Women

• "A woman is a nurturer by just the way she is created. . ."  I really liked that quote because if you think about it, our bodies truly nurture new life.  We nurture in the womb, at the breast, and for years after.  Our husbands, too, nurture for those after years, but don't have that special opportunity beforehand.  I didn't feel that sadness of not nursing anymore with my first two kids, but with the last one, I kind of didn't want to give up that physical nurturing that comes from the breast.  What a blessing and responsibility!

• If her husband doesn't provide some reenforcement of all a woman does, "she may have an erroneous understanding of how she is magnifying her sacred roles."

• "A man will bless his children more by making it possible for his wife to be in the home with them . . . as they're growing.  They need, if it's at all possible, a mother in the home, not out working to share the responsibility of income. . . . A much greater blessing to children would be to have her there rather than to have the things that a second income would provide."  I'm beginning to understand also how great it would be to additionally have a father in the home (work from home), but as our culture and economy runs, it's just not as practical.  So, if you have to choose one parent to be home, I suppose the mom's the first choice because of her nurturing capacities.

Richard G. Scott in a Conversation with Sheri Dew, just after 48:35

The Feminine Minority: A Brief History of Feminism and the Modern Woman

I've mentioned the book, The Feminine Minority by Patricia Regar a few times now, but have never actually blogged about it.  I try to blog about things that are really amazing to me, and that book just wasn't one I agreed with enough to actually blog about.  However, since I have mentioned it a couple times, and probably will in the future, I thought I better give it some credit.

Several months ago, when I wanted to figure out why attitudes have changed toward the stay-at-home mom over the years and how modern feminist attitudes have infiltrated our society without us even noticing, I pulled out my old notes from a women's history class to look up a few things.  I'd also recently been on LAF/Beautiful Womanhood and saw The Feminine Minority:  A Brief History of Feminism and the Modern Woman.  Rather than reading through my pages and pages of hand-written class notes, I thought I'd just get the printed book.

I started the book and realized I disagreed with a lot of what she said:  the Enlightenment, education, the vote, equal pay, easier divorce, and dating (her slant is against those things to an extent, so I felt like a real liberal).  She did bring up many surprising and important quotes, and the book was well-written and interesting, but I just didn't agree with so much of it.

The Two Trees

My husband saw a link on facebook the other day to an article/speech called The Two Trees (meaning the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life) by Valerie Hudson Cassler.  He knew I would like it.  He was right.  Cassler very broadly and clearly explains how woman is not without the man, and man is not without the woman in order to progress in our eternal existence.

Specifically, woman's duty is to bring man into the world through birth (or in Eve's case, she was responsible to eat the fruit and get mortality rolling for them and for the rest of humanity).  Adam's (or man's) responsibility was for spiritual salvation:  he was to get the family out of this world (at death) in a righteous state.

This is where the whole submitting thing comes into play.  Cassler, however, doesn't use the word submit, she uses the word hearken and gives this example:

Women, do we hearken to our husbands? Well, of course we do. If my husband said to me before we were married, "Honey, I want to be married in the temple, and I don't want to be married anywhere else." I would say, "You betcha!" If after we were married and had children, he said, "Honey, I want to hold family home evening, and I want to hold family prayer, and I want to make sure they get baptized when they are eight." I would say, "You bet! I'm going to accept and receive that fruit of the Second Tree from you." If my husband said, "Honey, would you go get me the remote, it's in the other room," or "Tomorrow we're moving to Iowa, did I tell you?" It is not my spiritual obligation to hearken outside of loving my husband and receiving from him the gift of the fruit of the Second Tree.

 A few more interesting quotes:

. . . I grew up in a tradition where the fact that Eve was created second was taken to mean that she was an appendage to Adam, that she was somehow inferior to Adam, that being derivative of Adam and not derivative of God that she was two steps away from divinity, not one step as Adam was.

