THE MODERN WOMAN can do anything provided she puts her mind to it. That is the message Allyson Reneau, supermom from Oklahoma City, is telling the public as she heads to graduate school at Harvard University this fall. According to The Oklahoman, Mrs. Reneau owns a gymnastics business and is the mother of 11 children, seven of whom are still at home. She will be seeking a graduate degree in international relations. Her goal is modest: Mrs. Reneau hopes to “empower women around the world.”

Women in the far corners of the globe await Mrs. Reneau’s expertise. The fact that Mrs. Reneau dresses in silly gymnastic clothes should mislead no one.

“It doesn’t really matter how old you are or what obstacles may be in your way,” Mrs. Reneau says, “… If you try, you can do anything.” Those obstacles include children, husband, extended family and community. Mrs. Reneau would have not been on the local news report if she had stayed with her family. But she is in the news because she will be with her children less, pursuing a meaningless degree many hundreds of miles away.

Feminism has given women choice. That’s what we are often told. But everywhere we look, one choice is glorified. In the face of this pervasive message, the modern woman can do almost anything she puts her mind to. Except stay where she is needed.

She is also a willing pawn of institutions that profit from her restless ambition. Yes, Harvard says. Yes. Come and stay awhile.

                                                      — Comments —

Izzy Lyman, who sent the article about Reneau, writes:

I was exhausted when I finished the piece.

Hurricane Betsy writes:

Well, I don’t know. It seems to me that she does care for her children and is trying to minimize her absence. Does she “need” to take an advanced degree in Harvard? I’d say she does: she’s no idiot, some feminist tool to be used by anyone. She is one of those ultra high-test, high-energy types who simply cannot sit still. Why else would she have 11 children, start and run a business, and then go for a degree in another city? She cannot help it. It is more likely glandular and hormonal than being taken in by feminist politics. The feminist propaganda was just a minor push in her case.

One woman I know, she’s old now. She was always a tiny, skinny little thing. In the summer and fall, she had a giant garden, put food by, gathered tons of berries, and even skinned, cleaned and froze game (lots of it) killed by hunters taken into the wilderness by her husband with his outfitting/fishing & hunting business. That’s just for starters. You would not believe all the things she did. She also belonged to women’s clubs, etc. And you could drop in on her any time and there’d be two just-baked-from-scratch pies sitting on the kitchen counter. [Laura writes: Yes, but this woman was home and was doing things that she could pick up or put down according to the needs of her family. When a woman runs a business or attends graduate school, she cannot simply pick up or put down these activities. They must come first. Nor was the woman you mention taking a job or position that might be occupied by a man.]

And she never got tired (she also had four children). Another woman I know did almost as much, and she collapsed – not so much from the physical labor as from emotional distress from a distant husband. So, I think it comes down to differing mental and physical constitutions plus the luck of the draw in who you are married to. Of course, let’s wait a couple of years and see how things shape up for Mrs. Reneau, but I suspect both she and her family will be fine.

Your main point (at least I hope it’s your main point) – that if she hadn’t signed up for an advanced degree far from home, nobody would take any note of her – is painfully true.

Laura writes:

I have no doubt at all that Reneau loves her children and she has obviously done much for them. But a woman who publicly admits that she does not start making dinner for so many children until after 8:30 p.m., that her family eats off paper plates and does not sit down for a meal together, is not considerate of her family’s needs. She should be embarrassed to admit such things. Why isn’t she embarrassed? Because society sees this as good, as worthy of praise. She is so busy! Look how wonderful the whirlwind of activity is! Busyness is the highest virtue in American life. As long as one is busy, one is excused of virtually anything.

Reneau will be traveling to class only once a week in Massachusetts. The article says: “Reneau will fly out on Monday mornings, attend class on Monday nights and fly back home on Tuesdays, so she only misses one day of work and family.” This is incorrect, she will miss two days. But how much of the other days will she actually be there? She will have course work, unless Harvard’s standards for actual coursework are even lower than is believed, which is very possible, and she will run her business too! And I disagree she has not signed on to feminist propaganda. She said she is doing this so she can “empower” other women, as if a woman is not empowered enough by having 11 children. She plans to travel to Jordan and Bangladesh to speak and apparently spread the feminist message that women should be running businesses.  (After all, someone must tell women around the world how to use the generous development loans supplied by the United Nations, loans for women only.)

Even if she didn’t work or run a business, Reneau might not be home much. Perhaps she’d be consumed by volunteer activities because she is so energetic. But feminism calls this good. A home without order and rhythm, a place where children eat off paper plates and crash at the end of the day after nonstop activity, is held up as a model. 

Melissa writes:

I’m surprised all the liberals aren’t up in arms about the absurdity of commuting by plane, which is the highest impact way to commute I can possibly think of. I suppose she’s too good to go to one of the perfectly high-ranked state universities for her vanity degree.

Laura writes:

Universities like Harvard love this kind of press. That a middle-aged woman would go to this enormous expense and trouble to obtain a degree only shows that Harvard possesses some secret knowledge. Its department of international relations is a divine oracle. People travel from far away – any amount of fossil fuel is worth the trip – to benefit from its prophecies and indecipherable effusions.

Jane writes:

Excellent commentary. You are right about the PR for Harvard. What I’m curious to know is who’s footing the bill. Some articles say an unidentified benefactor is paying for her travel while others state she received a scholarship that will pay her expenses. Hmm…I wonder what nefarious foundation is behind this.

