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MOTHERKOOD, APPLE PIE AND REVOLUTION MAY 14, 1972
EXODUS 20: 1-14 JOHN M. BUCHANAN
EPHESSANS 6:3-4

In a desightful little book 'The Trouble With Being a Mama", Eva Rutland
introduces her topic this way:

The trouble with being a mama fs, you worry too much. You worry about
why Tommy spits up his milk, why Archie sucks his thumb, why Doris has no
dates and Patty too many, how to get children who don't like eggs to eat
good solid breakfasts, how to stretch the budget to include those nourishing
eggs they feave on their plates, how to calm a husband who doesn’t Like
eggs feft on plates that a budget had to be stretched to include, why other
kids Jook so scrubbed and yours look so grimy, why someone doesn't invent
sneakers that don't make fect sweat, how to get a bass fiddle and a four-~
foot boy to schoo! together without carrying them yourself, how to discipiine
Bitly without warping his personality, how to keep your husband from warping
Billy's personality, how to iron blouses with no cat-faces..... .

My trouble is | wasn't trained to be a mama - not the worrying Type,
anyway. My mama never worried. Oh, about fundamental things jike how to
pay the bilis and what to cook for dinner. But about children, no. You
bathed ‘em, you fed 'em, you made 'em behave - and that was if."

The author goes on to describe her mother's method of solving the problem of
thumb sucking, which was to tie said thumb to the bed post - and stealing,which
was to have the culprit wear a blind fold for three hours. There was no connection
whatever between the offense and the punishment - it was totally unsound psychological ly
and the onty thing that could be said about it was that it worked. (PI1-I3,exerpts)
The trouble with being a mother is that there are so many experts and so much
new knowledge and so many sources of edification and advise that it is almost
impossible to feel good about oneself - and not worry. And at this point, ¢ wish
to make one thing totatly clear. The job of parenting is not a mama's job: tt
is a shared task, and even though this is specifically Mother's Day, my comments
this morning are intended to be shared by ail who find themselves involved In

families - which means everyone here.

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In any case, mothers worry a lot today, and so do fathers, That is the first
reality on the agenda, The second is a movement that has etlecited witdly
different responses in ali of us - Womens Liberation. Men applaud some of it,
laugh at some of it, and tremble in tear at some of it. Eva Ruttand wrote her book
long ago - in 1966: and in the intervening 6 ycars soma women have called into
question the whole concept af the Tamily and the traditional roles of Motherhood:
some very articulate women have said some things that needed to be said about the
fegai status of women in our culture, financial renumeration, the freedom to be a
person, The right to be accepted as a person apart from taking the minutes and
making the coffee. For many women it has been like a breath of fresh air, for
others it has meant the amplification of frustration and tension. ‘ind general ly
mothers have looked seriously at the role our society has assigned them and
discovered that in the context of parenting, they have gotten the heavy end of the
burden.

And so, on this day that celebrates ~ in a real sense - a past phenomenum -
Motherhood and Apple Pie , .only the blind will fil te acknowledge that we are in
the midst of a revolution, ike it or not. It is a rather unique time te be a Mother ~
for a Father ~ or a family: a time,| believe filled with creative possibility and
potential,

And as we reflect together, let us look quickly at the Biblical basis - the
tradition ~ the word. In the Bible the family is not accidental: it is not simply
& convenient tiving arrangement for the purpose of prepogating the race, although
it has performed that function rather effectively. So effectively in fact that
humanity has accomplished the good and has been faithful to God's command to be
fruitfut and multiply and fil the earth, One ecologist laments that this is the
only ddvine instruction men have taken seriously.

In any case the Bible says some rather clear things about families and parents.
Our Lord described the Genesis of the family in terms of a man leaving father and
mother and being jotned to his wife: and the two become one flesh. Now, that phrase -

repeated over and over in the marriage ceremoney is as worn as an ofd shoe. But

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| belive it contains a very radical detinition of the marital and family reletionship:

nave’. jcat incividuais - for the sake of the new reality - the new being - sacrifice
individuality. That does not mean that we stop being ourselves - that we sacrifice
all that makes us what we are. It dogs mean that we sense ourselves growing jato

senething that ts bieger Than beth of us - and that cur individuality fs preserved
anc enhanced in the intimacy of relationship. Marriage and the tamily, that Is to
say, are at the very heart of God's plan for his children.

The Bible, in the Ten Commandments, the basis of Israel's Covenant with God,
the basis of the nations: ‘aw, includes honoring one's parents. And in the New
Testament St. Paul advises children to obey their parents, and parents not to
provoke their children - which says something about communication and the spirit of
reconciliation which must be a part af the project.

In summary, when we discuss tho task of being parents and children ~ families —
in the context of the Bible, we are talking about a very important and fundamental!
and creative matter.

And yet, the famify seems to be in big trouble today. If you read at all you
know that every major magazine keeps returning to the topic, that their are literally
thousands of tooks diagnosing and analyzing our dilemna, that we are doing a lot of
hand wringing over the failure and fragility of the home and traditional family.

To that vast library of titerature | would add three reflections.

First the family that is in trouble today ts the nuclear family: Mother, Father
and chi'tdren isojated from aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. Margaret Mead
observes that the nuclear family is not old and venerable institution. I7 's a new
invention, and a bad one, The honesty of that observation was iftlustrated to me
again last week. | received a phone catl from my Mother who was hit by a car on
Thursday, sustalned somc cuts and bruises and was not, thankfully, injured seriously.
But it was a frightening experience -- and it occurred to me again that she lives in
a city where She has Jived all her life - and that at a distance of 550 miles | am
her closest relative. The nuctear family means that there is, for many people

no one to turn to when the chips are down, no one to be there and share and jaugh

wha

and cry and pour the coffee. And the added pressures put on the nuctear family -
the isolated unit are more than it can stand.

