The Importance of Motherhood is a Bad Thing?

Natalie Portman accepted her oscar on Sunday night for her role in Black Swan. During her acceptance speech she thanked her love for giving her "..the most important role of her life". She didn't flat-out say it, but everyone is assuming that she meant her impending motherhood. Natalie is about five months pregnant with her first child.



She also thanked her parents for giving her life and allowing her to pursue her career at such a young age. Natalie seems to be out of the norm by surviving fame and hollywood from a very young age. Most child stars don't fare very well. Natalie has never been in the headlines like some such as the kids from Different Strokes, Danny from the Partridge Family, and very long list of others.

I found Natalie's speech to be very touching and seem to come from the heart. Apparently, not everyone agrees with me. Mary Elizabeth Williams of Slate is very insulted that Ms. Portman believes that motherhood will be her most important role.

When you're pregnant, especially for the first time, there are a lot of amazed and awed moments in between the heartburn and insomnia. But is motherhood really a greater role than being secretary of state or a justice on the Supreme Court? Is reproduction automatically the greatest thing Natalie Portman will do with her life?

Portman has a degree in psychology, so I don't think she is qualified to be either Secretary of State or a justice on the Supreme Court.

Why, at the pinnacle of one's professional career, would a person feel the need to undercut it by announcing that there's something else even more important? Even if you feel that way, why downplay your achievement? Why compare the two, as if a grueling acting role and being a parent were somehow in competition?

Natalie at no time undercut her achievement. She very specifically said how grateful she was to have her acting career and talked about her love and passion for the work.




This is yet one more example of the feminists of the world downplaying the importance of motherhood. Motherhood is the most important job you will ever have and saying so is nothing to be ashamed of. This is not to say that women should never work, it is just saying that bringing up a child and helping that child to realize their own potential and to grow into a happy, healthy and well-adjusted adult is very hard work and yes, sometimes you will have to give up things in order to do it correctly. Once you bring that child home from the hospital you have made a choice to be the best parent that you can be, and if putting your professional career on the back-burner at moments is a small price to pay.


What is so sad about this article is that author even uses examples of other actresses who have achieved success and are still home for their children; Annette Bening, who was also up for best actress against Natalie. Annette has been very open about the fact that her four children come first for her.

"I have all these conditions on which I can work,"

Obviously she has found a balance that works for her children and herself. Julia Roberts now has three children. I remember hearing an interview with her saying that the ability to stay home with her kids was her reward for working so hard when she was younger. She has still made some movies since the birth of her kids. Kate Winselt and Reese Witherspoon both won Oscars after having children. That doesn't mean that they put acting before their children. It just means that they have a support system that allows them to pursue their careers and raise their families.


This isn't even the age-old battle of the stay at home mom versus the working mom. This is an all out attack on motherhood as a whole. I agree with Jackie Kennedy when it comes to motherhood

If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much.

I find this whole thing especially rich when you think about the movie for which she won this award for. In Black Swan, Natalie plays a ballerina that is self-destructive mainly due to a mother who put her daughter's career ahead of her well-being.

Cross posted at PotLuck

Portman, Skins, Sex and the City, and Abortion - The Ties that Do Bind

The new movie No Strings Attached was #1 at the box office this weekend.  It is a romantic comedy starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher about causal sex.  The basic premise of the movie is to tell the story of what happens between friends who decide to have a sexual relationship that doesn't include romance.  Now, I have not seen the movie, but I have read the reviews of it.  Some are good, others not so much.  I was going to do a post on the new MTV show Skins and decided that I should watch it to fully understand what everyone was talking about.  Believe me, don't waste your time watching that show, it is horrid.  The storyline is stupid and childish and it is chock full of bad acting.  I can't imagine it will stay on the air as the advertisers are running away from the show very quickly. 

I have read a great deal of the reporting on the butcher that calls himself an abortion doctor in Pennsylvania. There is no other way to describe that man other than evil, pure evil. While reading all the awful stories from the grand jury testimony one must ask themselves where does this type of thought process come from. While it would a leap too wide to say that Skins and No Strings Attached are to blame for it, but it is part of the problem. Especially when it comes to Skins, as this is directed to a much younger crowd. While MTV puts a disclaimer on the show about the adult content, the cast is in high school. There is only a certain age group that is interested in the lifestyles of the young and depraved. It is really the high school version of Sex and the City without the wit and charisma.


We have constant images of casual sex and the meaning of what feminism is supposed to mean. While this isn't a big deal for the more mature of the audience, but is it really harmless to the young? We are telling young adults that sex has no real meaning other than to scratch an itch. We are also saying that they are not real consequences to the choices that we make in life. These shows don't talk about the real consequences of how unwanted pregnancies lead to the debauchery that is being seen in that abortion house of horrors. How there are doctors that are quite literally making millions of dollars off the casual sex that has "no consequences". Can we keep telling ourselves that their aren't real consequences to this types of actions?

In New York City is said that almost about 40% of all pregnancies now end in abortion. Do we really still have to hear the lies that abortion is not used as a form of birth control? New York City has drug stores and family planning clinics galore, the reasoning behind this many abortions cannot be simply due to lack of access to birth control or by instances of violence as the left is always trying to say that it is. There is a lack of responsibility of these people, both the man and the woman.

Take Sex and the City for example, it spent 6 seasons glamorizing a life filled with sex without emotion in the character of Samantha. The series did decide to take the high road at the end and put everyone in a loving and lasting relationship; even Samantha who found love with a younger man who accepted her for who she is. The movie then decided to end that relationship and she decided that sleeping around without commitment was much a better option for a woman who just turned 50. These are the messages that we are telling to impressionable young women. The story of Samantha was an either or situation. She couldn't have a career and love, she had to make a choice. I refuse to accept that as the only option for women. Plenty of woman find real fulfillment from a lasting marriage to man who loves you just as deeply as you love him. There is nothing inherently wrong with this.

While it is true that as a parent it is your job to teach your child values, but the constant images and peer pressure that comes from their friends are sometimes too difficult to overcome and this barrage of bad influences that don't tell the entire story certainly don't make the job any easier on parents of teenagers. Where are the movies that tell them that having a child out-of-wedlock before you finish school will more than likely lead you to a life on public assistance? Where are the movies that show that once you have a child you can't go hand out with your friends on a Friday night because your too exhausted? When do they get told that the person you fall in love with at 18 is not likely to the person you are still in love with at 35?

In No Strings Attached, like most other movies, it has a happy ending. The couple pays no real price for the free sex and end up living happily ever after. When the reality is that almost never happens. I actually do know someone who did marry her friend with benefits after insisting that it was just sex. They now have three children. But, that is not the norm. In the vast majority of the cases what ends up happening is that someone gets hurt. The "free sex" turns into an emotional tie that doesn't bind them together, but since it is one-sided the other person ends up with nothing more than heartbreak and the realization that they were used. I would venture to say that in most instances it is the woman who ends up with the short end of that stick.

It is time that we start telling the truth to young women.  Free sex is almost never really free.  If you are not ready to become a parent, the only sure form of birth control is not having sex.  Abortion is a big business that includes people who are making millions of dollars of the sorrow from the lies we are telling young women.  There is a price a to pay for all the images that are being brought to our kids on the movie and television screens.  We need to tell our kids that we are no longer going to accept the lie that the people on the left keep spreading when they say they want abortion to safe and rare.  If you really want to see what a monster really looks like, go over to Pundit and Pundette; as she has plenty of disturbing reading to show what the reality is.  A story that needs to be told, so thanks to Jill for having the courage to tell it. 


Cross Posted at PotLuck