Yesterday, I came upon a headline in my news feed called “The Rise of TV’s ‘Anti-Mom’.”  I don’t really recommend the article, but I was alarmed by its main points.  It summarized the evolution of the way mothers are portrayed in popular television programs, tracing their history from Beaver’s mom and Donna Reed, to Carol Brady, Mrs. Huxtable, and then into Rosanne and some current mother characters in “Desperate Housewives” and “Modern Family.”  The implications are obvious.  What society expects from mothers has drastically changed.  We now celebrate, cheer for, and empathize with what the article calls “flawed moms,” claiming that the happy, organized mothers of the past “set up an atmosphere for women that was just impossible to actually stand by.”

Reading it made me sad.  And it didn’t even touch on the dangerous “reality” TV moms.  The very concept of “anti-mom” shows a shift from concern and care for others to an obsession with self and individualism.  I immediately thought of Sister Julie Beck’s recent talk and this bold claim:

“A lot of the antifamily messages that you are hearing are targeting young women. Satan knows that he will never have a body; he will never have a family. He will target those young women who create the bodies for the future generations and who should teach the families. They don’t even know what they’re being taught in the messages. It’s just seeping in, almost through their pores. Because Satan can’t have it, he’s luring away many women, and also men, and they’re losing confidence in their ability to form eternal families.

. . . Anti-Christ is antifamily. Any doctrine or principle our youth hear from the world that is antifamily is also anti-Christ. It’s that clear. They need to know that if it’s antifamily, it’s anti-Christ. An anti-Christ is antifamily.”

I’m not on any national news feed, but since I feel like one of the main purposes of my blog is to defend the divinity of motherhood, I just can’t keep my mouth shut.  I know that motherhood Continue reading →