Good motherhood is a step backward...

... according to the French feminist author and philosopher Elizabeth Badinter in reviews of her book Conflict, Women and Mothers. Reports suggest that she and her feminist friend, Sabine Salmon, president of Femmes Solidaire have little time for French schoolgirls who express the desire to stay at home rather than follow a career. "A very worrying indicator" was Mme. Salmon's verdict.

Mme. Badinter rails against the new image of the "ideal Mother" who breast feeds for six months before returning to work, rejects (on ecology grounds) disposable nappies and occasionally lets her baby sleep in her bed.

Feminists have a different thrust in England where, through WATCH (Women and the Church), they are currently busy emasculating the Established Church in the guise of equality (in Wales their Archbishop is doing the job for them) so perhaps girls here will be spared condemnation for using their own free will until that job is complete.

How long before the inconvenience of motherhood is completely avoided by conceiving in a dish and raising children like battery hens leaving 'mothers' free of maternal responsibility?

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Mother god

Speaking at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London on Monday evening Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury said that God is not a father in the same way that a human would be – and that descriptions of God are always “to some degree metaphorical”.

The trap was sprung. The media pounced. Mail Online put it thus:

'God is not male? OR female?: Archbishop of Canterbury says ?The Father? Cannot be defined by human gender.

Newsnight kicked off [@28.20] in the context of gender fluidity with 'When the Archbishop of Canterbury suggests that God is not male, what should we think?'

The Rev Dr Margaret Joachim suggested that we should not pray to Our Father because the simple word father has an appalling connotation for people who have had unfortunate relationships with their fathers!

The reality

Are there no unfortunate relationships with mothers in Dr Joachim's book?

It is an odd notion that it is sexist to pray to the father but not if we pray Our Mother as women bishops are suggesting.

Unlike pagan fertility godesses and Mother Earth Christianity is not about fertility, sex and gender.

The simple truth is that when asked how we should pray Christ said to pray 'Father, hallowed be your name'.

Metaphoricalimages of a female God in the Bible speak of motherhood. A mother's selfless care and nurture of her children, something feminists in the church fail to recognise.

They have marginalised many devout mothers of conscience who for millennia have been happy to pray Our Father as Christ taught us. I know who I would rather listen to.

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