Happy Mother's Day From TMC | Thomas More College

Happy Mother’s Day
From TMC

by Dr. Amy Fahey, Visiting Fellow

 There is no denying that motherhood is under assault in mainstream culture. As one young Catholic writer, Michelle Bauman, has soberly observed, “Contraception treats motherhood as a disease to be prevented, and abortion treats it as a mistake to be fixed. Gay ‘marriage’ disregards the need for both a mother and a father, undermining the distinctions that make them each unique. In vitro fertilization views motherhood as a ‘right’ that a woman can demand, rather than a blessing for which she should be truly thankful.”

A century ago, G. K. Chesterton penned a moving defense of motherhood for an age which had begun championing a dangerous notion of “utility” that sought to undermine the centrality of motherhood in a healthy culture. “Babies need not to be taught a trade,” he said in What’s Wrong with the World, “but to be introduced to a world.” With his trademark common sense and wit, Chesterton observes that “woman is generally shut up in a house with a human being at the time when he asks all the questions that there are, and some that there aren’t.” But Chesterton understands that being “shut up” with her children, rather than an irritation or suffocation, is actually the greatest glory of a mother: “[W]hen people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. . . . How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone?”

Several years ago, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, echoed Chesterton in recognizing the disastrous effects the modern emphasis on utility has had on motherhood. In this “cult of efficiency,” he notes, “it is precisely woman who is paying the greatest price.” When viewed within the narrow sphere of usefulness, children are undesirable, and motherhood—ironically—unproductive.  “Woman, who is creative in the truest sense of the word by giving life, does not ‘produce,’ however, in that technical sense which is the only one that is valued by a society more masculine than ever in its cult of efficiency. She is being convinced that the aim is to ‘liberate’ her, ‘emancipate’ her, by encouraging her to masculinize herself, thus bringing her into conformity with the culture of production and subjecting her to the control of the masculine society of technicians, of salesmen, of politicians who seek profit and power, organizing everything, marketing everything, instrumentalizing everything for their own ends.” The end result of this instrumentalized, masculizined view of woman, says Ratzinger, is that she is “robbed” of “motherhood.”

Thomas More College, like other faithful Newman Guide Colleges, seeks to provide a corrective to the disastrous ideological fallout of the twentieth century, one which has led most college campuses to promotes sexual promiscuity, birth control, abortion-on-demand, and gender confusion. As mothers “introduce a child to the world,” so does Thomas More College, in a more modest fashion, introduce students to what it means to live a good life. Two of the College’s many talented young alumnae mothers, Aja McCarthy and Erin Kamprath, recently shared their reflections on how the liberal arts education and Catholic formation they received at the College helped prepare them for motherhood.

After graduating from Thomas More in 2011, Aja McCarthy (née Cowhig) served for two years as a Research Assistant for the College’s Development Office. She then accepted a position as Director of Marketing for Sophia Institute, a Catholic publishing company. “Aja was an incredible asset to our marketing team and to our staff as a whole,” recalls Sophia Institute President Charlie McKinney. “Her enthusiasm for both the Catholic Faith and the mission of Sophia Institute Press was truly infectious. She played a pivotal role in Sophia Institute Press’s exponential growth during her tenure.”

Aja is now a full-time mother, and she and her husband John have three adorable little boys: Damien (5), Xavier (3), and Raphael (1). “Thomas More College helped prepare me for the vocation of wife and mother in various ways,” says Aja. “Dorm living taught me about the art of living with others; managing spiritual duties, academic responsibilities, and community life showed me the value of an ordered day and the peaceful satisfaction it brings; witnessing the faculty families at Mass, banquets, and other formal and informal occasions introduced me to the attractive joys of family life. Such experiences planted seeds of desire—for the first time—for the vocation that the Holy Father esteemed so highly.”

“The most significant way in which the College prepared me for the roles of wife and mother,” she continues, “was by teaching me what I did not know. Through the curriculum and the faculty instruction, the more I learned, the more I realized what there was to learn. My vulnerability to the pitfalls of ignorance and error came increasingly into focus. My time at Thomas More College taught me that the Church, in her incredible maternal wisdom—the fruit of centuries of philosophy, theology, tradition, and revelation—offers answers to correct my ignorance. She is the ultimate guide to living my vocation. Without my years at college, I would have been left with myself as a guide instead.”

Before becoming a mother, Erin Kamprath (née Monfils), ’15 taught full-time at the Chesterton Academy, a self-described “joyfully Catholic” classical high school in the Twin Cities co-founded by Chesterton Society President Dale Ahlquist.  “She performed like a veteran in spite of being a rookie,” Ahlquist says of Erin’s teaching. Then-headmaster John Niemann recalls that “she had teacher written all over her. . . . I knew she would do well.” When Erin and her husband Augustine, ’15, discovered they were to become parents, Erin left her position in order to stay at home with their new baby. Big brother John was recently joined by a second son, Simeon, and Erin continues to share her talents with the community by teaching Ancient History through the Saint John Paul II Education Guild.

“Thomas More College helped me become a better educator for our children,” says Erin, “by giving me first-hand knowledge of what is involved in a true education. During my time there, I discovered just how much the distinct environment in which an education takes place influences what kind of growth will actually happen. And true education of the whole person takes place in a culture of prayer, community, and beauty. That is the kind of culture we enjoyed at TMC, and that is the kind of culture I am now striving to create in my own home for our growing family.”

In a dominant culture that legally permits the widespread destruction of innocent life and does precious little to support motherhood, the College celebrates the many alumnae who have made great personal, professional, and financial sacrifices to embrace their vocation as mothers.  In being “everything to someone,” they are the embodiment of what Pope Francis speaks of in Amoris Laetitia: “Mothers are the strongest antidote to the spread of self-centered individualism. . . . It is they who testify to the beauty of life.”

 

For further reading:

Authentic Fatherhood: Alumni Fathers Fulfill their Vocation

G.K. Chesterton comes to Thomas More College

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