Today's Heartlift with Janell
Sometimes the story we tell ourselves is not really true. Sometimes the story others tell about us is not really true. On "Today's Heartlift with Janell," Author, Trauma-informed, board-certified marriage and family specialist, and Professional Heartlifter, Janell Rardon, opens conversations about how emotional health and mental fitness effects absolutely every area of our lives. When we possess and practice healthy, strong, resilient emotional health practices, life is so much better. Read Janell's newest book, "Stronger Every Day: 9 Tools for an Emotionally Healthy You."
Today's Heartlift with Janell
329. The Forgotten Value of Motherhood
What happens when society values people solely by their economic output? In this powerful conversation, Janell welcomes classics scholar Nadya Williams, author of "Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic: Ancient Christianity and the Recovery of Human Dignity" (IVP), to explore how our modern devaluation of motherhood parallels pre-Christian attitudes toward women and children. Prepare to have your perspective challenged.
Nadia's book "Mothers, Children and the Body Politic: Ancient Christianity and the Recovery of Human Dignity" examines the striking similarities between ancient Greco-Roman views of women as "intellectually lightweight" and "vessels" for children, and today's cultural messages suggesting women without children are happier and wealthier. When presidential candidates on both sides agree that stay-at-home mothers are "bad for the GDP," we must ask: Have we lost sight of human dignity?
Order Nadya's new book: Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic
Learn more from Nadya: Nadya Williams
Read The Bloomberg Report: Women Who Stay Single and Don't Have Kids Are Getting Richer.
Read "Does Having Children Make You Happier?"
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As I've listened to the stories of thousands of women of all ages in all kinds of stages through the years, I've kept their stories locked in the vault of my heart. I feel as if they've been walking around with me all through these years. They've bothered me, they've prodded me and sometimes kept me up at night. Ultimately, they've increased my passion to reframe and reimagine the powerful positions of mother and matriarch within the family system. I'm a problem solver, so I set out to find a way to perhaps change the trajectory of this silent and sad scenario about a dynamic yet untapped source of potential and purpose sitting in our homes and churches. It is time to come to the table, heartlifters, and unleash the power of maternal presence into the world. Welcome to Mothering for the Ages, our 2025 theme. Here on today's Heart Lift.
Speaker 1:I'm Janelle. I am your guide here on this heartlifting journey. I invite you to grab a pen, a journal and a cup of something really delicious pen, a journal and a cup of something really delicious. May today's conversation give you clarity, courage and a revived sense of camaraderie. You see, you're not on this journey alone. We are unified as heartlifters and committed to bringing change into the world, one heart at a time. Hello, heartlifter, and welcome to today's HeartLift. I'm Janelle, your guide for today's conversation. Did you even?
Speaker 1:know, as my little Nora would have said years ago, that June is National Effective Communications Month, it is Alzheimer's and Brain Awareness Month and National Ice Tea Month. All three of these topics are near and dear to my heart. I'm a tea girl. I'd love to know what is your favorite flavor of iced tea? Now, I do consider myself an iced tea snob. Yes, I love a really good, dark, freshly brewed English breakfast or breakfast blend iced tea. Dark enough that if the ice melts a bit it's still pretty strong. I allow myself a glass or two at lunch. But I also love a good blackberry sage, a good ginger peach. What's your favorite, I'd love to know.
Speaker 1:In our community we work with a threefold cord, the three heartbeats, a healthy sense of self, which is our identity formation, our value, our worth and our dignity. We work with our behavior patterns why do I do what I do? And then healthy communication skills why do I say what I say? How are my nonverbals and my verbals? Well, today we welcome Nadia Williams to the show and she is going to help us understand that how we talk about human life matters. I consider Nadia a scholar, an academic. Her book Mothers, children and the Body, politic, ancient Christianity and the Recovery of Human Dignity as an essential conversation here in our community. Natalie is considered a classics scholar and she brings insight from the beliefs and practices of the early church about motherhood, raising children and human life, suggesting there is a way to recapture a vision that affirms the Imago Dei in each person, above our economic production, above our economic production. In our conversation and in this book, she explores attitudes toward human nature, the family, motherhood and childhood in the ancient Roman world. She explains ancient Christians' distinctive convictions and practices in antiquity convictions and practices in antiquity and she reflects on what we can learn from their high view of human nature, motherhood and childhood. I love what Eric Miller, professor of history and the humanities at Geneva College, writes about Nadia's book.
Speaker 1:In this far-seeing, deeply personal book, nadia Williams offers the gift of intelligent, alert, learned conviction, a beam of light aimed at dark corners of our lives and our world, past and present. She not only exposes us for who we're not, but she also shows us who we might yet become. It's a vision no Christian can afford to miss. Well, we are all about who we might yet become. Over the course of the summer, I'm going to be bringing you conversations that have been in the vault for a while, and they are aimed at helping all three of our heartbeats grow stronger, our sense of self, which is our identity formation. It is also our intellectual capacity.
Speaker 1:As women in this world, and as Judeo-Christian women, I want to have an emotional and a spiritual intelligence that helps me be able to hold really powerful conversations with people all over the world. I think an expansive conversation and language is going to be very necessary in the days to come in advancing the kingdom, and so we're going to be having some really great conversations with really great thinkers. They challenge me. As I tell Nadia, I feel like it would have taken me a year to really prep for this book. It's a real scholarly approach, but I want to be spiritually intelligent. I want to be someone who has an answer Not all the answers.
