Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan (2014)
A woman who abstains from maternity by saying ‘I am working’ means that she is actually denying her femininity. A woman who refuses maternity and gives up housekeeping faces the threats of losing her freedom. She is lacking and is a half [a person] no matter how successful she is in the business world.
Our religion has given women a stature, the position of motherhood. It lays heaven at mothers’ feet. The bottom of a mother’s feet should be kissed. A mother is something else. And its stature is unreachable.
Motherhood now is easy. You get a disposable diaper. Fold it, throw it away, get a new one and carry on. That’s the situation now. These days you see they say one (child) is enough, or two is enough. Make at least three, look the conditions have gotten easier. The country needs this.
No formula or anything like that. At least for a year and a half, and an average of two years, we will raise our kids with only mother’s milk. There is no gift from God greater than that. Family planning, birth control, these are not things that a Muslim family should consider. Whatever God says, whatever the prophet says, that is the road we must go down. The first duty here belongs to mothers.
Some people understand this and others don’t. For example you can’t explain this to feminists. They reject motherhood.
What women need is to have equivalence of worth rather than equality — in other words justice. You cannot make men and women equal,” he said. “That is against creation. Their natures are different. Their dispositions are different.
