The Roman Catholic

Much has been said about the effect of mothers working for long hours away from home. The women who scorn mothers who leave the work force to stay at home and nurture their children seem to argue that these mothers are wasting their education and expertise by not contributing to the economy. On the other side of the coin, are women who have exchanged thier careers for a more noble role of developing future leaders with character and they go around ridiculing those who choose to work.

Time Magazine’s Special Summer Edition has a series of articles on food. The article by Brian Walsh, titled “How the World Eats”,  opines that the reason food culture throughout most parts of the world have deteriorated is because of the women in the workplace. This is not the thought of Walsh but that of Carole Counihan, and anthropologist at Miilersville Univeristy, Pennsylvania.

Counihan expounds further that having a meal together is the foundation of the family. She also asserts in the old days, a grandmother would cook while the mother works and this too has been assaulted by small family size. It’s these factors that also contribute to the fast food culture and precludes the appreciation of slow food thereby destroying the food culture in a country.

Evidence of Counihan’s theory of the working mother is the observation that in conservative Muslim countries, i.e. mostly Middle East, extended families and at-home-mothers contribute to the retention of their food cultures.

My hypothesis is that perhaps in homes where there is a mother preparing nutritious meals, there are united marriages and families leading to healthy members who are less susceptible to cardiovascular disease, diabetes and renal problems as they resist the pull of the fast food. If this is true and knowing that these diseases consume a huge expense on any nation, wouldn’t these mothers be contributing to the economy indirectly (by reducing these expenses) and directly to the social fabric of society by producing healthy progeny. A healthy population is also a more productive one (one more point for the economic role of these mothers).

As a male I would not venture so far as to propose that women should not work but definitely that it’s the Christian duty of every Christian women to nurture her family as God intended.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2007 at 2:37 and is filed under Catholic Answers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.