Speaker 1:I will not be able to give all the answers, but I can be informed. There you go, I got to it, and we'll be talking about really healthy, effective communication skills, and we will also just keep having some fun, because that's what we like to do here mix it up. So would you Heartlifters, welcome Nadia Williams to the show today? Hello, heartlifters, as I said, we have Nadia with us today and, nadia, you are going to talk to us about a subject that is so deep I just told you I needed about a year to process it myself, to even formulate questions and formulate my thoughts because you are bringing to us an incredible work, an incredible work. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for inviting me, and I was. I was just telling you that, on the one hand, deep is a compliment and I I really cherish that, but at the same time, sometimes like deep things need to be broken down into accessible. Yeah, bites.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly Well, it is deep. Mother's Children in the Body, politic, ancient Christianity and the Recovery of Human Dignity it was the subtitle that pounded inside of my heart, because one of the greatest works that I feel like I'm trying to do in my life is to bring the value of human dignity back, especially in mothers and children. I have two daughters and a son. My two daughters have both just had children and have had this struggle, like yourself, in the very beginning of the book, of do I stay in my job, do I go home? You know, and so your story starts very early on in the book about your walking away from a tenured position in an academic institution. Nadia, that's a big deal. What led you? What was behind that? If you can maybe speak to women listening that are in that tension, you know that are having children or they have children and they're feeling this calling, wooing, whatever you want to say, to stay home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's an important question and a lot of it will depend on individual circumstances. So when I first so I also have three children and the oldest was my dissertation baby. Oh my God, yeah, so I had a baby right after I defended my dissertation proposal. I still like to this day I don't remember like whole chunks of my dissertation. I have no memory of ever writing them. I'm pretty sure I wrote this because there was no chat, gpt or anything and presumably no elves were breaking into my computer to like write this serious work.
Speaker 1:Thank God there was no chat. Yes, yeah exactly.
Speaker 2:But the point is like, yeah, the baby's only uninterrupted chunk of sleep was between like 2 am and 5 am, so that's when most of the actual writing got done. Anyway, again no memory, like it's all wiped clean, sure. Then I got this tenured position and I was in it for 15 years, got to the rank of full professor. Like everything Also along the way, I came to Christ at age 30. And then also my two younger children were born at that point after I already had tenure. So that's the joke dissertation baby, post-tenure babies.
Speaker 1:Exactly, I love that.
Speaker 2:But there's a 10-year gap in between, and that's what explains the 10-year gap.
Speaker 1:Wow, 10-year gap between the first and the next two.
Speaker 2:And the next one, and then the third one was almost four years later.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay, that makes perfect sense. Yes, almost four years later, yeah, so that's how.
Speaker 2:I have a 19 year old son who's in the military. I have an almost 10 year old son. And then I have a daughter who just turned six.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness you are. You have your hands full, but how wonderful right Six year old, just keep you fresh and unconditional. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, plus she's a girl, so that's like. So we're in the world of like everything is beautiful and everything is pink and but also, but also, we have big feelings which, like I, didn't have with the others, like the big feelings. One of her earliest phrases was like my feelings hurt. It's like none of my other kids didn't say that. She actually said that. Like two.
Speaker 1:Oh, she's brilliant already. Well, I can't wait to see her trajectory. That's so fun. My feelings hurt.
Speaker 2:Well, like the EQ versus the IQ. Oh, I know.
Speaker 1:I love it. You know, my whole world was mental health and emotions. Yeah, so that's so fun that she's doing that. Health and emotions yeah, so that's so fun that she's doing that. Yes, I love it. Thank you for that.
Speaker 2:I love it, but why? Why did you make this? But with the academic? So when I was having these kids in a tenured position, what I learned is, in academia you don't actually really have maternity leave.
Speaker 1:Right Wow.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's true in a lot of positions. It is I think people don't realize like FMLA is really unpaid leave and I mean it seemed okay at the time because my university was doing well. I was in a Southern university in the South in Georgia and it was doing really well. We had a really wonderful president and provost. They were supportive. I was able to do a lot of things from home, like I had administrative responsibilities for a while that were actually like possible. You know, like I had so many meetings where I would be on the phone nursing the baby. It's like okay, I can do this.
Speaker 2:But what happened was the really wonderful president that we had at our institution who actually went to our church. Like we knew him really well, a Christian, yeah, at a secular state universities and the university was flourishing Anyway. He was too good at his job, so the university system of Georgia transferred him to a bigger institution where he's doing wonderful things now. So he was stolen from us Anyway. But the next president who was hired came in during the pandemic and I think he'd like to blame everything on the pandemic and he's not even there anymore. He used it as a stepping stone to something else, but he completely gutted the university. He completely gutted the university, so a lot of people left. My department had 24 full-time faculty in 2020. By the time I left, I think we had 11.
Speaker 1:Wow yeah this is such a peek into the world of academia during the pandemic.
