Mothers stand up for their rights

By Fran Arman

COLUMBUS The days when all women are forced to blindly accept motherhood as a blessing are coming to an end. For many women it is an agonizing and soul-searching decision whether or not to have children, but at least there is a choice.

As an outgrowth of such introspection, there are conferences that explore the mothering role, such as the one held here this past weekend.

The seminar was entitled "The Future of Mothering: Challenge and Options," and it was sponsored by the Women's Resource and Policy Development Center.

The conference posed many sensitive questions. Why do women feel the need to nurture? What is the role of the daughter? What does society do to help or hinder mothering? Are men capable of early childhood care?

Over 200 people from 17 states and Canada attended the threeday conference. Participants were mothers. They were mothers who chose to have children. Mothers who bore unwanted children. Grandmothers, lesbian mothers, mothers of adopted children and mothers to be.

Some participants were trying to decide whether or not to become mothers sometime in the future or perhaps not at all. Some were in the position of mothering their

elderly parents who were somehow infirmed. A handful were men who were interested in assuming a more active, "mothering" role in raising their child.

"Spending time around children improves the inner quality of my life," said one man.

While not all the participants were united by biological motherhood, all the women were linked by the mother-daughter relationship, a relationship author Adrienne Rich, a guest speaker. called the "ultimate bond of human love that every woman starts out with."

The relationship also has the two principles, one woman said "each time to impose a role on each other."

Where a woman goes with that beginning bond was explored by the various conference workshops and small group dialogs. The four workshop topics were: Woman's Needs to be Mothered and Daughtered; The Responsibilities and Needs of Children; The Challenge of Mothering; and The Legal Rights of Mothers and the Institutions and Expectations that Seek Mothering.

Some women felt that motherhood needed to stop at some point in their life.

"Men have all kinds of graduations," said one participant. "Why

isn't there a ritual to celebrate the end of motherhood?"

Another guest speaker, Dorothy Dinnerstein, an author and professor of psychology at Rutgers University, suggested: "If humanity is to have a future, then the term 'mothering' must become obsolete. What we now call mothering must become 'parenting.'"

Also addressing the conference. were authors Tillie Olsen and Jessie Bernard.

Some participants questioned whether or not women were ready to relinquish some of their childraising power, even if it is a duty some women feel is overwhelming and oppressive.

A woman complained, “my man would gladly trade places with me and stay at home, but at this point I don't make enough money on my job."

The group suggested that better child care facilities at work places and flexible work hours would help enable more parents to share child rearing responsibilities more evenly. One of the participants, a mother-to-be, said the conference: had given her "more of a feeling of how I will raise my child.”

According to Patricia Moots, one of the conference directors, a review of the seminar proceedings will serve as input for the planning of the 1979 White House Conference on Families.