When you think about a female celebrity who has been criticized for not having children, the name Jennifer Aniston is at the tippy-top of that list. The 45-year-old Cake actress revealed in a recent interview with Allure magazine that the pressure she feels to have kids is enormous and that, frankly, she's fed up with everyone assuming she isn't a complete woman if she hasn't given birth. And then she said something that will either make you cringe or cheer: according to Jen, the fact that a child hasn't come out of her vagina (her words) "doesn't mean you aren't mothering -- dogs, friends, friends' children."
If you're a mom, you know it takes a great deal of sweat, stress, and sacrifice to raise happy, healthy children. We spend hours trying to help them solve impossible math problems. They get sick and we kiss our night and sleep good-bye. We're there for them every step of the way: through teething, tantrums, first heartbreaks, and while they're filling out 50 or so college applications.
The last thing most moms want to hear is anything that implies a mother is someone who has the option of walking away when the going gets tough -- even if that just means she's walking away for 15 minutes to take a walk around the block.
It's fabulous to think Jennifer treats her friends' children like they are her own. Maybe she gives them good advice, buys them birthday gifts, and even disciplines them with tough love at times. But when the child in question totally rebels and steals the family car to go to a party, it isn't Jen's car that is being lifted AND she gets to be all the way on the opposite end of the Earth filming a movie when the proper punishment has to be doled out.
Here's the thing, though: Jen isn't actually saying she is a mother to dogs, cats, and kids everywhere -- she's saying she is "mothering." And mothering is a fantastic quality that many people possess and that some moms don't possess.
Someone who mothers the people we cherish in our lives dotes on them, protects them, and reports back to us when they see our child smoking in the schoolyard or hanging out with the wrong crowd. A surrogate mom serves as a vital member of that village we all wish still existed to help raise our children. A mothering person is compassionate and shows an ability to nurture -- and, like Jen said, that quality can apply to a baby, pet, or vegetable garden.
Jennifer hit the nail on the head here. A woman's worth shouldn't be based on whether or not she has children, but on how well she treats those people, animals, and entities who need her most.
What do you think about Jennifer's comments on being a mother?
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