Speaker 2:But it's not just the pandemic, I don't think it was the pandemic it just happened to coincide. But leadership matters and really terrible leadership makes more difference than we think, and that's how what department were you in?
Speaker 1:What were you teaching? What department were you in? I'm just really I was in history. History. Okay, yes, that's your best, for sure.
Speaker 2:But that's the thing. At that point, suddenly, all these things, all these years, that I thought I have the perfect job for family. We were homeschooling all along. Sure, I never slept While you were teaching. Oh yeah. Well, my husband was also a professor there in my department. We worked really hard as a team to make everything possible when things became so awful at work. This is when, like you always hear that adage like your work doesn't love you back.
Speaker 2:But, for a while it kind of felt like it did yeah, until it didn't, until it didn't, until it didn't. And that's when I realized, like you know what, I can't just walk away Like I can Right, that's a huge, huge, brave, courageous step though?
Speaker 1:No, I think so.
Speaker 2:Well it did. At that point. It did not feel brave, it just felt like the right thing to do.
Speaker 1:Okay, I love it. I love it, you get to a point.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and like you work on mental health and you, I'm sure you've seen plenty of people in like toxic job environments.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, for sure.
Speaker 2:Like there, there's a point where you get to a point where you say like the only, like the best thing I can do is leave, is leave, that's right, and so yeah.
Speaker 1:But in that, leaving what led you, because this book is just one I really want to take my time with, as I said, because I'm underlining every sentence and I'm not understanding a lot, because I'm not a history researcher, and so I take a very practical, theological approach to the New Testament, where you are taking a scholarly approach, and that's why I love having you here, because I want to be more intelligent in my faith and I want my community to be as well, especially now as a grandmother in the world that I'm living in.
Speaker 1:I homeschooled as well, and one of the things I say here all the time was I definitely homeschooled and was very evangelical in that world and am not there anymore, and so I want to be able to have a ready answer, an intelligent, well-informed answer, and to be able to talk to my grandchildren in an even more expansive way. So I wanted you here to help us do that, and so there are several aspects of the book. But why did you feel called, perhaps, to do this book, to do this work now, in this time?
Speaker 2:to do this work now, in this time. So the final straw was the moment when I realized like I have to write this was when I read this article that I mentioned in the introduction, the Bloomberg piece that says something like women who don't get married and who don't have children are happier, like, are wealthier. So, like all the things, all the things.
Speaker 1:Unbelievable.
Speaker 2:You're gonna have more money and, by implication, they really connected openly, like you will have more like happiness. Yeah, wealth, but also like happiness.
Speaker 1:And flourishing, your life will be better. Yeah, you write about flourishing, which I love.
Speaker 2:Yes, so your life will be better. Let's like just sum it all up.
Speaker 1:Unbelievable.
Speaker 2:The Bloomberg thesis your life as a woman will be better. Let's like just sum it all up the Bloomberg thesis your life as a woman will be better if you never have kids. And there was the implied like don't get married either. That's just not good for you. So I read that and I was really like angry because also it was so easily debunked. Like Brad Wilcox has published so much research like actual numbers. For those of you who care about numbers, like if you're asking like where are the stats, ma'am?
Speaker 1:We have the numbers. We have the numbers and you give us a lot of those in this book, which is you've done the work for us.
Speaker 2:Yes, Again, like other people who actually like, this is where social scientists are such a blessing to us, and especially social scientists who do all those numbers and then break it down to people like me who does not understand numbers or survey research or anything but anyway. So, like Brad Wilcox, tim Carney, like all those people who have done those numbers and show that actually a married people in America are a lot happier, and mothers with kids, well, obviously mothers have kids, but married mothers with kids, married, mothers.
Speaker 2:Married mothers are doing a lot better than others, and the problem with that particular Bloomberg article was that it was not differentiating between categories. I think we can all agree that single moms in poverty are struggling.
Speaker 1:I would say so.
Speaker 2:That's the point Like that's the point we're not talking, that's not what we're talking about. You cannot look at a mother in a crisis situation and then make a conclusion for the rest of the population and say having kids is just terrible for you, like for your wealth, for your happiness, for your flourishing. It's like no, that's not what we're talking about. And the Bloomberg article, I mean that was basically like shoddy research, but I think it was also malicious. It really was?
Speaker 1:It sounds malicious? Yes, for sure. And I will get it and read it. I have not done that yet, but you give us a synopsis of it, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was really awful, but what struck me when I read it was the thought wait a second, I've seen this before and in fact if you Google, like there are so many, it's a whole genre of articles like hit pieces on motherhood, on marriage and on family. Like in modern America it has become very fashionable to attack mothers and just say, like, what are you doing? And in the past year especially, that's why you're here, this is why, yeah.
Speaker 1:I like, what are you doing, and in the past year especially, yeah, I mean why are we doing this?