Now our [LDS] General Authorities have told us that that perspective is absolutely wrong, and that indeed when the term "helpmeet" is used, as I am sure you are well familiar, that "meet" actually means "equal in power to save." So let's read here from Elder Earl C. Tingey: "You must not misunderstand what the Lord meant when Adam was told he was to have a helpmeet. A helpmeet is a companion suited to or equal to us. We walk side by side with a helpmeet, not one before or behind the other. A helpmeet results in an absolute equal partnership between a husband and a wife. Eve was to be equal to Adam as a husband and wife are to be equal to each other. . . ."

And then in the King James version of the Bible, we are told that Eve, as part of her punishment, that she was told that Adam would rule over her. Is that what the LDS believe? Actually not. I think one of the most important new—I can't say new doctrine, because obviously it started with Adam and Eve, but rather a rediscovering of truth—appeared n the August 2007 Ensign. . . . If you read it, here's what Elder Bruce Hafen says: "Genesis 3:16 states that Adam is to "rule over" Eve, but. . . over in "rule over" uses the Hebrew bet, which means ruling with, not ruling over. . . . The concept of interdependent equal partners is well-grounded in the doctrine of the restored gospel."

The real drama of human societies is what's happening between men and women. It isn't treaties and wars and the price of oil or how the stock market is doing. . . .   . . . we can say that the situation of women is a barometer of how near death a civilization is. It is because where love and equality between men and women do not exist, you cannot live the Gospel. You might as well start anew. . . .That means that gender equality is not some "politically correct" ideal . . . . No, relationships of gender equality are the bricks of Zion, without which you cannot build Zion. . . .

At the end of the article, Cassler shares a parable of the whole plan for woman and man, easy enough for a child to understand. The article was very enlightening and you'd get much more out of the 9 pages if you read them!  If I could put it in very simple terms:  if you were playing a video game (not that I have in years) and had already chosen your players (man/woman), and it was now time to choose your armor, woman would choose child bearing and man would choose the priesthood.  Woman fulfills her duty by bearing children.  Man fulfills his duty by leading the family back to God in righteousness.

One last interesting point that Cassler makes (actually at the beginning of the article) is that she is a feminist.  She says "I didn't join the [LDS] Church because I was a feminist, but I stay in the Church because I am a feminist."  She seems to feel the equality between men and women is well manifest (and believed) in the LDS Church.  That was interesting to me because many of the popular Mormon feminists today still don't agree with that viewpoint.  I tend to relate to feminists and the feminist cause mainly because I, too, like the equality and also because of the history (not really the modern movement).  I'll have to write a post on why I like feminists some time.

A Mother Heart

My cute cousin, Victoria, wrote about A Mother Heat on her blog.  It's fun to see we're thinking along the same lines!  I hope she doesn't mind me linking to her!  Thanks for the reminder of the article, Tor!

(OK, I shouldn't call her cute.  She's now a grown, married woman who owns a house and and has a baby!!  But still -- she's my little sister's age!)

Father Come Home?

I was finishing up listening to the Conversation with the Hollands and got really interested when they began talking about their days at Yale in the late 1960s and 1970s (about minute 46:00) just after The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan came out and when Gloria Steinem spoke there a few times.  Sister Holland said she could see a negative impact emerge among the young couples at Yale because of the feminist movement.

Sister Holland mentioned how Betty Friedan said the feminists had thought of everything to liberate women, but even later in her life admitted that the movement forgot the children!  I believe I also read this point in The Feminine Minority, by Patricia Regar, but I haven't looked up the quote myself.

President Holland interjected that he thought the model of feminism of the period was actually backwards.  The movement was to get women out of the bondage of home life, when really it should have been how to get the men back in the home sharing the workload.  He said he has nothing against helping out with the dishes, laundry, and budget (or whatever).

I couldn't believe it!  How right is that?!  I can't believe in all the hours I've thought about the feminist movement that I'd NEVER thought of the great impact bringing men home (or just getting them more involved) can have.  I think I get too caught up on our economic setup of men/jobs being out of the home, that I forget how much they can and should contribute in the home. 

