With fertility rates falling across the wealthier countries, people are asking what can be done to encourage a new generation to have more children. Some think financial incentives are the way to go. Others like the idea of protecting a women’s career path while she takes extended maternity leave. Some focus on subsidizing daycare.
I say- make a mom cool again.
Scroll through the top sitcoms over the last thirty years and name one maternal figure that is not only relevant to the story line but revered in some way. I’ll start. In the 90’s the maternal roles were Rozanne Barr in Roseanne and Peggy Bundy in Married with Children. Both ladies are terribly funny. Does that mean to be a mom is to be funny? Full House did away with the mom role altogether- so I suppose there’s that.
In the 2000’s TV only one show cast starring mothers. Modern Family has us entertain by Claire Dunphy who plays a supportive and nurturing mother. Even Sophia Vergase is nurtuing with a voluptuous swagger. The rest of the shows, Friends, Scrubs, The Office, Will and Grace, Reno 911, My Name is Earl, have nothing to offer in motherly caring of her kin and community.
Hollywood seems averse to letting it slip that some mothers are over joyed with their role in life. Perhaps June Cleaver symbolized a compromise that women who wished to work could never promote. So when make believe won’t make motherhood glamorous, who can?
Well- reality TV of course!
The Kardashians put their children front and center. The matriarch, Kris Jenner, raised six children from two marriages. So far she has twelve grandchildren. And her two youngest girls are only in their mid-twenties. The Kardshians don’t hide their kids. They show them off. They make it look fun.
Perhaps the Kris, Kourtney, Kim, Khloe, Kylie, and Kendall are making a contribution to elevating the status of motherhood. Are you?
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