Feedback segment. But once a month we ask the editor to respond to a particular inquiry. WORLD Executive Producer Paul Butler will do just that.

PAUL BUTLER, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Today I’d like to respond to an email we received after the October 14th feature by Steve West on Christian poet Ann Porter.

I was hosting that day, and introduced the segment this way:

PAUL BUTLER: And I’m Paul Butler. Next up: hope for those who haven’t found their calling…at least not yet. WORLD’s Steve West tells us about an author whose first poems weren’t published until she was in her 80s.

After that segment aired, a listener named Amy wrote to me about that introduction. Here’s what she wrote:

This may surprise you, but those words discouraged me! I believe your writers intended them to encourage. Let me explain…

Ann Porter was a poet who was published late in life. I do see that as special. But she had already fulfilled her life’s calling before that point. Motherhood is a calling as is being a wife!

I have often felt discouraged about being a mom, and because at this point in my life, I am a stay-at-home mom homeschooling or doing distance ed with my children, I feel even more discouraged when I hear a philosophical statement that implies that this lady poet didn’t find or fulfill her calling until she got her poems published in her 80s. What does that say about what I’m investing my life in?

The world already devalues and discourages motherhood. Please don’t follow suit.

Amy didn’t leave an email address, so I hope she’s listening this morning.

We have seven core values at WORLD. They help us define our organizational culture. Number 5 is this: “We treasure our families.” One of the last things we would ever want to downplay is the divine calling of motherhood.

We did not intend in any way to suggest that Ann Porter had missed her calling until she was 80 years old. Or that being a poet was somehow more important than being a parent. What we intended to communicate was that even at 80 years old, when our society tends to push our seniors to the margins and silence them, God still had work for her to do. A calling that was in addition to—or perhaps even granted to her because of her faithfulness to—the earlier God-ordained callings within her family, her church, and her community. And we could have said that better.

Each and everyone of us has multiple callings. I am a husband, a father, a grandfather, a pastor…and I serve here as a manager. I believe that each of these callings come from God, and He equips me to do each of them. Some of those callings come and go, and others are life-long.

Our church just finished Proverbs 31 last night in Bible study. In this great chapter on the virtuous woman—or the woman of noble character—she’s praised not for her beauty or charms, but because of her fear of the Lord…which of course we see throughout the Proverbs as being the beginning of wisdom. Then king Lemuel’s mother says this…and I think it is true of every homeschooling mom I know:

Proverbs 31:25-29
25 ​Strength and honor are her clothing; ​​She shall rejoice in time to come. 26 ​​She opens her mouth with wisdom, ​​And on her tongue is the law of kindness. 27 ​​She watches over the ways of her household, ​​And does not eat the bread of idleness. 28 ​​Her children rise up and call her blessed; ​​Her husband also praises her.

And so we want to add our voice of praise to that chorus. Motherhood is already a difficult enough job without the myriad voices that downplay it or devalue it.

I could now get an email criticizing me for not acknowledging the other callings of women—those without children, those who have yet to marry, or who never married. That is not the intent. We must all come alongside each other and encourage one another in the faith and in following God’s callings—whatever they may be and in whatever season.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter what our society thinks about our God given callings…the scriptures instruct us to fear the Lord and invest His gifts in His work so that we may hear these words—words I hope our listeners consider as they contemplate your letter Amy, as well as— Ann Porter’s life: “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many. Enter into the joy of your lord.”

I’m Paul Butler.

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