Mother’s Day seems like a strange time to celebrate birth control, which, on its most basic level, is about helping people to not become mothers – or not become mothers again.

But in the mid-20th century, much of birth control’s growing support came from attempts to support American women not as feminists, but as mothers. This is the story that I focus on in my 2026 book, “God Bless the Pill: The Surprising History of Contraception and Sexuality in American Religion.” Many religious leaders and U.S. politicians were looking for ways to strengthen the nuclear family, based around a homemaker mother and working father. Expanding legal access to contraception served as a way to make that happen.

Thought leaders who pushed to make birth control more available did not necessarily do so out of a desire to help women control their own bodies. They wanted to protect children and families and believed they were stronger when parents, particularly mothers, could devote intensive time to raising their children – ideally full time. Those views dovetailed with both political needs and Protestant beliefs of the moment.

‘Nuclear Family in the Nuclear Age’

The Cold War may have sprung from geopolitics and nuclear fears, but it was also a form of culture war, with American politicians pitting images of a “godly” United States against “godless communism.”

The nuclear family was a central piece of that propaganda. As historian Elaine Tyler May wrote, politicians, journalists and other public figures trumpeted the ideal of a mother, father and their children living in their own home: the “nuclear family in the nuclear age.” In their depiction, the American family was based on a sexually charged marriage between a beautiful – and fashionable – homemaker mother and a handsome father who could provide for his white, middle-class family.

This idealized family could own a suburban home, one or two cars, and a constantly revolving selection of modern conveniences. Mothers were........

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