Danielle Crittenden, editor of The Women’s Quarterly, echoed this theme a few months ago during her testimony before the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources. As Crittenden put it, “The fact is, when children come along, someone has to accommodate them. A woman who has carried the baby around for nine months inside of her finds it natural to do so — and often impossible not to.” In poll after poll, she adds, “women express the desire to do so.”

Most feminists vehemently disagree with this thinking — at least, until they have children of their own. A recent convert is Iris Krasnow, who gave up a top-flight career as a journalist (she’s interviewed everyone from Yoko Ono to Billy Graham) to take care of her four little boys.

“Motherhood,” Krasnow recently told Washingtonian magazine, “is about deciding not to fight that ancient and biological yank on the womb, that natural order of your soul that says you should be there.” And she added somewhat defensively — after all, she was being interviewed by a fellow feminist — “If we don’t want to work 80 hours a week in some office and get our family life eaten up, why should we feel as though we’re selling out feminism? I’m a committed feminist, and there’s nothing more powerful to me than refusing to abandon motherhood.”

Krasnow now writes books and teaches part-time, in between picking scrambled egg out of the carpet and rocking her boys to sleep.

Krasnow is a delightful exception among feminists. That innate yearning to put children ahead of career is alien to feminist leaders, most of whom are — (need I really say it?) childless. As Crittenden explains, when conflicts arise between career and children, “feminist wisdom has been that the child should always be the first obligation a woman drops, even if it’s the one most precious to her. She must never let drop any of the ones to do with her work.”

In “Feminism is Not the Story of My Life,” historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese says that while feminists insist that they respect any lifestyle choice a woman chooses, “it’s difficult to find much feminist support for women who decide that their commitment to family must take precedence over their commitment to work.” In fact, Fox-Genovese notes, feminists as a group tend to ignore the importance of children in the lives of most women. They don’t understand that bearing and rearing children “might well be the most important and rewarding thing that most women … do in their lives.”

This anti-mothering message is likely heard on your college campus, where feminist professors bombard students and policy-makers alike with the nonsense that yes, children are perfectly happy spending 10 hours a day in paid care while their mothers pursue their careers. Cheaper and better daycare, feminists assert, is the answer to the childcare dilemma.

Rubbish. To again quote Danielle Crittenden: “Does it make sense for society to attempt to re-invent itself so that [mothers] can more conveniently and inexpensively delegate the care of [their] babies to strangers? It may,” she says, “seem breathtakingly radical to phrase the question this way; to assert that the solution to the work/home dilemma involves imagining ways to help mothers of young children stay home.”

Corporate America Responds

After five years of full-time working from home while also nurturing children, I can heartily endorse telecommuting as one of the best of those imaginative solutions — for mothers and fathers alike. And even if feminists don’t get it, corporate America does. More and more companies are allowing employees to work from home.

As Jacqueline Sergeant writes in the Asbury Park Press, “a growing number of companies realize that to retain their best employees they have to provide policies and programs that help employees balance work and family life.”

When they do, corporations often reap unexpected dividends: lowered absenteeism and a higher level of loyalty.

When you think about it, why wouldn’t parents be loyal to companies that let parents feed a baby while researching the status of congressional bills, read Benjamin Bunny to a toddler in between faxing legal memos or spend lunch hour throwing a ball to a 5-year-old son? Quite often, we telecommuters can set our own hours, which means we can step out to see a child perform during a school band concert, or volunteer to take a vanload of sixth-graders on a field trip to a local television station — something I did myself just a few days ago. If necessary, we make up work time in the evening or on weekends. And if we’re up half the night with a teething baby? We can take a nap the next day.

Of course, no job is without its drawbacks. Once in a while my boys begin screaming over the ownership of a Beanie Baby the moment my boss calls. And when a blizzard hits Washington and shuts down the roads, everyone else at the office gets the day off. Me? It’s a little hard to convince my employer that snowdrifts have piled up between my bedroom and my office down the hall.

Not all jobs, of course, can be performed from home. And jobs with unforgiving deadlines don’t mix well with young children. But you might be surprised to find out — thanks to technology — how many jobs can be performed from home.

For mothers, that God-given tug on our emotions — what Iris Krasnow colorfully calls “a yank on the womb” — means we’re willing to try to make a few sacrifices (like adult company) in exchange for the privilege of caring for our own children. Remember, the creation mandate described in Genesis has never been revoked. A desire for children — and the desire to nurture them — is written on our hearts.

So my advice to all those young people on the cusp of adulthood who want it all: Choose a job you can perform at home, if only for a few years.

Because when you actually have those babies, you’ll find they can’t be fitted around a career, like a hobby, or put on your after hours “to-do” list. Raising up children who will honor and serve God will become the most important activity you’ll ever undertake.

And for those millions of mothers who are already there — who know what it’s like to be on the phone changing a contract bid while they’re changing a diaper: Just think of yourself as a Proverbs 31 mom, gone high tech.