Barbara Walters' Question on 'The View' Gave Me a Pregnant Pause

Rachel, I agree with Janet Hinz who said "Your response was great and as a mother who may have "given up a budding career" for motherhood, I was cheering you on. Your further clarification in this piece is something most stay at home mothers experience, but perhaps would not have articulated so well."
We have to remember that "The View" is a TV show that is there to sell products with commercials, and to placate and entertain its audience with "programmed" interests.
Rachel you did great and all of the comments feed the purpose the editors of "The View" want us to be spending time on.
However, we all know that there are bigger issues for us today than Barbara Walters' question. Barbara certainly has a list of questions to ask, not for herself, but to get feedback and ratings for the show.
Let's not forget the bigger issues.

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My mom worked while my sister and i were younger, but them as we got a little older she was hurt on the job and went out on workers comp. Her personal feeling was that she felt like God knew what he was doing when he hurt her because she said that she felt that my sister and i needed her later on in life as apposed to earlier on in life. I think kutos to any mother weather you are a working mother or a stay at home mother. The act of child-birth in its self is an amazing task.

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Must be nice to have a husband who makes enough money that you can not only afford to provide for six kids but also stay home.

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When I was a very young mother, an 80 yr old woman said "this is the best time of your life"I immediately thought of 2 in diapers, bottles, sleepless nights,EXTREMELY casual attire,so many money worries in addition to all the other worries and concerns AND desires to socialize and thought" what does she know?" I then went on to be blessed with another baby. I am now grandma to 6, and always recall that woman's words! How infinitely wise!! Was I the best mother? NO, there were few books about all the issues of raising three different children 45 years ago and I made many mistakes. However I so realize how correct her words were. I am so grateful to be re-doing some of it with my precious grand children. It is also wonderful to have lived long enough to see that today's women have many choices. Vive le difference.

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Heil HITLER!

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that was in Reply to Iris.

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A very interesting discussion. In a free society, where women are in theory free to choose to be a stay-at-home mom, be a working mom, or remain childless, it's too bad that women get beat up for whatever choices we do make. Maybe "it's a personal choice" is the right answer to any invasive questions about personal choices, rather than having to defend or qualify the choices. As a single, childless "career" woman, I'm often surprised by the amount of hostility that my situation can draw...not only from men, but perhaps even more so from women who haven't made similar choices. Agree that there will be progress when men have to answer to the same questions we do...but the reality is, they don't really ever have to explain a "choice," because if they don't have kids now, they can do it 20 or 30 years later. In the publicly-discussed cases where a woman successfully gets pregnant in her 50's or 60's, the woman usually gets attacked for her "selfishness." I think there's more progress if rather than subjecting men to the same double-standards we face, we start by being kinder to each other.

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Asking a question is showing an interest and inviting someone to share their viewpoint. That's all. It was given to you so you could express your thoughts and feelings.

Asking a question isn't giving an opinion or, god forbid, making a judgment. Please don't turn an ordinary gesture into something it isn't.

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From my observation women who have lots of children age more quickly where men always look so good as they age.

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Whoever said you can have your cake and eat it too was full of it. Those who sacrifice their careers for the needs of wanting to do the best for their family are the realists. To the mom who works full time and goes to school full time and still considers herself a top notch mother, she's full of it. Unless you consider spending 5 minutes a day with your kids good parenting. Those parents want to keep believing their kids are fine but don't even know them (which is better for the kids if that's what their parent is like).

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Raising children is a Carreer its self alone
Gail Iowa

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It's great that you defended raising a family in this particular situation, Rachel. However, I think that us Catholics need to take a critical look at your stances on immigration on how that impacts families. Your husband bragged over the summer to the Wausau Daily Herald about how he wants to force all illegal immigrants in this country to leave, and "get into the back of the line" which would obviously have devastating impacts on families in America (with kids staying in the US, likely, because they are citizens, while parents would be deported). You seemed to advocate a similar position in an article you wrote this summer. Do you support these families, too? Do you and your husband support the Catholic Church's stance that immigration reform that keeps families together needs to be a top priority?

Considering how pro-family you seem to be, with your praise of the breast feeding room at the capital and defending having six kids, it seems that surely you would also not go against the bishops mandate that immigration reform needs to happen that keeps families together. Will you be willing to think about immigration reform as it relates to keeping families together? Even though you your ancestors were privileged enough to go through legal channels to be here in the United States, if you pray about it I'm sure you can see how good parents (like yourself) would risk illegally immigrating to the United States if they felt that their kids had no opportunities in their home countries and legal means were impossible to move through to get the United States. And while these families have a smudge for breaking the law, they are still families just trying to make it like all of ours are and still worthy of our protection and not condemnation. So, please pray about immigration as it relates to the family, become familiar with the Catholic Church's strong pro-immigration reform stances, and share any thoughts you have on this on this blog and with your husband in the near future.

Thanks kindly,

Frank

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The problem with Rachel's reasoning in this article is that we all know she auditioned to be a View co-host, so she clearly wanted that job. Now she says she wouldn't trade the time she's had with her kids for anything in the world. It's a complete contradiction. If she had gotten the job, she would have been tripping over herself to hop on a flight to NYC and simultaneously on her cellphone hiring a nanny/daycare.

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Am I missing something here? I was under the impression that you have a quite successful career. A better question may have been, how do you manage to do both so successfully. How blessed to have your platform and the opportunity to stay home with your six little angels.

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I agree with hope, no offense but Rachel does have a career. Also to Sonia, My feelings on your question are these (coming from a mom who budgets and does w/o in order to stay at home but who plans on working when her kids are older, I did go to college and I speak three languages): Having kids is a very important decision. It (the decision and the work of having them) does not get easier with time, meaning waiting probably won't help. I would suggest getting with your husband and deciding HOW you are going to decide. For example, we decided religiously. There are many things that would/should influence this decision. You just need to decide which is the most important to you and base your decision on that. Core values is what they are called in MFT settings. Try to talk about your values now and what they might be in the future. Examples might be familial (i.e. in some cultures your parents opinions would be almost a deciding factor, if that is your culture and that is most important to you then let that be the deciding factor), religious, monetary, cultural, physical, etc. Basically I am saying using your own deepest beliefs, things that you have (consciously or unconsciously) built yourself on from the ground up, will in the end make you happier with your life decisions than listening to other people.

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