Speaker 2:Well, and this is something that was really striking during the presidential campaign season, because one of the few things, one of the few things that both sides candidates, candidates on both sides could agree on was that stay-at-home moms are bad for the GDP. It's like well, thanks for telling me that I'm wrecking the economy by raising my children. Don't mind me over here, but this is such a myopic argument. But it gets to a bigger point where we want to sum up everything that any person does, from birth to death, in economic terms.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's what you say over, I have it written down so many times. You know what's the best economic footing, what is the price tag on a human life? That's what struck me particularly was, as a stay at home mom back in the day, and even now at 65, I am, you know, getting the social security spectrum of how much money and you can see the deficit of that that I stayed home. Right, it's very, it's right there, it's right there. So, if you don't personally, personally, personally know and have the human dignity and value of what I did by staying home instead of, you know, going out into the world and making more money, you know it's sobering. That's why I wanted you here, because I feel like, because there's such an attack on, I mean, I'm living it with my, my two daughters and my daughter-in-law living it. They're all staying home.
Speaker 1:My twin daughter just had her first and she's had spent 10 years building a career and it was a really heart wrenching decision as, like you, you knew this is not right anymore. I'm moving on. Decision as, like you, you knew this is not right anymore. I'm moving on. And so I have said to her you'll never, you really won't ever, regret this. Yet the messages right, and you have to be prepared for down the road when you get your social security and go oh okay, Well, I really wasn't worth quite a lot, right? So does that all work? Is it all coming into fruition that? How do we now then bring forth what you're trying to tell us is not have a price tag on a human life like that? Like what do we do?
Speaker 2:So this is where I keep saying over the last few years that, like any big questions are really theological questions. Love that that require theological answers, and I think this is where we're getting at. So all of these negative messages about motherhood have parallels in pre-Christian pagan world, where there was also a devaluing of women and devaluing of mothers, like you're only worth something if you're doing something for the state.
Speaker 1:Which was really mind-blowing to me, that it was present in that day and time. Oh yeah, so that's your area of expertise. It looked different, but the principles were the same. But it was there. It was there. So tell us. I want to know. That's your expertise. I want to hear what you have to say about that. It's so important.
Speaker 2:So, for example, when you look at someone like Aristotle who talks about women are a curse on men and are a curse on society, are intellectually lightweight, cannot be trusted. There was a whole tradition that it was actually women who were sexually overzealous and not men, but it was women who would be a problem in that regard, and so on and so forth. Historians, well, consider that it may have been a tongue-in-cheek story, but in Aeschylus' trilogy, the Oresteia, in the final play in the trilogy, there's a murder trial and the whole question hinges on whether the character who is accused of killing his mother to avenge his father's death that's a dysfunctional family situation whether he was guilty of murder for killing his mother, and the goddess Athena comes to his defense effectively. Well, actually, apollo. So Apollo and Athena collaborate to his defense effectively. Well, actually, apollo. So Apollo and Athena collaborate on his defense.
Speaker 2:And the crux of the matter is in Apollo's argument that mothers are not actually like the parents of their children. They're just the incubator. Only the father creates new life. The mother is a vessel, an incubator like. Think of a vase, you know that holds water or something Like.
Speaker 2:Think of a vase you know that holds water or something, and that's all that a mother does.
Speaker 1:She's a conduit, basically, right yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, and the goddess Athena is an illustration of how that works. Because she was born, she does not have a mother. She was born out of Zeus's head, fully formed. So there you have it, this mythological explanation that only fathers are true parents of their children. Mothers just kind of carried them along like a supermarket bag. They brought them home. That's great, you've served your duty. Goodbye, and so this character is acquitted.
Speaker 1:But these myths served a real. They were. I mean, we can see that in scripture. You know they bring in. So these myths were more than myths in that day and time, for sure.
Speaker 2:Well, that's the thing. Any myths, any stories we tell, any folklore has roots in values. It reflects values and it continues perpetuating them in the long run. And so that's what we're seeing here. We see true misogyny baked into consciousness in the ancient pre-Christian world. And then you have Jesus coming along and saying like everybody is my beloved son and daughter.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:I know Like mic drop.
Speaker 1:Mic drop, yes, which I think is so phenomenal and I have definitely talked a lot about it, written a lot about it myself, and how Jesus it was my master's thesis how he really came to empower women.
Speaker 2:Right, did he know that? What does it look Well, what does it mean to so like when we say he came to empower women? It's something like it might mean something like different. So really what he came to do was to tell everybody, like men and women alike, but the reason that it seems like empowering women because they didn't have that message before. If you have Aristotle being pounded into your head, you are an imperfect male. Yes, and then you have somebody who says everybody is made in God's image.
Speaker 1:Right, life altering. Radical yeah, totally radical, right yeah. So I'm going to perceive that as he empowered me and gave me a voice, that's how I'm going to use the words here in the 21st century. But what did that really mean? Help us understand that.
Speaker 2:So what it meant was seeing human dignity without putting a price tag on it, without doing that thing that we're still tempted to do today, and so that's where I thought it was really striking. So when I first started looking at like, how did Jesus? Like, if we want to talk about pro-life ministry and I think we can agree that Jesus's ministry was very much a profoundly pro-life ministry- but, what does that mean?
Speaker 2:So today, when you say pro-life ministry, you're thinking like, okay, let's go demonstrate in front of abortion clinics or something, let's advocate for protecting women in crisis pregnancies, let's protect the unborn, and that's wonderful, like we should be doing this. Protecting the unborn is wonderful, supporting mothers in crisis situations is wonderful, but when we have this view of pro-life ministry, it's too narrow. What does it mean to be not just pro-life but pro-human flourishing? And that's where Jesus has such an incredible story for us. Because if you look at the gospels, what did Jesus's ministry look like? We don't see him ever interacting with women in crisis pregnancies, although you could argue that Mary was one. So I guess there is that one. But what does his pro-life ministry look like? It looks like endless conversations with single women in crisis.
