Guest Post: Ashley Hoth lives deep in the woods of Castle Rock, Washington with her husband and three young children. She studied recreational therapy at BYU and loves oil painting. Art is one of her favorite ways of connecting with her Heavenly Parents and Christ, and she uses art to cope with and explore complicated things. She enjoys working with wood from the family sawmill, building forts with her children, and is a big fan of hammocks.
Original artwork by Ashley. Check out more at her Instagram: @ashleyhoth_art.
It was stake conference, and I had a very new baby. While my busy toddler and older child could handle the 2-hour meeting with enough toys and snacks, I dreaded the prospect with my nursing baby. I knew how many young mothers would be there and how little space there was for us. Nonetheless we went and soon our baby needed to nurse. It was crowded on the folding chairs and the nursing cover wasn’t working, so I retreated to the mother’s room – a small, closet-sized space. I opened it, and I still remember the look on the young mother’s face as she sat in the only chair, with a tiny baby crying on her lap as she struggled to change a diaper. She looked up at me surprised and apologetic, and I closed the door to give her privacy.
The other main rooms were also crowded, so I returned to my husband and asked for the car keys to nurse there. Though my instincts told me I would have been better off with a zoom link and my baby safe at home, societal expectations urged us to attend. Mothers often bear the brunt, missing talks and resorting to nursing in cars. My husband knew I was worried and had said it would be fine, but now all my concerns proved accurate so he stood up and said, “follow me.”
Being involved with the stake presidency, he had access to the high council room. Unlocking the door, he ushered me into a spacious room where the voice of the speaker filled the air. A large table surrounded by comfortable padded chairs with armrests greeted us. My chair even tipped back slightly, perfect for nursing. My husband made sure I was comfortable, then left. Sitting there, able to hear the talks while caring for my baby, I glanced around the room. I saw fifteen large, framed pictures of men – the First Presidency of the church and the current Twelve Apostles. I looked at the many other chairs used almost exclusively by men in the high council room of the stake building. “They really don’t see us,” I thought in that moment.
It was a pain I can’t describe, cuddling and caring for my sweet child, fulfilling what this church has taught is the highest honor of women, while seeing the stark contrast between the closet-sized space for the mothers, and the big, comfortable room used by the men.
It felt like that soft seat in that big space invited me to set down a pack I didn’t know I was carrying. Once the weight was off and I could look at it, I saw how heavy and huge a burden it was, trying to get through church with a baby and my kids, and it hurt. This space showed it didn’t need to be that hard, and it brought me to tears.
I felt for the other moms pacing in the halls who didn’t have access to this space. I flashed to the other places where I had tried feeding babies at church over the years, bumping knees with another mom and our babies looking up too distracted to eat, or having my baby wake every time a toilet flushed, or the folding chair I set up in the corner of empty classrooms with my back to the door, and foot propped on the wall. All that ache mingled with relief that I was in a space that was so truly comfortable for my needs, yet I felt like an intruder, knowing that space was not intended for me.
Then it hit me. All high council rooms could be open to mothers and infants during every stake conference in every building. Can we ask this of our leaders? Can we spread the word? Other stakes may do this or have better spaces already, but if not, inviting mothers into high council rooms would help. It usually has the space to spread out, the soft chairs with armrests, the in-wall speakers, the quiet corner of the building, and it’s easy to open a door and hang signs welcoming mothers. I’ve been in other countries where public nursing is much more accepted, but if we still insist on it being more covered and private in some places like the United States, we have got to provide more space. Young mothers are carrying around huge burdens, compounded by the crammed, dated, uncomfortable and insufficient mothers rooms.
I know leaders don’t mean to not see us, which is why I share this story. If they don’t know, they can’t help. Share this, so leaders can know. Being a mother in Zion can be hard, and I am not unfaithful, deceived, power-hungry, or selfish for saying that – all things that have been said at times about women who have brought honest concerns to the table in our church. We can do better for our sisters and our daughters, and I know so many leaders are eager to help. This is a simple place to start.
(This is a guest post solicited to be a companion piece to LDS Mother’s Rooms for Nursing Moms Suck – Exponent II. Click for examples of how LDS mother’s rooms compared to other some at other church buildings.)
26 Responses
What an excellent idea. I hope leaders see your post and push past their reasons to resist better accommodating mothers and babies.
I hope so too!
When I attended church in a stake center 2 plus decades ago I worked together with ward and stake leadership to formally acknowledge the high council room as an overflow mothers room for all ward and stake meetings. We had a sign on both doors, etc. It absolutely should be standardized.
(Also, normalized BF without a cover if a mother chooses, but we all choose our battles).
I knew other places had to do it! Good for you for helping make that happen. My husband said it would be so nice to have the need to prepare infant care overflow spaces noted in the handbook about stake conference preparation, suggesting that space as an option would standardize it. Otherwise it varies so much from area to area. That’s great you made a difference in yours. Yes I totally agree normalizing breast feeding without covers is would be so nice.
This is a small ask. Seems easily doable. But one time I had a small ask (we need more space in the mothers lounge) and it ended in chaos. I wrote about it here (see baby #2): https://exponentii.org/blog/please-breastfeed-in-sacrament-meeting/
I wish it were easier to ask for really small things!