The second reflection has to do with "the Gap", a gap that is now gencrational
but onfy by accident. | have come to understand that the real gap - the chasm That
divides our culture fs World War |{. Time is divided by that event: people are
divided between those who were born before it and those born after it. For, ina
real sense, we are talking about two different nations two totally differant
experiences, two different cultures, when we reflect on that dividing iine. Never,
in the entire history of mankind, has so much happened in one generation: never has
The rate of change been so rapid: from Kerosene lamps te television: from horsa and
buggy to Appollo 16. Those old enough to have tived through ail or part of it have
had to be the most adaptabic, flexible peopfe ever to Inhabit the earth. Middte
aged and elderly people aren't rigid and unbending on measure. Quite to the contrary;
and everytime | talk to someone who can recall the old and live gracefully with
tne new | am moved tu want to congratulate them simply for assimilating so much,

It iS no mean accomplishment!

What it means though is that now - at this particular point In time, our
children are the natives in this brand new {and, and those of us born prior to 1945
are immigrants, newcomers thrust by history into a brand new situation. They are
The ones born hers: they Know how to use the tools’ they feel the new world view:
they know, significantly, the language. Speaking at Purduc, C.B.S. Correspondent
Douglas Edwards reminised about the day not long ago when ‘pot was for cooking a
chicken, ‘grass’ was for watering and trimming, “fuzz” grow on a peach, °« flaky"
described pie crust, juice came from oranges, “sauce basted the turkey, and
"busted" was something that happened fo a window when you played bali close to the
house. lf you know what those terms mean today - you are becoming ‘naturalized’:
if you have to think or you don’+ know, you - as | am many times ~ are on immigrant
who doesn't know the language.

Margaret Mcag compares us with the first settlers who came to the strange and

sometimes alien tand, who didn't know how to bulid jog cabins, or even how to wield

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an axe: and suggests that our job is the same as theirs: to build what we can, to
leave something firm and stable for the natives - the first born = our children,

The third reflection is that parents are miserablu today. Nobody scems to
feel good about being parents - everybody sews to be ready to be self-accusing,
self-deprecating - and inadequate. No young people in history have felt that their
parents were doing a good job: but here, in the mid twentith century American cul ter:
we have become a generation of parents who agree. If something goes wrong,we
assume automaticaliy that the parents arc at fault: kids are always good and right
and pure. That contrasts sharply with ths traditional British view that children
are ossentialiy monsters to b» managed, shackled and foterated. Now, this is not
to mininize the tremendous responsibilities of parenthood. [ft is to acknowcdge
that sometimes loving, sensitive, intelligent parents raise children that somehow
come out wrongly. It is to suggest that children are people too, and that if John
Caivin was right. in any sense of the word, cntidren are as capable of seffishness,
arrogance, thoughtlessness as adults. it is to say that all of us need to relax +
that we are probably daing a pretty fair job ~ that our best is, in fact, enough.

Now, what fight can be shed on our situation by the resources of Christian Fait!
Quite a bit, | believe. For | assume that the intimate relationships of the family
sEPYo @S an aip!tfier to both our strengths and weaknesses as persons. That is to
say, Our families provide the laboratory experience for the practice of our faith.
If we have trouble loving other people - that inability will be felt most severely
by our familics. tf we feel guilty and inadequate about ourselves, we may be able
fo function in the worid of business, but not at closer range with our chitdren,
If we cannot forgive and sense our own forgiveness ~ we may be abde to live in the
world as a cold, remote type of person and get away with it, but not with our own
children.

| have nothing new and startling to offer: but | would suggest that some very
old and traditional words become new and startiing when we exercise them with our
families. There is no one here who has not been kind and patient and understanding

with every single parson he has encountered al | day - except his wife or her husband,

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or their children. Words like respect and forgiveness and acceptance come to mind
here. We need most of all to jearn to axtend to each other in our families -
these graceful gifts of fove ~ that we try to hard to extend to everyone clse.

Forgiveness-acceptance: | think that is most important of all. Love Story
was dead wrong: love does not mean naver having to say you're sorry. Quite the
opposite, if means saying ft over and over again for the smatl ways we hurt and
fail wach other, It means accepting each other as persons - mothers anc fathers and
children and giving each other the graceful gift of acceptance.

For paraunts, it means living gracefully with the fact that our chitdren will
not be carbon capies of ourselves. In fact thzy may not be fike us at all for
they are nativ.s in the new land we have made for them. It means hearing them
when they affirm their personhood and not fatling over the inconsequential matters
of hair and music and clothing stylus.

For young people, adolescents, if means loving by accepting the individuality
and personhood of parents: by realizing on occassion fhat they are peoptc too: that
They stumble and fail and make mistakes and need to be forgiven ~ and loved for who
they are.

The Christian faith, finally, places cach of us in a very special relationship,
with God through Jesus Christ, and because of that, in a new relationship with cach
other. God's intention for his church is that it become a community of caring
people who love, accept and support each other.

Our chifdren need the people of this church: they need The aunts and uncles and
cousins and grandparents whom God has provided at this time and place. And wo need
each other - to share our decpest concerns - to help and support each other. The
church can be that for alf of us: it is that for many of us.

Mothurhood, Apple Pie and Revolution. it's a good and exciting time fo be a

mother or a father - even a child. AMEN

Father, we are grateful for the gift of our familfes: heip us to relax and

enjoy them. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN