All Mothers Work

Embrace a variety of motherhood methods. Galatians 5:14 Amplified Bible says, "For the whole Law [concerning human relationships] is complied with in the one precept, You shall love your neighbor as [you do] yourself."

Ida B. Wells was born a slave in Holly Springs, Mississippi, on July 16, 1862. She was the eldest of eight children. Her parents died in 1878 of yellow fever. As a teenager Ida got a teaching job to financially support her brothers and sisters. Being a teenage parent did not discourage her from motherhood. In her 30s in 1895 she married Frederick Barnett, and they had four children. Before and after marriage Ida B. Wells was a journalist, speaker and activist for the rights of African Americans and women. In addition to speaking out against lynching and segregation, in 1896 she helped to found the National Association of Colored Women, the National Afro-American Council and Women's Era Club.

Wells said, "I had...found that motherhood was a profession by itself, just like schoolteaching and lecturing." What about eliminating the term "working mother?" All mothers work. Write to:

Michele F. Jackson
P. O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, Virginia 22195

Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30.

Instead of having multiple careers simultaneously, Angela Yuan chose to be a domestic engineer while her and her husband's two sons were minors. Careers have their high points and their points of humiliation. A high point for Ida B. Wells was in 1887 when she became part owner and reporter for Memphis Free Speech and Headlight. A point of humiliation was when in 1891 she was fired from her teaching job because of the content of her writing. A high point for Angela Yuan was when her son, Christopher Yuan, began work on his dental doctorate degree. A point of humiliation was when he told her that he was practicing homosexual sex, was not going to become part of his father's, Leon's, dental practice or stay connected to the Yuan family. 

Romance novels are half of all mass market paperback books sold in the United States. Adventure, incredible sex and other excitement are often included in romance novels. The intensity of real life hardship is often missing. Naghmeh Abedini married her sweetheart Saeed Abedini in 2004. Later the couple had two children. In July 2012 she and their children were separated from Saeed indefinitely when Iranian authorities placed him under house arrest, then in Evin prison in Tehran, Iran, for threatening the national security of Iran by helping to set up Christian house churches in Iran and also a secular orphanage. Now Naghmeh is a married single mother. Help free Saeed, who is also a pastor, from prison, by writing letters to him and by signing a petition at http://www.savesaeed.org.

Sometimes mothers are not missing their husband, but they are missing their children. More than 330 million boys and girls have been killed by abortion in China; many of these abortions are done forcibly. A ChinaAid March 24, 2013, "With ChinaAid's Help, Two Victims of China's One-Child Policy Granted UNHCR Refugee Status" article reports that in 1995, when Guo Yanling was eight months pregnant, she was forced to have an abortion. In 1999, she was forcibly sterilized. In 2006, she was imprisoned for not being able to pay a fine for having more than one child. The Chinese government also refused to issue household registrations to her and to her husband, Du Yiliang's, three children without which they are unable to attend school or receive government benefits. With ChinaAid’s help, Guo Yanling and Du Yiliang  have been granted refugee status by the UN High Commission on Refugees. Notes of encouragement to Du Yiliang and Guo Yanling, requests for interviews and financial contributions to ChinaAid's Emergency Relief Fund can all be submitted to ChinaAid founder and president Bob Fu at (267) 205-5210.

Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, who is the president of The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, America’s largest Hispanic Christian Organization with more than 40,000 member churches, writes in the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial "Trust Act Seeks to End Trivial Immigrant Arrests," "Juana Reyes provides for her family by selling homemade tamales outside a busy Wal-Mart not far from where I live. At least she used to.

Last month Juana was arrested for selling her tamales without a permit and was held in jail for 13 days, while her two children were placed in foster care. Juana was just released, but she now faces deportation back to Mexico, despite having lived in California for 20 years and being the sole caregiver to her children, both U.S. citizens." Many Latino and other immigrant mothers and fathers are being separated temporarily and permanently from their children by American immigration policies.

Motherhood and fatherhood are honorable professions. Exodus 20:12 Complete Jewish Bible says, "Honor your father and mother, so that you may live long in the land which Adonai your God is giving you." Happy Mother's Day!