Motherhood matters

"I'm just a mother."

That's a phrase Jane Clayson Johnson heard once too often.

Johnson, former network news correspondent and co-host of "The Early Show," was attending a gathering of about 50 LDS couples, and as they introduced themselves, she was surprised how many of the "bright, talented women described themselves as 'just a mother,' or said 'I used to be such and such, but now I'm just a mother.' I did not expect LDS women to have the same undervalued view of motherhood as the rest of the world."

A similar thing happened when she left her career in broadcasting to be a wife and mother. "So many of my colleagues came up to me and said 'what have you done? What will you do now that you're just a mother?' The journalist in me thought there's a story here. We've got to proclaim that motherhood matters, that it is more important than anything you can do. There's no 'just' about it."

The result is a new book called "I Am A Mother" (Deseret Book, $15.95) in which Johnson talks about her experiences both before and after leaving broadcasting, as well as pays tribute to her own mother's influence and that of other mothers she has met around the world.

Johnson now has two children: Ella, 2 1/2, and William, about 14 months. Plus, she's a stepmother to three children, ages 10-14, from her husband's previous marriage. So, there is a lot going on in her life, she said in a telephone interview from her home in Boston.

Johnson started her broadcasting career at KSL in Salt Lake City, then left to become a news correspondent and then got the call to host "The Early Show" with Bryant Gumbel. She hasn't left broadcasting entirely behind; she occasionally does some NPR projects out of Boston and has done some freelance TV projects on the side. "But first and foremost, I am a mother, and that's what I tell people when they ask me what I do."

Society pays lip-service to motherhood, she said, "but it really undervalues what mothers do. Nurturing, caring, connecting with people — that all comes under the umbrella of motherhood. Nurturing matters. We need to value those skills in ourselves and in our society."

Society is so much about "measuring success," she said. "If it can't be measured, it isn't valued. With motherhood, you may not see the results for years, and so much is intangible. But that doesn't mean it is not as important as any other job."