Australia has celebrated Mother’s Day and Father’s Day annually since the 1930s. Some might think that these days are a bit of a relic from the past, when traditional gender roles were more accepted and family structures were much less diverse. Couldn’t we now just have a Parents’ Day instead?
I don’t hold particularly strong opinions on whether observing these days is ultimately positive or negative for us as a society. But I do think that having separate days for mothers and fathers offers an opportunity to celebrate something that is increasingly absent from our community: the recognition that a parent is not just a generic, substitutable role. A parent is either a mother or a father.
The Bible teaches that there is a God-given difference between being a female and a male. The sexes are not interchangeable but distinct, and being a woman or a man is a very good part of who we are as embodied creatures. To be a mother or a father, rather than being just parent 1 or parent 2, is something that is beautifully designed by God.
Both mothers and fathers are biblically called to many of the same tasks in parenthood: to understand their children as good gifts, to love them sacrificially, to know themselves as forgiven sinners, to discipline their children and call them to obedience, to pray for them. These are all things both fathers and mothers are to do.
Proverbs 1:8 reads: “Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching”. Both parents are to teach and instruct their children. The commands in Deuteronomy 6:7–9 to diligently teach our children the faith are given to both parents. The call to make disciples of all people (including our children) is to both men and women. But all this doesn’t somehow deny that our sex matters in parenting. At times, the Bible also chooses to highlight the difference between men and women, and between mothers and fathers.
There are a number of passages we could go to in order to see this, but I’ve also always been very interested in the parts of the Bible where God—who clearly reveals himself as Father—describes himself as mother-like.
Consider Hosea 11:3–4:
“It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms;
but they did not realize it was I who healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love.
To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them.”
And Isaiah 49:
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” (v 15)
And again, in Isaiah 66:
“As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you;
and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.” (v 13)
There are times in his word where God the Father shows that an aspect of his character is best depicted by what it means to be a mother.
Jesus also chooses to do this as he weeps over the state of Jerusalem in Matthew 23:37:
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.”
While we don’t want to make too much of this, I think it points to the fact that most of us experience motherly love differently from fatherly love. These verses capture something of the nurturing, protective and devoted love of a mother. God is pointing to something unique about a mother’s love that is not expressed as clearly simply by the general idea of just being a parent.
Being made as male and female is a part of God’s very good purpose for humanity. In the brokenness of this fallen creation, there can be a lot of hurt and difficulty around this, but it doesn’t change the fact that God sees this as a beautiful part of what it means to be made in his image. Motherhood and fatherhood are distinct and precious gifts and it’s well worth celebrating both of them.
This article is an adapted excerpt from the chapter “Mothers, not fathers” in Motherhood: How the gospel shapes our purpose and priorities by Jocelyn Loane. (Read more here.)