Editorial

Mother of revolutions

What you are about to read is not a sentimental reminder to call your Mom today. You've gotten that enough recently in the marketing campaigns of flower shops, chocolate manufacturers and bath-product purveyors.

Nor is it a rant against the commercialization of this day, nor even the usual invitation to reflect more deeply on what this day is really about.

Today, we want to plant the seeds of revolution.

Here's a little context. For weeks now, Americans have been enthralled with a challenging story on motherhood that has not been presented as such -- the one regarding the polygamists at their YFZ (Yearning for Zion) Ranch in central Texas.

Even calling it the "polygamists" story puts the focus on the men of the compound. What deserves more attention are the women, many of whom were coerced into multiple-wife marriages even in their early teens. More than half of the 53 young women aged 14 to 17 on the ranch were found to have already given birth at least once. More than 400 children (presumably not all from teen mothers) were removed from the ranch to be placed in foster homes.

What is striking is the disrespect shown for the dignity of these women -- and not just by the cult leaders, whose view of marriage falls far below the Christian covenant of equals. Texas, too, has some answering to do for the wholesale separation of these children from their mothers without any detailed public justification.

Yet for all of the media interest in the polygamists and discussion of child welfare, many young women around us are subjected, daily and without media comment, to a sort of cultural abuse that has consequences arguably as bad or worse. Society not only turns a blind eye to sexual activity among minors, increasingly common and at ever earlier ages, it tells girls simply to arm themselves with STD vaccines or contraceptives from the middle school nurse.

Trivializing the significance of youthful sex and the sexualized environment which children face at every turn, sometimes even in their own homes, is a serious mistake. This is the formation -- in many cases deformation -- we are providing the next generation of parents, and mothers.

Pope Benedict XVI called for an "urgent reassessment" of the values underpinning our society during his recent visit to the United States.

"Children deserve to grow up with a healthy understanding of sexuality and its proper place in human relationships," he said. "They should be spared the degrading manifestations and the crude manipulation of sexuality so prevalent today."

A starkly different model is presented by the mothers profiled on Page 14 of this issue. All families are called to be crucibles of holiness, but ones in which there is a child with special needs give especially poignant expression to the fundamental truth that authentic happiness comes through sacrifice of self.

Such families also point to recognition of the innate dignity of each person. And that's a lesson with a broader application, not least of which in a society prone to value women solely by their relative youthfulness and beauty.

Turning society around is going to take a revolution. The way we treat women and mothers is not only a way to measure success, it also plays a key role in achieving it. A good place to start is picking up the phone.