I have a memory of a Young Women’s lesson when I was about 16 years old where the teacher asked us to write down where we saw ourselves in 5 years. I wrote down things like college and a mission and whatever else my little 16 year old self thought I might do/start before age 21. I was surprised when we shared our plans and I realized I was the only girl my age who did not write “marriage” and “kids.” Most of those girls aspired to being stay at home moms. Sure, I wanted to be a mom someday … but I was only 16 and that was not something I had any desire for in the next 5 years.
That was 20 years ago. Since that time I’ve often wondered about those other girls (who mostly did do what they’d planned). Are they glad they got married so young? Are they glad they had kids so young? Was this really what they wanted in life? Or was it what they were told they wanted in life?
I never wanted to get married that young. I never wanted to be a stay at home mom. But I was growing up going to Young Women’s lessons where it was the norm. In fact, getting married young and aspiring to be a stay at home mom was somewhat celebrated. I often felt tension between what I wanted and what I felt like I should do. This should was merely based on what everyone else around me was doing. It was confusing. When I got to college the confusion spiked and I struggled to choose a major and figure out how what I wanted could fit in with what I should do.
Eventually I learned that what I should do was 100% entirely between me and God. It had nothing to do with what other people around me said was right. I believe God wants me to develop my talents and skills to serve his children. Sure, I do that at home. But I also do that in my career. And those things aren’t mutually exclusive.
Recently a woman in my ward bore her testimony about how grateful she is to be a stay at home mom. She said something about how she really values being able to dedicate all of her time to helping develop the character of her children. She said that her mother, who “wasn’t able” to be a stay at home mom, often thanks her for giving this wonderful gift to her grandchildren.
I don’t want to say anything negative about this woman in my ward. She’s entitled to her own personal revelation and if that’s what she feels is necessary for her and her family, that’s great! I’m glad she’s made decisions for her family that work for her.
However, though I respect her personal decision to make these choices for her life, I still got feeling a little out of sorts while hearing her speak. I worry the rhetoric she was speaking (which I hear a lot and is in no way specific to her!) kinda disenfranchises people or can make people feel othered.
First, I wondered about my own life. Do people that express this type of rhetoric not think that I’m spending all my time helping my children develop their character? I think about my kids all the time! I talk to my kids about my work and I hope that they understand how important to me it is to be doing the research I’m doing to make the world a little bit better. I hope when they see me in my career doing this research, their character is developed and they understand the importance of making the world a little bit better.
I also worry about the young women hearing rhetoric like hers. Do they think they too will have to be a stay at home mom in order to truly care for their children? Will they think that their children are missing out on important character development if they happen to choose a different lifestyle?
What about the single women or the women who don’t happen to be married to a rich doctor (like she is)? Do they hear that rhetoric and feel guilty that they are working because their kids might be missing out on important character development?
I wish we just had a bit more space to recognize that not everyone wants the same lifestyle.
Recently my ward sang the hymn, “I’ll Go Where You Want Me To Go.” While singing, it struck me that sometimes we like to pretend that there is one right place for us to go. We act like we have to live a specific cookie cutter life because God wants us to. But I don’t think that’s true. I think God, an all-powerful and fully-loving God, wants us to learn and grow and that should look different depending on who we are. But we need to allow ourselves (as the song says) to allow the “still, small voice” to call us “to paths that [we] do not know.” We don’t need to follow whatever cookie cutter recipe we hear.
Question: When have you felt like your personal revelation differed from specific rhetoric you heard at church? When have you allowed yourself to follow God down a path you did not know?
8 Responses
I was taught that there were very few exceptions to God’s commandments and that if you felt you were an exception then you were being prideful. Furthermore, I was taught that it was selfish and impossible to have a family and a career. I was overtly taught this by my leaders, my parents and in General Conference. I was also covertly taught this by noticing that only the stay at home moms had callings or any vestige of leadership and were always held up as examples of righteous.
I was able walk my own path with the support of a wonderful husband but have still suffered cultural death as I have never had any significant calling and have difficulty making friends when all the women’s social activities are during the work day.
As a career woman, I have only been in 1 presidency in over 50 years in the church. The only was I got to be a mom was by adoption…so of course all the judgement about why we didn’t have kids… if they only knew how hard that is in the church! I was a better Mom because our only daughter saw a woman who was comfortable being a Mom and a profession!