Interestingly, the other day I'd read an article that LAF/Beautiful Womanhood linked to over at The Art of Manliness about how during the agricultural days, men were home, then came the Industrial Revolution which took many men out of the home, and men just continue to be further and further away from the home and child rearing.  The author at The Art of Manliness hopes that more men can be involved in family life because of technology -- allowing them to work at least some of the time from home.  (Let me tell ya -- when my husband occasionally works from home, it does make all the difference!  Even when he's home sick and baby's asleep, I have the freedom to run to the store!  I have several friends whose husbands often work from home and what a help it is to them!  Wow!  Wow!  Wow!  Let's get these husbands more involved rather than trying to get ourselves away from our homes!)

Earlier in the program, one of the Hollands mentioned how Mary was not a single mother.  Joseph was provided to be Jesus's earthly father:  Children need fathers.

They also bear their amazing, beautiful, inspiring testimonies of the Gospel at the end.  Even if you don't get excited about feminism or anything else they said, their testimonies are well worth listening to.

More on Submit and Preside

I was listening to a Conversation with Jeffrey R. and Patricia Holland, and Sheri Dew quoted one of their sons as saying:

"Mom and dad are both very strong individuals; however, my mother gives her full, unreserved allegiance to my father's priesthood leadership and my father constantly turns to my mother for counsel and insight."

Sister Holland goes on to compare the marriage relationship to a business where someone ultimately makes a final decision.  However, that person pulls in the "greatest minds" to help him/her make that decision beforehand.  Sister Holland is quite the example in if her husband does what God wants him to, she will surely support.

A Conversation with Bridget

Emily has asked me to write about my perceptions and experience with motherhood and I am totally flattered and overwhelmed. At this stage of my life (with three kids five and under), being a mom is pretty much what defines me and I am glad to say that I am feeling okay with this. However, it has taken me a while to get to this point and I know that as Sister Goates points out, I am probably in the “childhood” phase of motherhood, so I really am just at the beginning of this experience. One of the reasons I like this blog and Emily’s enthusiasm for this topic is that it reminds me to keep making motherhood - and being the best mother I can be - a priority. Even though things can get really frustrating (for example, my way-too-small baby is currently in the throwing all of her food/spitting her drinks out phase – yikes!), when my kids are raised I want to feel like I did the best job I possibly could have done. I know that doesn’t mean that I’m going to have perfect kids. I just want happy kids that know their mom loves them. One of my favorite articles that helps me to remember to enjoy the small moments and not stress to much about little things is Anna Quindlen’s article On Being Mom.

I grew up in Cedar City, Utah, but joined the church when my high school friends sent missionaries to me during my freshman year at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. I grew up in a very scholarly/secular home with great parents and as you can imagine my conversion was a challenge for our family. However, things progressed, I met my husband in Utah, was married in the temple and we went along our happy way with school and work. When we married I was very career driven and did not “just” want to be a mom. When I’ve asked Justin about why he wanted to marry me when he came from such a conservative background, he says that he knew that I had great potential and that he had faith that I would realize what I wanted to really do as time passed. I wasn’t necessarily waiting until I had finished school or gotten rich (that still hasn’t happened!), to have kids, I was just frankly terrified at the prospect of being a stay-at-home-mother. On both sides of my extended family there had been sad stories of women that didn’t enjoy motherhood, felt forced into being moms, and suffered from serious depressions and so even though my mom had been amazing and sacrificed so much for me I was always worried that motherhood would make me feel trapped and when a baby was born my life would be over. I knew that I wanted to be a mom someday, but I was definitely scared to take the plunge. My good and patient husband wanted to make sure I was okay with being a mom because he realized that the decision to have children would affect me the most since my life would be changing dramatically to stay home.

