The LDS Church Gave Me Inadequate Career Advice – Part Two

I didn’t plan to write two posts about the inadequate career advice I received in the Young Women Program. However, based on the response to my first post I realized that a second post would be necessary. 

First of all, thank you to everyone who commented on my first post. It’s probably taboo for me to say this, but comments are always cherished. It’s kind of sad to write a post and have it receive little feedback so I’m thrilled that so many people chimed into the conversation.

A common theme among the comments on the blog and on Facebook was that I’d left off an important point. I’d neglected to say that women could work just because they wanted to. There didn’t need to be a reason.

I’ll admit, I’m embarrassed I didn’t include that in my list. It’s a glaring omission. 

I’ve tried to think of why I didn’t include, “You can work because you want to” in the list of things I wish I’d been told by my parents and Young Women leaders back in the late 90’s early 2000’s. It boils down to three things. Two are kind of trivial, but the third one has me examining a lot of my thought patterns. 

#1. I was in a hurry and I forgot. I was rushing to get that post ready for my scheduled posting day. It had existed in in my head and in outline form for a while, but I literally wrote it the morning it was posted. Could it have used a little more time to “marinate?” Yeah. But I learned long ago that if I wait until I think something is perfect I’ll never actually finish anything. Sometimes I just have to push publish and put things out into the ether. Maybe if I’d waited another day or so I would have realized I’d left off “Work because you want to” as a perfectly good reason to work.

#2. That post was about my lived experience not matching what I was taught in the Young Women program. My lived experience involves working primarily out of economic necessity. I’ve never worked solely because I want to so I didn’t think to include that on the list.

#3. Apparently I have some deep seeded unconscious bias involving women who work – especially mothers who work. As I’ve pondered why I didn’t include “You can work because you want to” in my original post I realized it’s because that was never modeled to me when I was a teenager. In fact, the main lesson I learned when I was growing up was that no woman in her right mind would ever work just because she wanted to. There always had to be a REASON a woman was working.

Three memories have boiled to the surface as I’ve been pondering why I think that a women needs a reason to work. These memories all involve the messages I received from church about women’s roles. Here they are:

Memory #1: I was 15 or 16 years old. I was talking in the church foyer with my friends. I don’t remember what we were talking about. Maybe career goals, maybe the number of children we wanted, maybe just about boys. A random old lady from the ward felt the need to interject into our conversation. 

She said, “You need to get married and have as many babies as you can so that Heavenly Father won’t be forced to send spirits to Africa.”

There are so many elements of problematic theology in that woman’s statement. But what I keep thinking about is how comfortable she felt just busting into our conversation to tell us that. Even random people at church had no problem telling me that my primary role was to get married and have children. The teachings of my youth leaders were more subtle, but that woman’s declaration pretty much sums up everything the church taught me about women’s roles.

Memory #2: I was in ninth grade seminary and we were studying the Old Testament. I think the lesson was about the nation of Israel desiring a king like other nations. The prophet Samuel warned them of all the dangers of wanting to be like other nations, but eventually gave in and ordained a king.

My seminary teacher somehow tied that lesson into women who work outside the home, and how that was an example of wanting to “be like other nations” so to speak. He said that working outside the home seems like a good idea, but it would bring ruin. He gave out a whole page of quotes from past prophets like Spencer W Kimball and Ezra Taft Benson about how women should be home with their children.

He then went on to lecture that he understood there were times a woman may need to work. But we needed to examine the reasons why. He said something like, “If your mom is working to help support the family that’s okay. But if she is working so that you can have a three car garage that is not okay.”

As I think back on my little impressionable teenage self in this memory I just want to rush in and pull myself out of that lesson. I think about all the years I spent agonizing over whether or not my career goals were in line with what God wanted. So much of that angst stemmed from this lesson alone. I kept that stupid page of quotes and referred to it occasionally as I debated different life plans. I wanted to be a rebel and work towards an amazing career. But I also wanted to be a rule follower and have God love me. What I ended up with was anxiety. 

Memory #3. I’m not sure how old I was in this memory. Definitely in Jr High. I was sitting in church listening to my friend give a sacrament meeting talk on Mother’s Day. My friend praised her mother for working. She said something like, “My sister had a job to pay for her dance company fees. She had a hard time working and keeping her grades up. So my mom got a job to help my sister pay for her fees so that she could have time to do her homework.”  

Later I would hear that some women in the ward were saying mean things about my friend’s mom because she was working. I don’t know if that was true. But I do know that my friend felt the need to publicly explain the reason why her mom was working. 

The point of all of this is that I obviously internalized the messages I received as a teenager. The lesson was clear, No good mother worked outside the home because she wanted to, there had to be a REASON. And 20 to 25 years later that manifested as a blog post about reasons I work that was not “because I want to – full stop.”

I’m sure there were women in my ward who were working and loving their jobs. Women who had ambitions. Women who were achieving things. But as far as I know they were never called into the Young Women’s program. If they were I NEVER heard about those things from them. If women talked about their work at all they always gave their reason. (Oh I work because all my kids are grown and I need something to do. I work because we need the extra income. I work because  . . .) I never heard anyone say, “I work because I want to. I work because I love what I do. I work because I’m good at my job.

So now that I’m more conscious of my unconscious bias, where do I go from here?

I definitely need to make sure that I’m talking about my work in a positive way. I want to model for my children that I like having a career. That I enjoy my job. That I’m working because I want to, and not just because we need the money. 

I also want to somehow model this for the Young Women in my ward. I don’t want them growing up thinking that they never knew a woman who enjoyed her job when I was RIGHT THERE the whole time. I want them to know that it’s okay to have ambitions. I want them to see that it’s possible to have a pretty decent work life balance as a mom.

And finally, I’m going to make sure that every time I talk about reasons to work I’m going to include “because you want to” at the top of the list. I’ll never make the mistake of leaving that out again. 

Photo by Mariah Hewines on Unsplash