Speaker 1:The ones who were invisible. The ones who were invisible and you say useless.
Speaker 2:Yes, useless.
Speaker 1:The word useless hit me hard and you have a whole chapter on the redemption of useless people, because maybe in my day we would have called them what do we say? Unlovely. I think that's what it was.
Speaker 2:That's so insidious.
Speaker 1:Isn't it? Oh, I know.
Speaker 2:It sounds subtle, but then you think about it, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Oh I know, it sounds subtle, but then you think about it. It's like Ooh. I know, that's what we I know that's what we call them, Cause that has an implication of beauty also, like what you're doing is not beautiful, you know when you think of, like the good, the true and the beautiful and unlovely, basically says that you're the opposite of that Ooh opposite of that.
Speaker 1:Ooh, I know, but you, you're sorry, I know, I know there's a lot to be sorry for yeah, oh, no, there is, and I have definitely said I'm sorry. But this idea of and I think I would maybe also say just invisible people that are invisible, we could even call them wallflower people or disabled, right, any of those things, yeah, that falls into that category.
Speaker 1:That falls into that category and certainly history has not been kind to useless people and even in modern day, my daughter spent a lot of time in India. My older daughter, my daughter, spent a lot of time in India. My older daughter and she was just. She spent some time with an NGO and if you're disabled, you're on a cot in a bed and I think that defines useless. Yeah, it really ripped her heart apart. You know it's like how is that? How is that happening today? But it is, and I think you know I live in a very privileged world, I think I think I can use that word. I don't know, but that is not. There are a lot of parts of the world that are, you know, and I've been to them. So I think what you're saying to us is Christ came, he saw every person, Every person right.
Speaker 2:And that's seeing, seeing the invisible ones. Yeah, I mean, that's big we don't and we don't necessarily think about how revolutionary it is for the invisible to be seen.
Speaker 1:You are changing my mind, my worldview. It's very thing. That's why I wanted you here, because you're helping me inform even the ways that I would have used the word empower Okay, because it's not the right word we have connotations.
Speaker 2:We have connotations with it today, but it is empower, but it's in a different way, and that's where even just the act of seeing somebody that no one would have seen.
Speaker 1:Yes, how do I bring that into my life, down from? Okay, we were talking about how deep this subject is and it is intellectual and I'm academic, maybe is the right, more preferred word. So how do I see? How do I see as a modern day follower of Jesus? How do I see as a modern-day follower of Jesus? How do I see like Jesus saw, like what was in that vision? What did he have that I can have?
Speaker 2:Well, I think a lot of it starts even in church and in community. It does so whenever Jesus goes to a party. If you will like to use a— yes, Mm-hmm, he did go to parties Exactly, but he always gravitates to use a. Who does he talk to? He did go to parties, Exactly, but he always gravitates to the people that no one else talks to.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, and in a sense, people we might frame it this way that can't do anything for him, exactly Right. Yeah, we might there's terms for it suck up all those things you know, go to people that will bring us an advantage.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Further our career, or yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, how do we do this in church and in our community and that's where interacting with people in need is so is still so revolutionary because they can't do anything for you. But ultimately also even staying at home with your kids Can my kids do anything for me?
Speaker 1:I mean, I think they're really lovable, they do make me happy, but the point is there's no prestige associated with which is the biggest pound the table and that is a rudimentary part of your work here is to restore the value of motherhood, which I think I'm doing, but you're calling me to really think broader. Love that you know. Why do we need to restore the dignity and the value of a mother staying home? Why? What are the ramifications? You have so many ramifications in this book. You know the cost, the cost, the cost of these actions in, you know, pre-christian Mediterranean world. I mean, you give us the ramifications so you have immersed yourself in this for years, I'm sure. What are the ramifications if we don't? We don't restore this incredible I haven't even known what to call it office calling, position, stature of motherhood.
Speaker 2:It's a symptom of how we look at people more generally. So the way we look at mothers and children and really the vulnerable, it reflects how we look at people in general. So if you're willing to look at anyone and say you are useless or you are unlovely, what are you thinking about the rest of God's creations, God's priceless, beautiful children?
Speaker 1:It's a harsh category.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is, but that's what it is. Our anthropology is on the line, like how we think of other people, because our anthropology is informed by our theology how we think of God and how we think of God's interactions with us. And that's really what it comes down to. How you treat other people reflects your view of God.
Speaker 1:Oh, say that again, because that is a vital part of this conversation. So please say that again.
Speaker 2:Of course. Yeah, how you treat other people reflects your view of God, or, if you want, the 50 cent words. Your anthropology and your theology are deeply connected.
Speaker 1:Oh, I've never heard that said. That is so good and I have to take that and really sit with it. I love that. Here's what you write. Can I read this real quick? I love what you said about Bloomberg's article and I wanted to get it in here and subsequent popularity.
