Mom: The missing ingredient in the MAHA movement

The real reason for America’s ill health is the mass exodus of mothers from the home

I’m as thrilled as the next person that a movement is underway to get America healthy again. Anything we can do to move the needle in this direction is good. Unfortunately, new government regulations will not override the underlying reason for America’s ill health: the mass exodus of mothers from the home.

It was, until recently, mothers who were responsible for keeping Americans healthy. Prior to the proliferation of ultra-processed food, and long before we became a DoorDash nation, mothers were in the kitchen—and one of their main duties was (still is, for many mothers) to feed their families.

Unfortunately, half-a-century ago we had a massively successful political movement that lured women out of the kitchen—and planted them firmly in the marketplace. That development came first and is the true genesis of America’s health crisis.

I first wrote about this issue more than twenty years ago. My exact words are below, and they were written before smartphones and social media, which have upped the ante considerably:

Gone are the days when children are home with their mothers, when morning meant moving slowly, when kids played outside in their neighborhoods and were called inside at dusk, when TV viewing was limited, when bedtime was early, and when obesity and mental health issues were rare.

That childhood was replaced with daycare, after-school care, fast food, unlimited screen time, latchkey kids, countless extra-curricular activities, no downtime, sleep deprivation, and childhood obesity.

The most powerful voices in America would like us to believe it’s a coincidence that the well being of our nation’s children has declined at the same time there’s been a surge of mothers entering the workforce.

It is no coincidence. Healthy, happy, well-rested children are the tangible result of the work mothers at home do every single day—week after week, month after month, year after year. Just what did we think mothers were for?

Standing in the way of resolving this crisis is the media. For the last quarter century, a discussion about the mass exodus of mothers from the home has been strictly off-limits.

“The elite journalists in network television don’t report the really big story—arguably one of the biggest stories of our time—that this absence of mothers from American homes is without historical precedent, and that millions upon millions of American children have been left to fend for themselves with dire consequences,” wrote Bernard Goldberg in his groundbreaking 2004 book, Bias.

Indeed, and the greatest consequence of all has been children’s physical and mental health.

Parents and experts noticed the decline. Our children got fatter and fatter, were depressed, did poorly in school, even became violent; but we quickly moved on and went back to our busy lives.

We didn’t connect the dots. We didn’t want to connect the dots. To connect the dots would have meant acknowledging that mothers at home perform an invaluable service to the health of our nation and that the solution to said problem rests, in large part, in more mothers quitting their jobs and going home.

We all know how well that message would go over. This, despite the fact ever since mothers stopped being valued for the thankless and relentless work they do, Americans have never been sicker.

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It’s hard to imagine that we were once a nation of healthy, normal-sized people. What happened? What changed?

Yes, sugar and salt and pesticides and vaccines. Additives and ultra processed food. All of this helped to create the obesity crisis we have today, something we first recognized publicly some twenty years ago. “According to the latest federal figures, the percentage of youngsters ages 6-11 who are overweight has tripled since the 1960s,” writes Shannon Brownlee at Time.

The percentage of overweight children has tripled since the 1960s. That was the very same decade mothers began leaving their homes in droves.

Brownlee added that the Surgeon General “issued an urgent call for the nation to fight its growing weight problem” and acknowledged the even more alarming number of children with diabetes. Her suggestion for parents is to not let their kids get into the habit of eating high-fat, high-sugar foods and out of the habit of getting regular exercise.

Well, yes, this is obvious. But the only way this can occur is if a parent is home to see that it happens.

What’s missing from the MAHA movement is that someone is providing our nation’s children with the junk they’re consuming. Children don’t have any money. They don’t feed themselves. They don’t do the grocery shopping.

Mothers do.

The first thing that took a hit when mothers left their homes en masse and began working full-time and year-round is home cooking. It came to a screeching halt. Kitchens became lifeless, and a child’s access to food became whatever he could get his hands on; and you can bet it’s never going to be vegetables and fruit.

Oprah Winfrey, back in her heyday, interviewed a woman named Melinda Southern, a pediatric physiologist, who said children are becoming heavier due to a decrease in physical activity made possible by modern transportation, television, computers, and video games—combined with the availability of high-caloric foods such as fast food, convenience foods and snacks.

“Most children who become overweight and obese have a perfectly normal metabolism. The problem isn’t their genes but their environment,” she said.

Southern then spoke with two of Oprah’s guests, a mother and her overweight son. She asked them a series of questions about a typical day at their house and what the son did after school. The mother said her son was alone after school or sometimes with his older sister or aunt. He watched television, and the mother arrived home around dinnertime.

When Southern tried to explain all the ways in which the mother could fix the problem with her son’s weight—make sure he gets outside every day or is involved in some type of sporting activity, for instance—the mother explained that she couldn’t be there to do those things because she works.

Southern persisted with other suggestions, but the mother couldn’t hear it. And the reason she couldn’t is because the one and only way to solve her son’s problem is for her to quit her job and come home.

