LDS and stay at home moms?

[_Scottveg3]

Barrel you bring up a really good point. I don't think you can depend on anyone in this world but yourself in the end. The church should be teaching woman to use their minds. That being a better educated woman could make you a better parent. Showing your children about the value of education. even, if you don't go to college, show your children that value of seeking out something your passionate about and doing it well. These are important values.

[_harmony]

Girls in YW's are currently taught to seek an education, so that in the event they will not find a mate, they will at least be employable. They are taught from the first lesson each fall (Evening in White) that marriage is the goal, so our girls who graduate from BYU-I or BYU-Provo without having gotten married are pitied and looked down upon as socially inept or too rebellious. Some of our brightest minds are judged as lacking simply because they wish to pursue a career rather than a marriage at 21 years old.

We are stuck in the 50's because all of our leadership is from that generation. Hopefully we will see some improvements, as our leaders now move on to the next life.

[_Blixa]

That being a better educated woman could make you a better parent.

Oh but this was always part of it...in fact, I remember another speaker from that same conference addressing it! The Mormon poet Emma Lou Thayne spoke about the value of her BA in English: she could comfort her children when they'd skin their knees by telling them Greek myths....

[_skippy the dead]

Girls in YW's are currently taught to seek an education, so that in the event they will not find a mate, they will at least be employable. They are taught from the first lesson each fall (Evening in White) that marriage is the goal, so our girls who graduate from BYU-I or BYU-Provo without having gotten married are pitied and looked down upon as socially inept or too rebellious. Some of our brightest minds are judged as lacking simply because they wish to pursue a career rather than a marriage at 21 years old.

We are stuck in the 50's because all of our leadership is from that generation. Hopefully we will see some improvements, as our leaders now move on to the next life.

Jeepers - I got two degrees from BYU without getting married. But I'm going to go with the "too rebellious" label. I didn't want to marry an LDS man.

I can't tell you how much I hate the "just in case" mentality w.r.t. educating girls. I'd rather see women seek education for their own benefit, not in case their priesthood holder dies or runs away. One of the many reasons I refuse to raise my daughters as LDS.

[_Jersey Girl]

Hi monkeys,

Being non-LDS and lacking any meaningful experience whatsoever (sarcasm) with LDS, I've decided to answer your question anyway.

I've known quite a few LDS Mom's over the years and I can actually think of only 3 out of a group of say, 50 ballpark, who worked part time when their children were very young. In those cases:

1. One worked only and specifically when her child was in school.
2. One worked only on weekends when Dad was home.
3. One worked and Dad was a SAHD. (They made the best team I've ever seen)

As their children grew older, I've seen some more of those same Mom's enter the work force on either full or part time basis. Virtually all of the LDS Mom's I've known have been highly involved in their child's out of home experiences such as volunteering in classrooms, parent organizations, scout troops and that sort of thing.

I can't say specifically or even give you a random guess about percentages of educational levels of the LDS women I know. Some have college degrees, are high school graduates and some are college students earning their degrees.

One of the things I appreciate most in LDS women (and this is not to say that it doesn't happen in other churches) is that when babies are born they not only give the woman a baby shower but when Mom comes home with the newborn, they send meals each day and some come to clean house and do laundry if that's desired, and help with transportation to events for older children. Given the fact that many LDS families have quite a few children, that's a godsend in and of itself!

The only discouraging words I ever heard about career women or even women furthering their education were from one LDS Mom and one only.

Jersey Girl

[_Jersey Girl]

Aside from parenting, what life have they experienced?

What parts of life do you think they missed?

[_Jason Bourne]

I grew up in Bountiful Utah. You could not get more Mormon than that... well perhaps in Happy Valley..

I saw many broken homes within this Zion's Camp. All were active LDS. Even my own family. Very devout. Followed all of the LDS rules. But a very broken home... pregnancies, drugs, alcohol, kids getting kicked out of school... and mommy dearest stayed home and ensured we had family prayer morning and night, family home evening every monday, 100% attendance to ALL church meetings, over the top tithers, genealogy nazis, temple attending nazis.. the hall way was lined with all of the past Mormon presidents with quotes that we were expected to memorize...

My family was a large family with a number of us adopted.. me included. From the outside, it was the perfect Mormon family, with the SAME comments every Sunday as we filed out of the chapel, "Brother and Sister Porter, you have such a perfect group of kids! How do you keep them all so reverent?"
"Two words, FEAR AND PAIN!", we'd mumble under our breath. Yes, both of them were very heavy handed.