Speaker 1:The very attempt in this work to propose the argument that it makes, to do it so boldly, like you just said, is a symptom of a pervasive problem in American society the problem of devaluing motherhood and children in every sphere of modern life. That is the problem that you this is why you wrote this book seek to confront in all its ugliness in this present book, with the conviction that it is impossible to address a problem whose existence and full repercussions in our world and our own lives we do not recognize or acknowledge openly, and it is a problem that is symptomatic of a larger devaluing of human life in our society more generally. Okay, so bring this into my practical living life, like you're doing so beautifully. Thank you so. So much that I first need to examine how I see the people in my life and in my community, my neighborhood. I mean, isn't it love your neighbor as you love yourself?
Speaker 2:It is, but it's also love you like, in a way that Jesus would say it.
Speaker 1:Okay, if you don't think, tell me more.
Speaker 2:Well, if you think, if you absorb what somebody else says, if somebody else says you are unlovely, you absorb what somebody else says if somebody else says you are unlovely, or?
Speaker 1:that's not what Jesus says about mothers, children or any human being.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is not. He keeps saying like I love you.
Speaker 1:Yes, he does, he does, would you? Okay, hold on one minute, I've got to get my notes. Okay, told you, there's so many things and I wanted to be clear. You talk about the devaluing of children is inextricably connected and you use a word that just jumped off the page to the disdain, the disdain our society conveys for the work of mothers, from the process of pregnancy to the work and resources expended on child rearing and education. In other words, our society has a built-in disdain for motherhood as a concept. Why is that, nadia?
Speaker 2:Again it goes back to that GDP. If what you're doing does not generate open revenue, then for a lot of people looking from outside in it just seems kind of senseless and worthless. And it is kind of ironic because any of us could be doing the same work outside the home and getting paid for it and suddenly be lauded.
Speaker 1:Like a daycare or yeah.
Speaker 2:If you're teaching somebody else's children like, that's great, you're supporting the economy. If you're teaching your own children, that's bad, you're not supporting the economy.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, I homeschooled when that was really, really disdained. You know what are you doing back in the day. I'm not that old, but I'm old enough to know that I was a little bit of a pioneer in my community, you know, one of the pioneers for bringing my children home, and totally devalued for sure. So, yes, so it is a matter of economics, for sure, and if you're, I like to hold things in two hands here. So if society, culture, and it's been here, like you're telling us, for centuries and centuries, millennia, right down, I, janelle, you, nadia, have to just know inside of ourselves, in our inherent intrinsic value, worth and dignity, that the work I'm doing at home with my children is God's work.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:The.
Speaker 2:Gospels affirm it over and over and over. And I mean this is where, for Christians, like we talk about all the like general benefits of being immersed in scripture daily and all of that, like well, here's one like you really do see this over and over. Nothing that you're doing is unseen. God can see it, God cares, God values it. But, also, this is the work for pastors. Like not to put yet more responsibility on pastors. This is something that they should acknowledge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a culture and I think yeah, this is where the church can do something.
Speaker 1:And not just to have a mops group or a mothers group. Right, I know, will you talk about that, like having that. Oh yeah, okay, I can see you have no go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, that, oh, yeah, okay, I can see you Go ahead. Yeah, no, no, no, you go ahead, okay, yeah. But this is where creating that culture that pushes back against the prevalent societal wisdom. You know, the best answer to Bloomberg can be found on Sunday in a good church.
Speaker 1:In a good, healthy church. Exactly. That values the unseen right. Yeah, that sees every person.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and that's what it is. That's the whole kind of the invitation that come to Christ with all of your messiness and woundedness and sleep deprivation from the night before where your baby just like would not sleep, and then you can pass that baby to a loving friend and exactly like. Well, and the nursery workers in our church are like people like me who are in the rotation who will happily take your baby and rock your baby. You know, like one week every like you know couple of months?
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Like whatever the rotation is, and it's just the most beautiful thing ever because it's a gift for me, like now that my youngest is six, just like breathe in that smell of I know. I love your joy, your joy is effervescent it's lovely, but that's what we're looking for. That is what healthy church and healthy relationship with Christ does, because that's what he came to give us. He came to give us joy in these things that otherwise the world says are worthless.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I feel. Do you ever feel as though you are a lone voice, though? Like? This book to me is earth-shattering, life-shattering, and, yes, it's speaking to church culture, for sure, to church leadership, to the community of faith, all faith, you know, that's what's speaking to me about it. So do you feel like a lone voice at times?
Speaker 2:Not so much anymore. I think part of it is there have been several other books like right around this time that address different pieces of this. So, even like Tim Carney's Family Unfriendly, for instance, or Catherine Pakaluk's book on women who had more than five or more kids. Like looking at, like what separates those families from everybody else? Like what? And it is a lot of times like just the joy of parenting, joy of having kids.
Speaker 1:Yes, Well, back in my day I will say this. I'm going to say it because, back in my day I will say this. I'm gonna say it because back in my day, in the early years of homeschooling in the states for sure uh, there were books like full quiver and don't stop at two, don't stop at three. And so there was this uh, what do you call it? Pedestal. There was this, oh heavy weight almost of stopping at three or stopping at four. Like you, you know it was the godly thing to do to have many, many children. I mean just so many skewed messages.
