This utterly GORGEOUS piece of work by the impossibly talented William Bouguereau is titled "Le Charite."  

A couple weeks ago, I saw someone on Facebook erroneously draw the conclusion that this was Our Lady cradling aborted children.

*Sigh*

I'm as pro-life as they come, but this piece has exactly zero to do with abortion.  This is NOT the Blessed Mother, and Bouguereau (who had painted plenty of BVMs over his career) never once chose to depict her breastfeeding (which is another entry for another time).

​I get super agitated whenever someone usurps unrelated content to fit a narrative... even if that narrative is one I happen to agree with (abortion is a terribly grave and unjust sin against innocent life).  

I responded to the public FB post with a relatively brief explanation as to what this painting was and what it was ACTUALLY representing.  Because so many Catholics were sharing the erroneously captioned message, it felt like I was chasing my tail dropping my "Guys, guys, guys... this isn't the Blessed Mother and those aren't aborted children!" everywhere.

I posted to Twitter as well, and then realized that I missed explaining art.  So here I am, back in the saddle...

​The woman is the personification of Charity. These are not aborted children, but personifications of all who seek charity. She is bare-breasted and wearing red (the color of martyrdom), indicating her willingness to nourish others with the fullness of herself.

​I've just been doing a lot of thinking about male-female interactions and how I'm able to avoid negative ones and bolster positive ones, especially since I've gotta lay a firm foundation of expectations for Vince and Nate.  

This piece is going to go against the grain for my more "feminist" friends out there, but hear me out.  A lot of the things women love about their men is (*gasp* horror of horrors) their masculinity.  

These are actual quotes pulled from the thread responding to the post above:

• When the kids are all screaming and won’t listen to me so he uses his dad voice and they all shut up.
• When you’re about to enter a crowd and he immediately reaches for your hand to lead to way.
• When we go into a busy place and he puts his hand on the small of my back - swoon.  Or when he makes sure I'm on the inside and he's on the outside when walking near the street. 
• When he comes home from work smelling like oil, grease, and dirt. His clothes are covered and you can tell he works hard. And yet he walk into the house and hugs/kisses me.
• When I'm doing something insignificant, like laundry or my make up, and he just sits back and watches me with a smile on his face.
• When I tell him something’s not working , and then he gets up and fixes it magically with his Bob the Builder ass.
• When a guy wraps you in his arms, and that split second shock of him doing so... takes your breath away. And in that moment you feel a perfect peace of calmness and protection.
•  Every few months he stops me before I leave for work and says, let me check your fluids. Pop the hood right quick.
• When he buys me flowers just because, or leaves a little note or something out to tell me he loves me.

And the list goes on.  Unsurprisingly, no one said "I love when my man gossips with me like my girlfriends do" or "I find it so sexy when he gets mani-pedis with me" or "My knees get weak when he slams back an appletini."  

Very clearly, the 6,000+ women who responded appreciate their men for traditionally gender-specific traits.  It made me thoroughly happy to read this list, because it gave me hope that women haven't entirely lost their marbles yet.  We are still yearning for strong, masculine men and haven't wholly discarded our appreciation for that which they have to offer.  

Hopefully that means we're raising young women to appreciate those traits, too.  I intend to raise my boys into strong, masculine men and I pray they'll be blessed to find feminine women who recognize their own special talents and how they complement those brought to the table by Vince and Nate.