The Telegraph reports on a speech given by Cherie Blair: Cherie Blair attacks 'yummy mummies' who choose children over careers. Speaking to top people at a posh hotel in London, she said:
Every woman needs to be self-sufficient and in that way you really don’t have a choice - for your own satisfaction; you hear these yummy mummies talk about being the best possible mother and they put all their effort into their children. I also want to be the best possible mother, but I know that my job as a mother includes bringing my children up so actually they can live without me.The focus is on women who, supposedly, marry rich men in order to "retire" and spend their time looking after their children.
In fact there are plenty of women who marry not so rich husbands and make sacrifices to be with their children - and others who feel that they have to work in order to make ends meet, but would rather be with their children full time.
What Cherie Blair is doing in this speech is to denigrate the vocation of motherhood as though it were a second-class activity. For many working mothers it would be rather obviously far-fetched to describe audio-typing or work at the supermarket check-out, taken on out of necessity because of the tax regime's lack of support for the family, as a glorious liberation from the "demands" of being with their children. Those privileged enough to work in a top London chambers might find that difficult to understand.
9 comments:
How galling it must be for her to pass into history as merely the wife of a former prime minister! That, surely, is the whole cause of such celebrity as she enjoys and her remarks are about as enlightening or inspired as those of a footballer's WAG.
I fall under the married rich guy and retired category. You have to ask how much money is enough? Personally I've decided to stay home with my 2 boys, study Theology and volunteer as a Catholic scripture teacher in state schools. One day I may need to go back to full time paid work but until them I'll trust in the Lord and my marriage.
Sadly, working wives have sent the cost of living sky high...and force other mothers to enter the work place simply to keep a roof over their heads. The double income family is a scourge that makes us all slaves to the economy. It renders having children difficult too...and drives down the birthrate.
We should take a leaf out of the Victorian women's book....and do unpaid charitable work outside the home...preferably in Christ's name.
Time to tell it like it is.
I would suggest that there are - in actual practice - at least three different types of Catholicism in this world. Traditional Catholicism. Progressive Catholicism. And Liverpool Archdiocesan Catholicism. Ms Blair (or is it Booth, or does it depend on the day or the weather) is the poster girl for the post-Worlockian dreams that still choke the faith in that corner of north west England. In fact, those with any insider knowledge can narrow it down even further: to a wealthy (yes, they do exist in Merseyside - and then some) district of the Archdiocese called Crosby, which is about as faithful to Rome as Jimmy Carr is to the Inland Revenue but has, inexplicably, had a such a disproportionately negative influence and impact on the simple faith of the area that one is immediately shot-down with accusations of "conspiracy" because it defies belief that an area so small can have carried so much weight.
Its sons and daughters - including names like Nichols and Rawsthorne btw - have carefully interwoven their peculiar brand of ultra neo-progressivism (trust me, there are some of them who make Sinead O'Connor seem a like a Trad, but the difference is that they've got enough guile to know when to keep their mouths closed) not only into virtually every layer of the local Church but into many levels of the entire English & Welsh Church also. Would that people knew it.
It's about time people woke up to this phenomenon. It's locally called the "Crosby Mafia". It's no joke but it just as sinister. If you want to know how such-and-such a crackpot idea gained impetus, chances are that somewhere along the line it will bear the fingerprints of someone who hailed, from the 50s through to the 80s, from the quite privileged, but laden with sentimental relativism, area of Crosby, Merseyside (more pointedly St Mary's College for boys or Seafield Convent for girls).
Ms Blair - herself a first cousin to two Archdiocesan priests who hailed from the same area - ticks every box. Seafield, check. Feminist, check. Pro-choice, check. Pro-women's ordination, check. Hers is the type of post-papal "Catholicism" that our former prime minister bought into. And hers is the type of post-papal Catholicism that is strangling the English & Welsh Church at the highest levels.
Crosby, Merseyside. It's a "Magic Circle" within a "Magic Circle".
Truly, Archbishop Worlock was pushing at an open door. And I sometimes wonder if he had to become more progressive simply in order to fit in!
Maybe she feels some guilt which is being expressed as anger ...
I don't often agree with her (possibly never) but I do agree with the part that she says "I know that my job as a mother includes bringing my children up so actually they can live without me."
I had this on my blog earlier today as well and was hopping mad...Who does she think she is lecturing us on the teaching of the Church? http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/oh-my-goodness-cherie-blair-again.html
Gregory your comment is really interesting and illuminating. It is about time this addressed. We have something similar in the States, the East Coast Irish Catholic Mafia, of which the Kennedys and Cuomos are the greatest examples-pro-choice is only one of their horrible stands. Sadly, those of us in the Midwest could see the East Coast Catholic rot and not do anything about it. Cardinal Dolan is helping, but the problems, which cover many dioceses, including that which holds the Capitol, as great and deep.
These attacks are happening her in the US- directed at Ann Romney. don't think that this isn't a coordinated effort by the "progressives"
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