On Mother’s Day this year we celebrated the birth of a special Canadian baby. Small but vocal, like all newborns, this child represents the true women’s movement.
This pro-family, pro-life national women’s organization, the R.E.A.L. Women of Canada, was conceived by a group of women who could no longer tolerate the way the majority is being represented. Together with the media, the various women’s groups who purport to speak for the women of this country in fact only speak for small radical minorities. We, the majority, are no longer willing to allow this to happen.
The traditional family is constantly under attack today. We frequently read of the escalating divorce rate, battered women, child abuse, alternate lifestyles, the seeming breakdown of moral values. The fact is, 60% of marriages work. There are hundreds of thousands of fulfilled women, of successful families nurturing happy, well-adjusted children and young adults.
On the other hand, the pressures of modern life, have resulted in many families having to manage with the stress of working mothers, the problems of single parents, and of children being cared for outside the immediate family circle. Traditionally, the linch-pin of the family has been the mother, and so these pressures fall most heavily upon the woman. Any influence that attacks women also attacks the very structure of the family.
Working mothers, married or single, often have to become superwomen to fulfill their family responsibilities with their career responsibilities. R.E.A.L. Women is a voice for these women who need the security of quality day care and more flexible working arrangements.
While a large percentage of mothers of young children are in the paid work force, there are equally a large number of us who are lucky enough to be able to treat motherhood as a profession. As a professional mother, I greatly resent the condescending attitudes, which frequently accompany the remark, “just a housewife.” R.E.A.L. Women is working to restore the dignity, respect and position in our society due to the mother.
The childless wife who is not in the paid work force is equally in need of protection. R.E.A.L. Women rejects totally the notion put forward by Judy Erola that these families should lose the spousal tax deduction because these women are supposedly not contributing to society. As Minister responsible for the Status of Women, she should know better. These women are the backbone of volunteer organizations, they are the nurturers of the community.
The single woman also nurtures the community; she too has an important place in this organization. Just as each family-unit receives special practical and emotional support from its individual members, so too does the extended family of R.E.A.L. Women receive support from the single woman.
This organization aims to unite responsible women across the country. Its strength lies in the principle that no one section of society can demand rights for itself when in so doing it is denying the equal rights of others.
The R.E.A.L. Women of Canada needs your support and encouragement. To become an effective force it has to have a substantial membership. In this issue of The Interim there is a membership form , please take the time to fill it in.