But no one’s going to say that. God forbid we say that. It would open up a can of worms about marriage and economics and women’s empowerment, which are big subjects with complex answers. So instead we keep silent.

The Health of Every American Begins at Home

The work mothers at home do is not like any other work. It is largely invisible to the naked eye, but its power is evident to those who choose to see.

Teaching a human being who has just arrived in the world how to sleep, how to eat, how to love, how to feel safe, and later, how to behave in a social world, is a gift that pays enormous dividends. More than anything, it is our children’s physical and mental health—which ultimately translates to the overall health of America—for which mothers are largely responsible.

Bonding and attachment

The emotional health of every human begins the moment he or she is born. The first three years are critical for building a solid foundation of emotional regulation and resilience, and mothers are in the best position to see that such needs are met. It is possible to achieve with another family member—Dad or Grandma, let’s say—but it is rare with hired help.

There is no one a parent can pay to love a child and to sacrifice for his needs the way a mother will.

The inconvenient truth is that children stopped getting this healthy foundation the moment mothers began entering the marketplace in droves. Ever so slowly, over a long period of time, attachment disorders, anxiety, and ADHD set in. Any attempt to make America healthy again will fail if this reality is rejected or ignored.

Sleep

Sleep was one of the first things we compromised, and the lack of it has been a silent killer in this country. “A good night’s sleep, much like nutrition, seat belts, and a roof over one’s head, is an inalienable right of every child and a bona fide parental responsibility,” writes Dr. Judith Owens, director of the Pediatric Sleep Disorders Clinic at Brown University School of Medicine.

Unfortunately, in many dual-income families, children are awakened before their bodies wake naturally and are rushed out the door before they’re even awake.

The daytime hours matter, too. Children sleep a TON in the early years, and it is actual work to teach a baby and toddler how to sleep well. Hired help isn’t going to care enough about this vital task to see that it happens, especially when they have other children in their care.

Finally, many dual-income parents keep their children up too long in the evenings because they haven’t seen them all day.

Add it all up, and the result is obvious: sleep deprivation.

Sleep deprivation is indeed a chronic problem in America today, as good habits start early. A child who’s sleep deprived will have significantly more health problems—and school problems, and weight problems, and ADHD problems—than a child who has learned how to sleep well.

Food

The moment mothers started working outside the home full-time is the very same moment they stopped cooking. All mothers, home or not, are very aware of the enormity of the getting a healthy meal on the table each night for their families. It is absolutely overwhelming—and relentless. Doing it well is a bona fide part-time job.

Can you find evidence of some superhuman female creature who works full-time and year-round and still managed to make home-cooked meals most nights? I suppose so. But she’s a rare breed, or she has hired help.

It is simply irrefutable that, over the past four decades, families have made a clear trade: We are richer in our wallets and poorer in our health. With two incomes instead of one, our homes got bigger and our kitchens got fancier.

But no one’s home to cook.

And with no one there, a child never learns how to eat.

At the root of America’s health crisis is that mothers are no longer in the kitchen. In order to teach a child how to eat—a skill that will set him or her up for a lifetime of good health—a parent has to spend several hours a day in the kitchen. There is no shortcut.

We’ve all heard parents talk about some children as “fussy” eaters. But that’s not a thing. “Most children reject things at first,” writes Leann Birch, a psychologist at Penn State University. “It takes multiple exposures—sometimes as many as ten times—before kids come to accept and like new foods they initially turned down.”

Who, other than Mom, is going to go to all that effort?

After-school hours: A silent health crisis

Finally, Americans have greatly underestimated the significance of the hours children are not in school, that elusive yet critical time between 3:00 PM and bedtime. We can attribute the surge of problems in today’s youth to what takes place during this time of day.

In the past, mothers were there as monitors, to ensure their children were outside and off the boob tube. That they were getting fresh air and running around enough so that they were hungry enough to eat what was on the dinner table. And so that they could learn in school because they’d gotten enough exercise.

Some parents believe their job begins when their children start school! The needs of children change, but they do not diminish.

Millions of children are fending for themselves after school and have been for decades. And those who go home to an empty house are at a much higher risk of developing health problems.

This was true even before social media and video games. It is doubly true today.

There is actual work getting done at home in the raising of a family

I’m convinced the tradwife movement is an extreme response to the recognition that something has gone very wrong with America’s health and well-being, and that fixing it starts at home. But families don’t have to live on a farm to achieve that goal.

The important thing is that Americans see now, in a way they didn’t before, that mothers were, in fact, doing something huge at home. They are literally responsible for (among other things) the mental and physical health of America.

There is actual work getting done at home in the raising of a family. We can'’t see the work; we can’t name the work; and we don’t reward the work. But it is work all the same.

The truth is, women were sold a bill of goods. They were taught that their value doesn’t lie at home but in the workplace. And with that singular narrative, everything changed.

Decades later, we’re experiencing the results of this damaging narrative. The question is, Do we have the courage to do something about it?