Motherhood matters: Utah woman pushes governments and cultures to take a family-friendly approach to life

NORTH LOGAN — In a world she describes as "increasingly anti-family," Shelly Locke is willing to travel thousands of miles at her own expense to say that motherhood matters.

It is, she will tell you, what keeps nations strong and sovereign.

The mother of two is unabashedly pro-life, pro-family, pro-mom as she pushes both governments and cultures to take a family-friendly approach to life.

She delivered that message in June to a regional king and queen of Nigeria, as well as to the African nation's federal senate president and the representatives in its General Assembly.

There she found a people and a government committed to the concept of family and to preserving what is best about it, she said. Discussions of God and family are welcome in both homes and in schools there. "It's part of their governing principles," she said, which makes the struggling African nation somewhat unique in its region.

She thinks that moms and families are undervalued in most places. She cringes when she hears a woman say, "I am just a mother."

"What people don't understand is that mothers play a vital role in all aspects of every society — the political, socioeconomic, human capital — in every single solitary form, mothers are a critical element. And even mothers don't realize that. So I speak not so much in defense of motherhood as in support of it, helping people realize her critical, vital role," said Locke.

A society's moral foundation and many of its policies can be traced to maternal influence, she said. Mothers raise the future leaders and imprint upon them what is universally important.

"In order for a society to flourish and for states and nations to remain sovereign, the most important element is the natural family, by which the future of every culture is ensured," she said.

"Supporting the natural family causes nations to thrive and continue in their various capacities, by providing the needed infrastructure and the human capital necessary to sustain themselves economically and socially. Establishing policies that support and protect the family in its many facets ensures the viability of the nations. Pro-family policy protects the entire nation."

By natural family, she is referring to the "elements that make a family: mother, father and children" in whatever configuration, by birth or by adoption. But there's nothing magical about being a mother unless you do the job right, she added.