That there was only one who didn’t have marriage and kids on a list at 16 – yikes! I was like you. I get a headache thinking about those 16 yr-olds who had marriage and motherhood on their lists. They didn’t even get a chance to fully let their brains develop and know themselves before being trained to give themselves away.
A couple of thoughts:
Being a stay-at-home mom who then sends her kids to school for 30+ hours a week plus likely a few more hours a week away for extracurriculars has never made sense to me. Seems more about keeping women in their place instead of about the kids.
I am reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time in my life (it’s hilarious!) and am realizing that even in Regency England, the majority of women were not able to marry for a life of leisure. Most women still had to have a way to earn a living. Yet even today the church acts like women in the church are living in the upper society Regency era where the aim is to marry well.
I was super lucky to be able to work part time at varying levels from 20-35 hours a week at my professional job in the almost two decades since my first was born. It took grit, tears, pain, shame, questioning, perseverance to follow a path that put me in communication with God rather than the church. Also, policies and culture in the US are not at all family friendly to moms, dads, or kids.
Thanks for your comment, Bailey! With the cost of housing right now, you have to marry REALLY well in order to have a 1 income family. Or you live in poverty if you’re determined to be a stay at home parent.
@Jenzi and @deb – I’m curious whether your lack of significant callings is due to people looking down on you (as you mentioned), or rather your lack of comparative freetime. As a working parent (married to a working parent), I have a lot less free time than I would if I were home with my kids (which 2 of the 3 are in public school all day with extracurriculars after school). If I weren’t working, I’d need some way to fill my time and a time-consuming calling may work exceptionally well for me. If I got called right now (while my kids are ages 12, 9 and 2) to something that took a significant amount of time, I’d feel really strapped for time! So, I guess I don’t mind that I’m not in a presidency and the callings I usually have involve teaching during regularly scheduled church time. Right now I’m family history specialist which doesn’t take much time at all, and I’m grateful for that because I am busy enough already!
I realize that your circumstances may be different, however, and you may long for more leadership positions at church (and may have the bandwidth for them!). And I totally respect that!
When I was 15 or 16 I had no idea if I wanted to get married. Definitely not anytime soon. Maybe around 25. Although that would mean I’d have to have some kind of career and I didn’t know what that would be. I’d wanted to be a mom, probably, at some point in the very distant future. When I moved out, it was kind of a shock to me how much I wanted someone to go though life with. I think I surprised everyone (myself included) when I got married at 20. It looked like church teachings, but really it was simply the right choice for me. I was suddenly very grateful for all those YW lessons I’d rolled my eyes at.
On the other hand, when I was pregnant and RS president and I had just started a new job and I realized I mentally could not handle all the things…God surprised me in a number of ways during that time:
-books that were not canonized scriptures were what I needed to read for scripture study,
-I needed to drop my calling and keep the job
It all started a long path that I still don’t know or understand.
I wish the ‘shoulds’ I hear at church were much more general. Once we had a lesson on our updated Stake Vision. It stated that we should all read the Book of Mormon every day. I got brave and said I had a hard time with that part of the Stake Vision because I felt like I needed to be reading the book of Daniel for my personal scripture study. I loved one of the comments to that: “Come Follow Me is a resource. A resource is something you use when you need help. You don’t have to use a resource if you don’t need it.”
I always wanted to get married and have a large family. It never happened. This really isn’t a choice you just get to make on your own. We should stop teaching young women that it is: they really have no control over what will happen.
I wanted a career and family. I had several great opportunities early in life, such as a congressional internship in D.C. This all ended when I made the fateful decision to move to SLC to finish my degree at the University of Utah. It was the early 90s and Utah was in the throws of what I call the “Ezra Taft Bension definition of womanhood”. While I was determined to continue on my chosen path, I was surrounded by a culture that actively obstructed women pursuing professional opportunities. In the workplace single women were not viewed as professionals, but wage workers who were their until marriage. Networking dried up, instead of job or educational opportunities, I was offered blind dates. Friendship with LDS women became impossible, married LDS women were not supposed to have friends, they were to focus on family. I eventually got the life I wanted, but found it with help and support outside of the Church. I look back at the culture I experienced with anger. It took away my free choice and made my life much harder than it had to be.