I’m not really sure what made me change. Maybe it was quite a few callings in primary, or watching my amazing mother-in-law love being a mom, or maybe it was just getting a little older, but after about four years of marriage we decided to have a baby and got pregnant relatively easily. I remember going along and trying to push myself with full-time graduate school and a demanding work schedule and about 12 weeks into the pregnancy after a busy day I just began gushing blood and we went to the E.R. Being at the hospital was a surreal experience. It forcefully hit me that there was a life growing inside of me and that this little life might be cut short. They did an ultrasound to check to see if the baby was okay and at 12 weeks we could see her whole beautiful little body and profile. I remember at that moment thinking that if I lost the baby my heart would absolutely break. I left the hospital with the doctor’s nerve-racking prediction that if I could keep the baby for three more days everything would be fine. Even though I was an emotional wreck for a while I was able to stay pregnant and I think that this event really made me want to have a baby.

My little girl was an absolutely adorable baby, but very difficult and it was kind of a rocky transition. Everyone warns you about the exhaustion you will feel with a newborn, but until you feel it for yourself you have no clue about sleep deprivation! I remember worrying that my mind was going to go to waste, so I would try to always read while I was nursing and I watched tons of classic movies from the library so that I wouldn’t be “wasting” my time. I remember one night I was again concerned with being able to get my baby to sleep in a crib without being rocked and my mother-in-law sweetly told me that it wouldn’t be long before my baby would be all grown-up and I couldn’t rock her anymore.

Difficult things with my oldest did pass and I think I really began enjoying motherhood when I connected with other moms and set up reasonable expectations for myself. Playdates and other opportunities to really talk to other women in my position and those that have been through raising small children, helped me put things into perspective. I know that I am a result-driven person, so I would initially get frustrated when I’d look back at my day and realize that the only productive thing I did was shower. Now, I really try to focus on spending quality time with the kids. Not necessarily doing an amazing craft or anything special, just being together. Even though we went from being “established” with a steady job and home after our first child was born to graduate students again, the decision to have our two other children was relatively easy. Although we were poor it just felt like the right time to have kids and really the Lord kept providing ways that we could make things work financially. We have kept trying to be frugal, but I know that things worked out because we have been blessed for trying to do what we should.

One simple thing that we do that helps me enjoy being a mom is that we read a lot of books and I know that it has been an important way for us to feel close, even when they were very small. A routine has been essential to all of us to help us keep a happy home. I think that my kids thrive on knowing what to expect and then at the end of the day I know that the important things for our family have been accomplished and it makes me feel better too. Even though I am seriously craft-impaired, I have found a love for creating things and have really enjoyed sewing in the past few years.

I am glad that now I can sit back and feel happy to be a mother and very grateful that I made the decision to have children. I know that even though we don’t do anything fabulous in our daily routines, the things I am doing are helping to mold people who can be the building blocks for happy families in the future. I try to let my kids know how much I love them and love being a mom and I hope that my girls will value motherhood and not be scared to take on this life-altering responsibility. I hope that my son will see how important it is to support and honor women and will understand how critical father’s roles are in raising happy children.

The moms that I admire have many varied backgrounds. Some of the amazing moms I know have not finished college, others have PhDs. Some are exclusively stay-at-home moms, others work full-time. I think that it really comes down to having to teach our children to be close to the Spirit, because there is no one right way to be a great parent and I think that as times change parents are going to have to continue to adapt to raise content and competent children. For me an education was very important, especially in helping me mature and I have a difficult time giving my best to my family when I work so I am currently choosing not to work very much (I help a non-profit about 10 hours a month). But, for my children I cannot say that my choices will be best for them and I pray that they will be mindful of the Lord’s will for them when the time comes for them to make decisions about family and parenthood. I know that it is cliché, but I am so grateful for the gospel and its’ emphasis on the family, because I think without the tools and knowledge we can gain from the teachings of the church it would be so difficult to be a parent in these times.

That was really long-winded, but I hope that others will write about their experiences with motherhood because I know that there is a lot we can all learn from each other (and that I still certainly need to learn!). Emily, thanks again for the great blog!