Fun_People Archive
7 Apr
A Woman's Place.

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Mon,  7 Apr 97 18:27:24 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: A Woman's Place.

[I hope this story sounds as weird to you as it does to me, but these views  
aren't that rare... and not just among Baptists, either!  -psl]

Forwarded-by: Keith Bostic <bostic@bostic.com>
Forwarded-by: cyerkes <cyerkes@interport.net>
Forwarded-by: David HM Spector <spector@zeitgeist.com>

		   Ark. Church Assails Working Moms
			   By PAISLEY DODDS
			Associated Press Writer

Friday, April 4, 1997 8:48 am EST

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- A Baptist church has closed its day care center,
saying working mothers neglect their children, damage their marriages and
set a bad example.

A letter from the First Baptist Church of Berryville told parents that
families could get by on one salary if they went without such luxuries as
"big T.V.'s, a microwave, new clothes, eating out and nice vacations."

The closure -- and letter -- infuriated parents left without a place to take
the children in Berryville, a small town 160 miles northwest of Little Rock.

"I don't think any of us are trying to copy a man's role, whatever that role
may be," said Katrena Alexander, 44, who runs a manufacturing company with
her husband. "I still don't know what those roles are. My husband does
dishes just like I do."

Her daughter, Keanna, was enrolled at the day care center for a year before
it closed March 14. The girl cried when she heard the news.

"I don't know of too many people here who can survive on one person's
salary, especially if that salary is minimum wage," Mrs. Alexander said
Thursday.  "This is just something that shouldn't have happened in this
decade."

On Feb. 14, members of the First Baptist Church's Corner Stone Day Care
board told parents in a letter that the church would close the center in
the spring and reduce tuition until then.

The board said it was sensitive to the plight of single parents, but could
not continue to run the center because its existence encouraged mothers to
work outside the home.

"God intended for the home to be the center of a mother's world," the letter
said. "In Titus 2:5, women are instructed to be `discreet, chaste, keepers
at home, good and obedient to their own husbands ...'"

It also said working mothers "neglect their children; damage their marriages
and set a bad example."

Parents were given refunds worth a week's tuition, plus $50.

© 1997 Peter Langston