Motherhood

Equating child-rearing with careers is underestimating the special love, sharing, creativity and mutual giving involved in motherhood. You get as much as you give. It is a maturing process--a precious gift and privilege to nurture a child. Women's lib has cheated a whole generation out of this mutual joy. To quote from your article: "Older women want to leave some mark of ourselves--we don't feel children are enough." What better "mark" to leave than loved, decent human beings?

For Life magazine's ballyhooed "Celebrating the Movies" edition, motherhood almost spoiled the cover shot of the Big Five Femmes--Jane Fonda, Jessica Lange, Barbra Streisand, Goldie Hawn and Sally Field. Entertainment Editor Jim Watters said, "It wasn't egos but motherhood that ran interference for us when we began to put together that photo session." That is, Lange was pregnant and wanted to pose after having her baby; by then, Hawn was five months pregnant.

If anyone doubted the complete contempt Cal Thomas has for women, his column (Editorial Pages, June 20) is complete confirmation. To even suggest that criminalizing abortion would stop its practice is reprehensible, to say the very least. There are few women who were close to adulthood before Roe vs. Wade that weren't aware of the horrors of illegal abortions. Where were Mr. T and his self-righteous "moralists" when desperate women were using knitting needles, afghan hooks and wire-coat hangers.

While wrestling with the idea of becoming a single mother, I often wondered: Because I am a college-educated, professional woman, was there really any difference between me and a prospective teen-age mom? After all, in the final analysis, my main reason for wanting to become a mother was to love somebody. After I had my daughter, I came to realize that teen motherhood is a disaster because it is only a popular myth that teens want somebody to love. On the contrary, teens have babies in an attempt to create someone who will love them.

Re "Create Work Policies Fit for a Mom," Commentary, April 16: As a 27-year-old married and child-free-by-choice woman, I fear that women who are still under the delusion that they can have both a career and raise a family will ruin all the progress the women's movement has made in my lifetime. A woman who chooses to have children and remain in the work force must understand that, ultimately, either her career or her relationship with her children will suffer. Furthermore, a woman should not expect her employer to support her choice to have a child beyond the employer's legal obligations.

For the gentlemen from Riverside and Burbank who were so quick to criticize Toya Perkins (Letters, June 4), I hope neither of you ever needs a handout or a hand up. What would you know about the emotional struggle that Toya may have been going through, or her decision to keep her child? I once had the sad experience of helping a young girl give her child up for adoption. It was heart-wrenching. I'll never get over it. I read with interest about Toya Perkins' dreams, disappointments and motherhood.

Re 40th Congressional District race: Never have I seen so many candidates selling their "capabilities" via "I love all people," "I am a conservative" and "President Reagan loves me" literature. It would be a tremendous cost savings if each candidate utilized the same political consulting firm and mailed out the same brochures except for the pictures and candidate names, along with the statement "only the names and places have been changed to protect the innocent." There are three parameters that should be considered in voting for any political candidate: Who best represents the views, philosophies and interests of the voter and the nation as a whole?

Well, welcome back, Robin Abcarian. Instead of the tender piece on new motherhood I expected, I read a diatribe against the state health-care system that made it difficult for her teen-age friend to get an abortion. The young woman decided to abort at 18 weeks and finally got her abortion at 23 weeks. If Abcarian had the time, energy and perseverance to help her bewildered friend through a difficult bureaucratic maze to abort a baby, couldn't she have just as easily helped her get in touch with an adoption attorney?

Re "Morality and Motherhood" (Aug. 21): So, Alice McKinney and Ra-Shonda Anderson have decided to bring a child into the world. Anderson has no job, has proven that she is not able to keep a job, is 17 years old, has already had one abortion, and may resort to welfare if she can't make it on her own. Excuse me, but what is this immature girl thinking? (Or is she?) There is no 17-year-old in this country who has the maturity to nurture or to plan and direct the life of a child. The baby Anderson wants to bear is not like a job where she can take her "unscheduled vacation."