Her daughter Christie refers to an “adopted big sister.” Sounds like a nanny/babysitter. How do you read the Bible every morning and then leave your children with a “mommy substitute”?

A reader writes:

This post just lights a fire in my belly. 

Jane writes:

“Her daughter Christie refers to an “adopted big sister.” Sounds like a nanny/babysitter. How do you read the Bible every morning and then leave your children with a “mommy substitute”?” 

I wish I had the answer to that question as well. My automatic response is, “They do it all the time, every day, day after day.” I can personally attest. As I have shared previously, I am employed part-time by a professing Christian woman who does read her Bible every morning, and still goes to work between thirty-five and seventy hours per week as a professional in health care. She is married. She has a working husband who is successfully employed full-time. She has two children under the age of five whom she leaves with me and my daughter (two years old) for approximately twenty seven to thirty four of these hours per week. Her husband picks up the remainder of her weekend or on-call hours; sometimes this is overnight. 

This woman, whom I find precious in the sight of the Lord Jesus, devours Christian books on marriage, child-bearing, child rearing, pleasing her husband, managing finances in a Biblical way, etc. She also subscribes to the publication Above Rubies, a magazine published by a group who firmly believe in God-ordained gender roles and women as full-time keepers of the home. Yet, for some reason, she still chooses to maintain her often full-time career. 

I do not pretend to know the entire circumstance surrounding this choice: perhaps her husband insisted upon her continuance of her career after the children were born, perhaps she is afraid of losing the income, perhaps they have entered into too much financial debt to discontinue the career. Or, perhaps she is yet ignorant of the scriptures and what the Father God has to say about the matter from Genesis 1-3 all the way to Titus 2. I have no idea, and I do not ask! 

I do know is that it is terribly hard on the children, as I have commented about previously on Mrs. Wood’s blog, even if Mother is gone only twenty seven hours per week and not seventy on most weeks. I do know that Mother comes home on her on-call nights, and even if she’s home early, dinner is around seven o’clock on these nights. I do know that oftentimes, I notice the children are very tired on the mornings that I keep them, as they stay up late – often ten o’clock. They are ready to go back to sleep at around ten in the morning with me. I do know that there have been days (today happens to be one of them) when I have arrived to feverish children whom I am expected to care for and nurture in the absence of their mother – oh, how I struggle with this! Part of me wants to scream out loud in the living room after she leaves – HOW CAN YOU DO THIS? How can you expect me to step into your shoes fully, even when your child is physically ILL? How can you think this is good and normal? 

But, there is the other part of me that doesn’t know the fullness of what is going on in their marriage and their home, and wonders if she thinks the same things that I do, but is bound by circumstances beyond her control as I mentioned earlier. What if her husband insisted that they purchase “too much house” and “too many things” and now they cannot even entertain the idea of her staying home? What if he is an egalitarian who has no idea how family was designed by God to function, and she is submitting to him even in his error and praying for his deliverance by God? Who knows. 

All of this confuses me terribly and throws my emotions into a tailspin, and it helps tremendously to write about it here and then see what wisdom others may have to offer that might help ease the burden that I feel in my heart for these children in my care. While I am thankful to have the blessing of a little additional income, in all honesty, as that “adopted big sister/surrogate Mama” in the home where I work with my daughter, I would celebrate the day that my ‘boss’ came home to inform me that my services are no longer needed because she has chosen to be a full-time wife and mother at home.

The reader adds:

My employer’s occupation is an incredible blessing and contribution to society, I might add. Her chosen career field is one in the minority of health care providers in our town; she is in high demand along with her colleagues. She has personally helped me and my family with our health care needs. 

As I struggle to reconcile these truths with The Truth of God’s design for family and His Word, one thing comes to mind consistently: 

We can do good things and still be in absolute disobedience to God. 

That’s why He called it the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. There is apparent ‘good’ in the fruit of that Tree: it looks good, it tastes good, it is pleasant for others as well. 

However, it’s not His best. It’s not what He designed. Most importantly, it’s not what He asked us to do – it is disobedient, no matter how ‘good’ it appears to the flesh; no matter what benefit it appears to bring. 

The highest and best blessings come in absolute obedience to the Father, even at an apparent cost to society in the loss of excellent and rare health care provider Mamas. Ultimately, because if these Mamas were at home full-time, serving their husbands and families, they could affect countless other people through their Godly influence on their husbands and children. The effects upon society from a family raised by mother at home and father together are innumerable. 

There is a more excellent way.

Laura writes:

I doubt your employer’s well-paying job would go unoccupied without her. There are many, many people looking for work.

Remember, virtually no Christian churches are teaching that it is sinful, except in dire economic circumstances, for women to work. It’s important to remember this. Your employer and her husband are surrounded by the message that it is okay to live this way. 

Araminty writes:

Yet another woman who believes that when you are raising your children at home, you lose your identity! I can say I have never felt closest to my truest self than I do now–keeping house, raising my young children, gardening and yes–getting dinner on the table every night. And I’ve got two advanced degrees, including a law degree. (If anyone knows what it is to subsume one’s true identity in something, it is the junior attorney working the 80-hour week!)

The hectic nature of the household wears me out just reading about it. Dinner on paper plates after 9 pm? I would be mortified to admit that. It just doesn’t seem like real family life at all. I’m surprised at her husband’s compliance.

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