The most immediately effective ways to nurture yourself are personal, like eating nutritious foods, and that's why we've focused on them in this book. But no one raises her children in a vacuum, and we need to acknowledge the impersonal forces that stress and deplete mothers. For example, poverty, injustice, and war strain and frighten families worldwide. The persistent devaluing of women and their work, notably raising children, burdens mothers emotionally and financially. Sweeping changes in the social environment in which humans evolved to raise families have eroded the community support that once lightened the load and lifted the spirits of a mother.

Therefore, Mother Nurture is, fundamentally, a societal issue. A nation that truly nurtured its mothers, its families, and its marriages would value childrearing in its deeds, not just its words. It would have policies like those found in many modern, industrialized countries, such as paid parental leave, subsidized childcare, and community property laws in the case of divorce. It would strongly encourage fathers to have a major role in the care of young children and to pull their weight at home. In the broadest sense, it would protect the world its children will inherit through preserving peace, justice, and the environment.

This vision of a nation that nurtures its mothers is not idealistic, but hard-headed pragmatism. Yes, the work of mothers is moral: tending to vulnerable children whose beings are entrusted to our care. But it is also highly practical, raising young people to be productive members of society, creating the ³human capital² that is the basis of progress and prosperity. A country fulfills its ethical obligations to its children, as well as makes a shrewd investment in its future, when it spends the time, the money, and the caring to nurture its mothers.

Whenever we nurture ourselves, are kind to another person, support organizations that help families, or otherwise contribute to a safe and peaceful world, we take a stand for such a society, and ripples spread out from our actions. If enough of us take those stands, our country and this earth will become a better place to raise children, and to be a mother.

Mother Nurture

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