"A good life for humans includes the classical standard of using one's capacities for speech and reason in a prudent way, the liberal requirement of having enough autonomy to direct one's own life, and the utilitarian test of doing more good than harm in the world. Measured against these time-tested standards, the expensively educated upper-class moms will be leading lesser lives."

This is stunning stuff. In Hirshman's view, a woman's choice to deploy her "capacities for speech and reason" as a mother is not prudent or acceptable. Beyond this, she seems to demonstrate an inherent dislike for children in general, and infants in particular. She accuses stay at home moms of "bearing most of the burden of the work always associated with the lowest caste." She identifies these tasks as "sweeping and cleaning bodily waste," and condemned mothers who were described in a press account as "vigilantly watching their babies for signs of excretion 24-7" as "untouchables" by choice.

The very fact that "Good Morning America" devoted two segments to Linda Hirshman and her attack on motherhood is a significant cultural development. Of course, the ABC program included voices that opposed Hirshman's arguments, but these arguments were considered newsworthy nonetheless.

Without doubt, Hirshman is speaking for a sizeable percentage of the cultural elite when she argues that "an educated, competent adult's place is in the office." In the view of so many, the office and the professional workplace are the arenas where real life is lived and important work is done. The thought that motherhood could be a higher calling than law, medicine, finance, or any number of other professions is completely beyond her comprehension. Indeed, she sees the very logic of motherhood as undermining the entire feminist project.

Thus, when she argues that stay at home moms are "letting down the team," she means to shame young women out of motherhood and back into the workplace. At the very least, she argues that mothers should have only one baby so that they can return to the workplace in short order.

The Christian response to this article must be a combination of refutation, amazement, and affirmation of motherhood. Hirshman's article and media appearances can serve to remind us all of the unspeakably high calling of motherhood and to the sacrifices that so many women make, day in and day out, to the raising of children, the nurture of the home, and the shaping of civilization itself.

I respond to Hirshman's arguments from a highly privileged position--as the son, husband, and son-in-law of women who gave and give themselves to the calling of motherhood without reservation. They, like so many millions of other dedicated mothers, are the ones who demonstrate a wisdom and dedication that goes beyond anything a man can offer in terms of motherly intuition, loving devotion, and management challenges that would daunt the boldest Fortune 500 CEO.

Nevertheless, the best refutation of Hirshman's awful argument is the happiness experienced by so many mothers and the evidence of motherly love and attention in the lives of their children.

These women are not "letting down the team." To the contrary, they are holding civilization together where civilization begins--in the home.

R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. For more articles and resources by Dr. Mohler, and for information on The Albert Mohler Program, a daily national radio program broadcast on the Salem Radio Network, go to www.albertmohler.com. For information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to www.sbts.edu. Send feedback to mail@albertmohler.com.

See also the most recent entries on Dr. Mohler's Blog