Thanks so much for linking that, my goodness I was so frustrated reading your story. Lining the little room with folding chairs… not a solution. Open breastfeeding really is so nice, and so normal, and is what I did in our sacrament meetings when I had a side bench and what I wish I did more. Loved/was frustrated reading your story, and thanks for sharing
Thank you so much for writing this. I’ve never seen the inside of a high council room, but having seen many horrible and inadequate mother’s rooms I am fuming that such a room exists in the same building where so many of us are crouching on the floor next to a broken or stained or dirty chair trying to survive church. This is a great idea that costs nothing to implement.
I hadn’t been in there before either and it felt like stepping into another world haha, so rough the contrast. No cost to implement ❤️
The real problem is that there are zero women with the power to make this happen. None of us can just go in and make it happen.
If any of us were a stake president, we could say the word and make it so next week – at least temporarily, until an area authority showed up and put the kaibosh on it.
The mothers are entirely at the mercy of whether the men listen in this matter. We can’t be the first generation of moms to have noticed and asked about this…
All we can do is hope that some of the men might listen. And yet I think we all know that if we did request this, it wouldn’t go anywhere. If it wasn’t shot down immediately, there would be hemming and hawing. If it did get considered, it would be forgotten about if not relentlessly followed up on by the women. The request would die before it ever got to whatever man was in charge of building maintenance.
“If not relentlessly followed up by the women…” so sad and feels true. It does seem so hard to get something so simple noticed, and a leader or two might get on board, but then it’s all over again with the next set of leaders… in each and every stake. One word from the top and one sentence in the handbook about preparing overflow parents spaces and it would change instantly. It is so hard to make lasting changes get from this position. Even asking for it is hard because we have to be willing to face the frustrated emotions of something so simple being denied, and that it a lot. We can’t be the first generation like you said, yet it’s still the same. 🙁
Well said.🩷
Thanks for reading ❤️
It has been years since I had a nursing baby, but this post literally brought tears to my eyes thinking of how church leaders could have made things simpler for the mothers they proclaim have the higher calling, and yet they didn’t. I had a moment of mourning for how much more difficult it was than it needed to have been and I hope that it can be better for mothers now and in the future. This is a super simple change – such crumbs we must advocate for.
Thanks for sharing your empathy and experience, it does feel like asking for crumbs. Do many women for so many years just dealing with it, when it doesn’t need to be so hard.
I have watched all the recent uproar (garments, “women have authority”, yada yada), without too much interest and I don’t have any children but you can’t believe how pissed off this post made me. The male leaders sit on their fat butts in comfy chairs while the mothers have a crappy, stinky place? All while we say motherhood is the highest thing there is!? That’s beyond not seeing. That strikes me as something that needs to be changed immediately.
❤️💔❤️. The contrast was hard to sit in, and totally needs to be changed. Thanks for sharing.
The contrast is especially galling on mother’s day. Imagine being crammed in a dark, poorly ventilated, stinky, tiny room with other moms sitting on broken stained chairs and on the floor, trying to change and nurse babies with some modicum of basic dignity intact, while over the crackly, half-broken speaker, you hear these glowing, pedestalizing accolades about angel mothers and all that “highest and holiest” smush.
Especially galling for sure. The words almost have the opposite effect when it is only words, some resources or changes or actions would be nice.
What a simple and genius solution. Thanks for sharing this story. It shouldn’t be so hard.
Agreed, it shouldn’t be so hard. Thanks for being here to read this story. ❤️
This is such a great idea!
Thanks for reading ❤️
I love this.
I think the high council room and stake offices should be converted into a nice lounge area where mothers can be comfortable nursing their babies and that all the high councilmen and stake officers can have their meetings in the gross “mother’s room” next to the women’s restroom until an actual lounge area is built.
You want to show mothers how much they’re valued? Give them something better than a small closet next to a dirty, smelly bathroom to nurse their babies in.
It’s pathetic how other churches understand this so much better than ours does.
Seriously, I believe if the leaders tried having presidency or bishopric meetings in the current mothers rooms things would improve. It’s hard to advocate from outside since we aren’t in hardly any of those meetings, and the few meetings like stake council that women are in, bringing up breastfeeding in front of 15 other men out of the blue probably doesn’t happen much. I definitely did not feel valued that day, but I saw how much the priesthood leadership positions were valued. The least we can do is share that space until better changes are made. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
“I know leaders don’t mean to not see us..”
Honesty, I think they do mean to not see us. If they wanted to see us, we’re right here. And we have been. All their lives, and all our lives. We’ve been right here, in front of them, asking them to see us. If they haven’t seen us by now, it’s because they don’t want to.
I’m so sorry you even feel the need to apologize to leaders who “don’t mean to not see.” It is precisely the issue. It is precisely their responsibility because women are not given the right to make those changes and they need to do better.
It is wild the discrepancies between treatment of the genders especially with the expectations of childbearing the church puts on women. I clearly remember the unsettling and uncomfortable 4′ x 7′ narrow closet with a hard wood rocking chair. The only way to gain entry was through the back of the women’s restroom with toilets flushing as background noise. It was the only designated space for mothers to nurse in a chapel where multiple congregations met and overlapped. And the priesthood and high Council rooms looked like they belonged in another building. Never have I seen a Relief Society room equipped in the same manner to care for the bodies that bare and mother children.
The taught shame around women’s bodies needs to stop and the clear disregard for women by omission in the entire design of every single chapel speaks volumes. This, in a church where women outnumber men by a large margin. In a church where women give so much, plan so much, facilitate so much, decorate so much, serve so much, feed so much, raise children so much while father is often away fulfilling his calling or stays listening to the sermons while their partner (not yours) deals with this issue.
Thank you for writing this article.