Heritage Foundation Hosts Panel on Women, Work and Family

Conservative women from all seasons of life gathered last month to discuss the challenges they face and to share solutions for balancing work, marriage, and family.

The March 18 event on “Women, Work and Family,” hosted by The Heritage Foundation, brought together working women, moms, policy experts, and one Illinois congresswoman to explore how American women can forge their own path in an age of feminism.

“You can’t do it all at one time,” Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, said during the panel discussion.

Severino said one way she balances her career and family is by finding jobs that offer flexibility. For example, when she worked as a clerk at the Supreme Court, her parents watched her children.

By the time the kids were ready for middle school, however, she decided that homeschooling was the right choice for her family.

“We live in a world where there are flexible options,” Severino said. “You can keep it in a place where your family is what’s driving the decisions, and not how do I get this next achievement.”

In modern life, women often believe they must choose between having a career or a family. Additionally, some women who desire to have children and stay at home may feel pressured by feminism to choose a career instead.

Judy Lopez, program manager at The Heritage Foundation’s Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Human Flourishing, said “it’s normal and it’s good to want children” when making decisions about life.

“We’ve been sold that you have to choose between starting a family and work,” she said. “But what if that is the wrong premise altogether? What if instead we could focus on the seasons of life, and if policy and culture could support that for women?”

U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, the event’s keynote speaker, said she uses her role in Congress to help support women and families.

“The foundation of our country is faith and family,” the Illinois congresswoman said. “It’s no secret that marriage is in serious decline, and couples are delaying or not having children at all.”

Miller said she helped launch the Congressional Family Caucus during the 118th Congress to save the family, the foundational institution for society.

According to Miller’s congressional website, the Congressional Family Caucus seeks to advance legislation that “strengthens parental rights” and promotes the values of the nuclear family.

“I started the Congressional Family Caucus to stand up for the traditional family,” she said. “We’re getting amazing things done. I invite you all to get engaged and to help me represent the American family.”

One policy the panelists held up as good for women was homeschooling. For women who need to juggle work and children, homeschooling can often provide greater scheduling flexibility than public schools.

Additionally, the National Home Education Research Institute’s website states that children who are homeschooled “typically score 15 to 25 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests.”

Mary Rice Hasson, the Kate O’Beirne senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., said women should reflect on the greater meaning of life when deciding between family and career.

“The only place where you’re irreplaceable is in your relationships,” she said. “[If] you walk out of here [and] get hit by a bus, your employer will send flowers, will miss you, will write nice things about you. But who you matter to is your family.”