Miranda Devine: Don’t let your career make you a bad mother

Women postponing motherhood to fight the so-called gender wage gap, take note: In the end your family — not your career — will define you, writes Miranda Devine.

In the end your family — not your career — will define you. (Pic: istock)

I lost a friend to ovarian cancer last week, and at her funeral her five children spoke tenderly and at length of her greatest accomplishment — being a mother.

She was also a doctor of great skill and dedication. But it was not her career which defined her in the end, only her family.

This is an insight worth remembering as young women increasingly are coerced into prioritising careers and becoming feminist warriors against the so-called gender wage gap of the patriarchy, with state-subsidised childcare as the carrot.

Motherhood is under threat, as women are fooled into postponing their child-bearing years under the illusion that IVF can defeat nature’s clock. Ubiquitous mothering blogs focus on the mother at the expense of the child, teaching women that their worst failing is “putting everyone else first”. Movies such as Bad Moms celebrate selfishness.

And “mother” itself has become a dirty word, expunged from birth certificates, in the name of identity politics. The British Medical Association has even issued official guidance that doctors should use the term “pregnant people” instead of “pregnant women”.

Yet repeated surveys find that fulltime mothers or those who work part-time are happier than any other workers. For instance, British insurance company LV last year found that even though stay-at-home mothers worked longer hours, six out of seven were happy in their role and more than a third of mothers who go out to work would prefer to stay at home with their young children.

Most women are smart enough to understand that there are goals worthier than career status, even if they don’t always have the luxury of choice.