White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is under fire for a viral clip from an event with Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk. In the clip, Leavitt tells a young woman in the crowd that she should pursue both motherhood and a career because “actually being a mom and having a family and having a job, it gives you the greatest perspective.”

She goes on to say that “you can have the hardest, worst, most stressful day at your job, but when you go home to a beautiful baby and children who are just happy to see you no matter what, it is the most refreshing, beautiful thing.”

A lot of the debate over women working vs. staying home devolves into preachy pedantics from both sides regarding how much time a mother can or should work, at what age she can or should work, and what kind of work she can do. These conversations are nearly always fruitless because each woman’s circumstance is different. Many women do simply have to work to make ends meet, others are fooling themselves that their job that barely covers the nanny’s salary is necessary.

The core problem with Leavitt’s mentality isn’t just that she works an all-hours, high-stress job away from her young children. Nor is it just that she is painting an unrealistic picture of what’s “possible” as a working mother to women who are not going to land one of the most high-profile careers in comms in the country. Indeed, Leavitt could have a nanny bring her baby along for nursing sessions easily, but most working moms will have to pump alone in a bathroom while a daycare worker bottle feeds. She is definitely setting up her audience of normal women in normal careers for disappointment – but that’s not the whole issue.

Leavitt speaks about gaining “greater perspective” as a working mom than she would otherwise. Many criticized her for claiming her job offers her perspective on her motherhood, but she was actually claiming the opposite. For her, the job comes first and her children are the cute little perspectives she cuddles for a couple hours at home before bedtime. It’s a complete reversal of the natural order. For Leavitt, her children are a good thing because they are a net benefit to her career.

So rather than hand-wring over whether White House press secretary falls in the pre-approved list of acceptable jobs for mothers, let’s start with the principle: Mothers should prioritize motherhood, which looks like hands-on, bodily nurturing of her very young children. In the same way, fathers should prioritize fatherhood, which looks like protection and provision.

Once we get these priorities in order, the obsessive online debates over whether a man should change diapers or a woman can bring in an income seem tangential to the real issue. Mothers must seriously ask themselves if their jobs are becoming their identity over motherhood, and whether their career exists for the good of the children or the other way around.

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This article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal. 

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