Polly Creed takes issue with a quote in an article that denigrated the importance of the work that mums do
Robert dos Santos’s call to be more human, to connect and to challenge AI and the dark cloud it’s set to bring upon humanity is certainly laudable – a valiant rallying cry for the dystopian, uncertain times we’re living through (I’m asking people to do a lot, but that’s what it means to be a human’: why one man made the first straight-to-video movie in 20 years, 4 June). However, I found one comment the film-maker made baffling: “Someone once said that if your mum can do it, it doesn’t have value.”
It’s frustrating that, in a world where we’ve made so much progress to combat everyday sexism, a sentiment like this could still be reeled off in a national newspaper. But also, who once said this? Whoever it was, they were clearly wrong. After all, how many mothers are doctors, artists, scientists, lawyers, cleaners, social workers, teachers? Does their work not have any value? Not to mention the unpaid domestic labour that mothers so often shoulder – the bedrock that holds up society and our economy.