Speaker 2:But but what's so interesting? Like the more recent books and my book I've seen people like say my book is very much like a pro big family book which I think is hilarious.
Speaker 1:I didn't get that Okay.
Speaker 2:And it's fine. I take it as a compliment. But the point is like the messaging now is different. So you're talking about like the folk movement, movement and like don't stop at two or something. And that's not the messaging right now. What we're saying is pursue human flourishing in your family, like love your kids and feel loved the way God wants to love you.
Speaker 2:Rejoice in the life that you have. It's not saying you must have X number of kids before you're happy, or God requires you to have X number of kids, of kids, before you're happy, or God requires you to have.
Speaker 1:X number of kids.
Speaker 2:It's really saying how can you flourish in this world the way God has called you to?
Speaker 1:And I think I understand human flourishing. I've written about it, I've studied it, positive psychology, all of those things Can you explain for my Heart Lift community?
Speaker 2:what does that mean? What does human flourishing mean? It's a great question, and perhaps my definition is going to be a little bit different from yours as, like, a professional mental health expert, but I think of Wendell Berry. So all of Wendell Berry's writing has been in pursuit of human flourishing. How do we empower people to thrive in their communities? And a lot of times it requires not just the love of God, but also just the love of family, the love of other people, the love of place finding roots, which is really difficult, of place finding roots, which is really difficult. And, by the way, for academics, everything about academia is against roots, because you don't choose where you live and things like that I don't understand that.
Speaker 1:Tell me.
Speaker 2:Well, so in academia, the way the job market was you apply for whatever job there is the year that you graduate with your PhD and if you get a job, you say yes, thank you, I will move to Fairbanks, alaska, or you know, like just or middle of nowhere in Washington State, like that's totally fine, like I've never been there, but like if you offer me a job, like you will take it you take what you get.
Speaker 2:Yes, you take what you get, which is fine, and all of those places are lovely, but the point is there is no concept of you have generations of people who come from here. So after I walked away from academia, my husband got a job in Ashland, Ohio, which is where we live now and we love it. But so many people in our church we love our church.
Speaker 1:I'm so happy to hear that that's a gift you know what a to hear that that's a gift. You know what a gift that is.
Speaker 2:It is a gift. Well, god's people are just the best, but so many people in our church and that's kind of been my joke after I caught on pretty quickly. It's been my joke Whenever I meet anyone new here in church or in town. It's like so who else are you related to? Because I know if. I ask this question. It will save me embarrassment later when it turns out that they're like the second cousin, once removed from like somebody else that I had lunch with, like three days ago.
Speaker 1:It's people, everybody knows everybody.
Speaker 2:Yes, if my children throw a fit in the grocery store, chances are somebody will talk to them about it. I love it. Two days later yes, I get it.
Speaker 1:I understand what you're saying.
Speaker 2:But that's the thing, it's that rootedness. So for some people in my church they live on a family farm that goes back 200 years. It's unbelievable. It really is, but it's root.
Speaker 1:What have you gleaned from that? It really is, but it's rude. What have you gleaned from that? Like, that seems to be a really present testing to what you're writing about, in a sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so, barry, in talking about human flourishing as connected to place in addition, so it's like the love of people is always connected to the love of place. It really is, it's very much against the modern corporate and academic world and I'd say, like the corporate world is just as bad as academia, because every promotion comes with another place. Yeah, that could be military as well.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, as you're seeing with your son. For sure, yeah, I grew up in a military family.
Speaker 2:So there you go. You don't even know what country you'll end up in.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure I know how to root, put it that way. I've had to work hard on staying in one place and seeing the value of being well-rooted in one place. I have had to do that for sure yeah.
Speaker 1:That's a challenge. It is a very big challenge. Let me read what you write oh, go ahead, go ahead. Yeah, so I think that's it is a very big challenge. Let me read what you write oh, go ahead, go ahead. Yeah, I want to read what you write from Barry. Hold on, let me find him again, wendell Barry. Here he is. More recently, over his prolific writing career spanning six decades and counting, wendell Barry has also considered similar questions in connection to local culture and agriculture. Human dignity and worth for berry are under extreme threat in our industrialized and viciously and unnaturally industrialized world.
Speaker 1:I guess this is just the huge investment I'm hoping that you make into my life and everyone that's listening is what can I do? What can we do? Is it as simple as just see others as Jesus sees others and then, on the other hand, see mothering as so valuable? Yet you do talk about because you are not just a mother? Let's just throw that just word out, because people will say, oh, you're just a mother, right, but you're more than a mother. Or is it just mothering like the? I think what I'm studying is the whole concept of mothering. You know, like what the world needs now is mothering. I think that's what's absent. Is that yeah?
Speaker 2:I think that's a good way to put it and everything that we do is connected. So much of the way the world, the contemporary world, sees work and whatever happens at home is separate spheres, Like, let's pretend that you're only a worker between these hours and you don't do anything else. But the whole point is like we are whole persons and deep inside we know this, like your soul, your mind, your body, like all of these things, uh, are intertwined and so, like everything that I do, uh, my work as a writer and an editor cannot be separated from my work of mothering. I'm so much better at what I do in other spheres precisely because I am a mother to my children.
