Touchstone: What's In a Name?

by Anthony Esolen
May 5, 2008

Last night I met a perfectly friendly and intelligent young couple, both graduates of my mater ferox, Catholics both, with a young daughter whom they intend to teach at home. The wife told me cheerfully that she'd recently attended a small reunion of local Princetonians, and she was the only woman present who was a "stay-at-home mom." That's the phrase that people use, and I wasn't going to quarrel with it then -- we were milling about after a graduation ceremony in honor of ten homeschooled seniors. We had a few jests at the absurdity of believing that to spend most of one's time in the company of someone deeply beloved, free to read or play music, or to put the home in trim for one's own use or for hospitality or for the pleasure of someone else deeply beloved, or to go outside for what she called, putting emphasis on the unusual phrase, "fresh air," is somehow a great sacrifice, worthy to be acknowledged by solemn nods from those who are not making it. Her friends, she said, mainly employed nannies, and as far as I can see, the name "nanny" is given to someone who will temporarily treat one's child with a certain amiable kindness, but who will move on in a year or two, and who will therefore not be a deeply felt part of the child's life. In other words, the nanny is not really a nanny, but, to pick up the bitter phrase from Hemingway, isn't it pretty to think so? It occurs to me that the friends are the ones making the sacrifice -- or are making their children make the sacrifice.
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