Father Come Home?

I was finishing up listening to the Conversation with the Hollands and got really interested when they began talking about their days at Yale in the late 1960s and 1970s (about minute 46:00) just after The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan came out and when Gloria Steinem spoke there a few times.  Sister Holland said she could see a negative impact emerge among the young couples at Yale because of the feminist movement.

Sister Holland mentioned how Betty Friedan said the feminists had thought of everything to liberate women, but even later in her life admitted that the movement forgot the children!  I believe I also read this point in The Feminine Minority, by Patricia Regar, but I haven't looked up the quote myself.

President Holland interjected that he thought the model of feminism of the period was actually backwards.  The movement was to get women out of the bondage of home life, when really it should have been how to get the men back in the home sharing the workload.  He said he has nothing against helping out with the dishes, laundry, and budget (or whatever).

I couldn't believe it!  How right is that?!  I can't believe in all the hours I've thought about the feminist movement that I'd NEVER thought of the great impact bringing men home (or just getting them more involved) can have.  I think I get too caught up on our economic setup of men/jobs being out of the home, that I forget how much they can and should contribute in the home. 

Interestingly, the other day I'd read an article that LAF/Beautiful Womanhood linked to over at The Art of Manliness about how during the agricultural days, men were home, then came the Industrial Revolution which took many men out of the home, and men just continue to be further and further away from the home and child rearing.  The author at The Art of Manliness hopes that more men can be involved in family life because of technology -- allowing them to work at least some of the time from home.  (Let me tell ya -- when my husband occasionally works from home, it does make all the difference!  Even when he's home sick and baby's asleep, I have the freedom to run to the store!  I have several friends whose husbands often work from home and what a help it is to them!  Wow!  Wow!  Wow!  Let's get these husbands more involved rather than trying to get ourselves away from our homes!)

Earlier in the program, one of the Hollands mentioned how Mary was not a single mother.  Joseph was provided to be Jesus's earthly father:  Children need fathers.

They also bear their amazing, beautiful, inspiring testimonies of the Gospel at the end.  Even if you don't get excited about feminism or anything else they said, their testimonies are well worth listening to.