Speaker 1:Why? Why do you say that? Why do you I want nuts and bolts here. Why do you say that?
Speaker 2:I'm not very good at nuts and bolts I can tell stories nuts and bolts here. Why do you say that I'm not very good?
Speaker 1:at nuts and bolts. I can tell stories, you're putting me on the spot.
Speaker 2:Well then, tell me a story. Okay, so the way even like the practice of seeing people right. So how do we do that? Part of it starts with the school of marriage and parenting, the reason I can see that I'm learning. I'm not perfect at this, none of us are on this side of heaven.
Speaker 2:But the reason I'm learning to do this is because I have children who, when they cry little kids, especially with their needs you cannot not see a crying child. Well, you can, Well, I guess, but it would take some real effort and it would be very dysfunctional.
Speaker 1:It would be dysfunctional, correct. But you're inciting us, inviting us to really see.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right, so really see, but that's exactly, but that's the kind of seeing that we need to train ourselves to use also in interacting with other people. Just because adults don't cry about every need doesn't mean that adults we know in our lives are not going through something.
Speaker 1:They don't carry big feelings right. Like your little one, your little girl, right? Yeah, they might not tell you.
Speaker 2:They might not tell you that that's right, but they carry it and that's what Jesus was so good at doing. So Jesus's pro-life ministry was seeing people, seeing those feelings like down to the core.
Speaker 1:And listening.
Speaker 2:And listening.
Speaker 1:And that enlarges you as a human being. I think that gives the work that you're doing inside of your home, adds such such value to your personhood. That's how I saw it. It was like having my children at home being a mother. For me, continuing because they're adults now is an expansive work.
Speaker 1:I am always having to learn, I'm always having to listen and grow and evolve, and so I think that you know you're not saying to us okay, you have to stay home, be a stay at home mom and then neglect your intellect or neglect. You're not doing that, you're not proposing that, you're not purporting that. You're telling us to become whole, to be the holistic view right of being to me. You know, and I think you're defending that as well, that I don't think there's anything more important in the world than a healthy mother, emotionally, mentally, relationally in the world, than a healthy mother emotionally, mentally, relationally, spiritually, because it is our future, and so that comes back down. I guess to close here this is so hard to close because it's such an important topic you know is to really understand the ramifications of a society that doesn't value that.
Speaker 2:And I was thinking back to Bloomberg, and I guess we can conclude with that article that started me down the path to this book. What would a world look like if more women followed the advice of that article? It would be a very sterile, isolated, lonely world that encourages selfishness. Because that's what it is. That article is a call to selfishness. Just do what you want to do, ignore everybody else, and you will be happy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true, and I can think of historical periods and historical leaders that did that, and you have given us many stories in this book. Okay, so our final, what is our final thought, nadia, while I have you here, your beautiful thoughts to encourage those moms that perhaps are where you were or are at home feeling devalued, just a word to them.
Speaker 2:God called you to this and it's so beautiful. You are lovely and the work you're doing is priceless.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much Thank you. I'm going to end it there, but I want to ask you a question. I'm not going to hit stop recording. I'm so curious. What nationality are you?
Speaker 2:I was born in Russia and grew up in Israel. My family moved to the US when I was in high school. Oh my gosh, I guess the accent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just like trying to go. What accent is that? My whole family's Czech on that side. Okay, yeah, you know. So Russian. Okay, that makes sense. And then Israel and where, like how did you come to follow Christ at age 30?
Speaker 2:It was just kind of that personal crisis, like right as I was on track to tenure and all that, and just my personal life was falling apart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Did someone just come into your life and see you and share the story, or did you search on your own?
Speaker 2:There was a little bit of both. I was searching already and somebody was willing to loan a bunch of books.
Speaker 1:I love it. Which book might have had the best impact? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hard to know because I read so much. I just kind of like all over.
Speaker 1:You're a reader.
Speaker 2:The academic approach to figuring things out, but ultimately reading through the Gospels.
Speaker 1:I love that so much. Okay, I'll stop. Oh, thanks for listening today. Heartlifters Wow, I'm really deeply emotional right now at re-listening my conversation with Nadia. At re-listening my conversation with Nadia, her words are piercing, convicting, challenging, promising and, most of all, hopeful. The very end of her book she writes To promote a culture of life means deliberately finding the counter-cultural joy in family, in children, in friendships, in meaningful work and in redeeming our time to the glory of God. In a decidedly utilitarian world that questions all things that do not lead to profit, all things that do not lead to profit, p-r-o-f-i-t.
Speaker 1:Tell me a story. My eight-year-old son still asks my husband every morning by way of greeting. He began making this request years ago before he could read. Now, although he reads for himself, he still wants to hear stories from his father. Reads for himself. He still wants to hear stories from his father. The stories we tell, write and live out every day are not perfect, but they can be good, beautiful and meaningful. But most of all, what these stories tell my son at the beginning of each day is that his life matters, that he is dear to us, that he is significant enough for his father to begin his day with a renewal of relationship. I'm deeply, deeply convicted and exhorted by Nadja's words to us. Please meet me at HeartLift Central on Substack or on Instagram at Janelle Reardon. Your thoughts enlarge my life and remember you have value, worth and dignity.
