Well....I always heared from my family that God loves helping others more than praying and fasting.it is a persian(read moslem)poem that says:worship of God is serving people it is not in prayer and dervishness(that is voluntary poverty).
my mother told me that Edison,Louis Pastor etc. served God better that those who just try to be good and holy!
NOW this conviction makes many woman who are uni students use contraception in order to become a doctor an inventor or even a voluntary nurse in the red cross because think they can better save lives and help humanity in this way.
So far for the damage on family,this way of thinking leads to contempt of religious life and superiority of contemplative life over the active one.which means it is better to pray than to care for an ill person or educate an orphan child.
any suggestions?

St. Jude is another newer member, sedetrad.  This is from spouse of Jesus.  Yes, her parents are Moslem (or were when she was born, raised, etc.).

As to the original question, just as the soul is the superior part of our being, so prayer/contemplation is the superior activity.  The active life, when it does not flow from the contemplative, yields nothing of real worth.  Is the active, then, useless?  No, but it has to occupy the proper place - just as the body must be and remain subject to the soul.  It is our failure to achieve and maintain this proper order that leads us into all our troubles, sinful and otherwise.  God speed.

What about motherhood?it seems to me that in God's mind:
making a child is greater than inventing a any thing (eg. a cure for an illness,electricity etc. etc.)
and being a nun is greater than making a child.
So a simple nun,is greater than Edison in God's eyes.
I am so happy that the church sets me free of my mothers' obsession with science!