Deranged Response to Value

 From Anthony Esolen's Destruction ad nihilem (at thecatholicthing.org):

[Carol Gilligan's] insane conclusion bears upon the cultural situation in which sane people in general and Christians in particular now find themselves. To look upon boys doing boyish and innocent things, and accomplishing something impressive, and to regard them with disdain or hatred, is a sign of mental and spiritual disease. It would be like seeing a mother rocking her child to sleep, and sniffing at the scene with contempt. It is what Dietrich von Hildebrand would say was a deranged response to value. 

You say that, Sir (the bit I've highlighted), as if nobody would dream of doing that.  And yet, they do that, too.  The "feminists" absolutely decided that motherhood was a contemptible occupation.  They would never say that out loud, but it was everywhere implied (and impressed upon us growing girls in the '70's and '80's), by the repeated messages that women needed more that "just that" to "be fulfilled," that making a home and nurturing children was somehow "beneath" the true dignity of a woman; that she deserved "more," that she was "worth more," etc.  As if there could be any more humanly ESSENTIAL, any more URGENTLY IMPORTANT, occupation for ANY HUMAN BEING, than raising up children and providing for their health and safety and preparation for life.  It is, as you say, insane, but that's what they were about, and the whole culture followed them right down that bizarre rabbit hole.

It is certainly true that women can make important, beautiful, enormously valuable contributions in every other field of human endeavour, as well.  And it's lovely that women have opportunities now to do so, far greater than they did at any time previous.  However, we must admit that a great multitude of babies quite literally were thrown out with the bathwater of workplace discrimination against women.  In addition to the million-plus per year actual babies that are discarded as medical waste, the metaphorical "baby" of the value of MOTHERHOOD was also discarded.  

We are now an entire culture who pays almost no attention at all to the image of a mother rocking her child to sleep, and--far worse--little or no attention to the image of a mother having someone murder her own child in her very womb.  Go figure.  Motherhood?  Forgetaboutit.