Dustin and I were excited to finally enjoy a movie together. We had decided on Disney’s Secretariat, a family film about a famous racehorse and his housewife owner. We were let down by the acting and undeveloped plot line (it paled in comparison to Seabiscuit), and I left the couch that night bothered as if a pesky fly had managed its way in my ear. The movie had had a message. The message was true to today’s common view on motherhood, womanhood, and the significance of it all.
Without spoiling the movie’s entire story for you (I wouldn’t recommend it, anyway), allow me to lay the scene:
Housewife and mother of four, Penny, had just lost her mother. Her dementia ailed father and family horse farm was left for her to manage. Penny’s childhood love for racing horses was rekindled while she managed the farm, and she decided to raise up a winning racehorse just born. The horse farm, located in Virginia, kept Penny a far distance from her husband and children, who lived in Denver. The story of horse training, cunning business skills, and the usual ups and downs that make up a movie continued, but I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed with the “hidden” message running through the script.
Penny was depicted as one to be held in the ultimate esteem. Her choice to sacrifice three years of raising her children for a horse was heroic. She would proclaim, that like a racehorse, she had to run, race, and win.
In one bothersome seen, she was home for the weekend talking with her obviously neglected husband. An eavesdropping teenager heard her mother reflect on all of the sacrifices she’d made to have a family, now just having to go forward what was in her to do. This same teenage daughter was throwing herself into the world of hippies, an impressed upon adolescent, in desperate need of a steady mother’s influence.
Just as you thought that maybe Penny’s desire to win was motivated by love for her ailing father, we were reminded of her personal desire to win and have her own way in this world.
The Penny-praise acclimated when her husband, who had “taken sides against her” throughout the film, came around and tenderly shared with her that she had shown her daughter’s what it means to be a real woman.
I gasped.
A real woman? To abandon your husband and children for three years to chase after your own desires? To be so dissatisfied with the daily duties of being a housewife, that you willingly trade the hearts of your children for momentary gain?
In the film (based on a true story) her four children remained unscathed by her neglect. Her hippie daughter followed her heart’s desires, which is pronounced right above all. The film even declares that Penny lived “happily ever after”.
The fly in my ear, the question I couldn’t ignore was, would Penny have been less of a real woman had she chosen to stay devoted to her family alone? Would her steadfastness to her commitment as a housewife been insignificant, making her life trivial and forgettable?
There is tremendous value in womanhood and motherhood. It is with sadness I see our culture, often through media, contort motherhood into a job for the week, boring, and uninspired. God has designed motherhood for the strong, adventurous, and creative! Media tells us it is a real woman who aspires to something greater, God gives us opportunities to serve wholeheartedly, hard work and life abundant, for His glory and the lasting benefit of our children.
I understand there are those who are unable to be home with their children, stuck in jobs for pay check’s sake. But choosing our own ambitions over guiding and investing? As mothers, we have opportunities to incorporate our passions into our homes and everyday lives. Must we be taken away from our families to pursue the “could-haves” and “would-have-been’s-if-it-weren’t-for-these-inconvenient-kids”?
Oh, Media! See the significance of a mother!
...They (mothers) have been maligned, goaded, blamed, and ridiculed in recent years, but most have stood their ground. Quietly and confidently they have continued to love and nourish their children and prepare them for a life of service to God and to mankind. There is no more important assignment on the face of the earth...
-Dr. James Dobson, his book dedication to mothers in “Parenting Isn’t For Cowards”