Out here in California, most of the men I work with have wives that work, I also work with many married women. All of them are non Mormons.

The number of broken homes I see here is far less as a percentage than I saw in my 99% Mormon Bountiful Utah were close to 99% had stay at home mommies.

Perhaps the difference here is an average higher education? All are engineers or related BA degrees, there is a mix of 2-5 children in each family...

Perhaps the smaller families are easier to manage?

Perhaps the weight of Mormonism not crushing them make a difference?

Back when I was a Mormon, I too held irrational beliefs that the home rested on the mother.. and her best place was at home.. I was wrong. The best place for a mother is loving her children, period. Ditto for the fathers.

Now that my daughters will not be ran through the RM bride mill of the Mormon "young women" program, I will see them graduate from a university and become successful women. Free to choose what they want to be and on their own schedule.

Yes PP LDS have all the problems everyone else does. But like it or not stastics show they have a lower rate of these things especially among active LDS.

[_barrelomonkeys]

yes it is encouaraged and preached and culturally some working moms are frowned upon by some more catty members of their wards. I think the Church has downplayed this some from a leadership level but it is still highly encouraged. A recent Ensign had an article by a woman who had the chance to be a high pwer player in the business world but gave it up to be a stay at home mom. The message was pretty clear.

Jason's post sums up a lot and maybe speaks to the current situation better than I can. But I can say that when I was a teen and young adult in the late 70's this was more than just encouraged. It was emphasized over and over on all levels. Of course, that was because of the impact of second wave feminism, obviously, but the over-reaction was at hysteria pitch.

I heard it from all kinds of church leaders and authorities: seminary teachers, MIA teachers, speakers at conference. I heard it said to me many times by ward members when I spoke of my ambitions ("that's all very well, but you'll never find true happiness unless..."). I was at best "confused" and at worst "evil."

I remember a local U of U women's conference of some kind circa 1976. It was very generic for the time: lots of speakers addressing broadly construed "women's issues," some kind of art exhibit, and possibly a concert. The keynote speaker was the former Utah first lady: former Governor Calvin Ramption's wife, Lucy Beth. She was currently pursuing a master's in anthropology and her talk was about how glad she was to see that young women today have lots of different options in terms of education, work and paths in life: more than she had generations ago. She spoke about how satisfying it was to her to take her anthropology classes, even "late in life," and she encouraged all women to explore their hopes, dreams, ambitions.

It was a very benign speech.

After her talk the President of the Relief Society spoke. Her speech started something like this, "It is foolish to assume that young women have a new range of choices about their lives because only by being wives and mothers will they ever find true happiness and fulfill themselves. We may think it is otherwise, but we are only fooling ourselves if we make other choices about our lives."

It was an incredibly arrogant and insulting speech to make after Mrs. Ramption's.

Of course this was around the time of the ERA scandal and the insanity over the International Women's Year Conference, too. I believe that Marilyn Warenski has written about this era: or at least I know that her oral history research about it is available in the archives of the Utah Historical Society. I haven't read any of it, but I mean to at some point since these incidents had a great deal of impact on me and I saw them up close (I was at the IWY conference, for example, and was one of the student journalists who covered the ERA debate in the state legislature and was there for the vote).

I just want to tell you Blixa that I think it is very, very cool that you covered the ERA debate. I did women's studies in college but you lived it. Very, very cool. :)

[_barrelomonkeys]

Jeepers - I got two degrees from BYU without getting married. But I'm going to go with the "too rebellious" label. I didn't want to marry an LDS man.

I can't tell you how much I hate the "just in case" mentality w.r.t. educating girls. I'd rather see women seek education for their own benefit, not in case their priesthood holder dies or runs away. One of the many reasons I refuse to raise my daughters as LDS.

I agree with you. But I know so many people, male and female, that just get their higher education for job opportunities, not to expand their knowledge.

[_barrelomonkeys]

Barrel you bring up a really good point. I don't think you can depend on anyone in this world but yourself in the end. The church should be teaching woman to use their minds. That being a better educated woman could make you a better parent. Showing your children about the value of education. even, if you don't go to college, show your children that value of seeking out something your passionate about and doing it well. These are important values.

I agree with this! For some women their passion may be motherhood above anything else. I understand that and do not knock this.