Coggins, if you would post something that had any substance, I may consider "engaging"....as you call it. All I ever read from you is negative attacks and constant bickering. So....not interested.
Then you clearly haven't been following this thread very closely:
The culture's standard for men contains a number of negatives as well as that for woman, but the Church has been traditionally openly hostile to those standards as well. Men, as well as woman, are supposed to dress modestly, and not strut around the beach like a peacock showing of their abs. Men, according to GBH's pamphlet Father, Consider Thy Ways, are to be home centered, as is the woman, not career and ambition centered. Woman and men both have it rough in the post sixties, feminist world of having it all. But the Church is against all of this, which is why I think the depression phenomena is more a seeping of the surrounding culture into the Church, which distorts actual Church teachings, then something inherently wrong with Church culture itself, and nobody is saying that Church culture can be hermetically sealed from the popular culture. It can't.
Amigo wrote:
Quote:
Men are expected to be the sole provider for their family; be ultra-successful financially; make lots of money so that they can afford the music lessons, the sports camps, etc. while the wife stays home, takes care of, and births as many children as possible. He must be a good father, spending quality time with wife and kids, while, at the same time, balancing career and callings which take him out of the home 70-95% of the week. As the Priesthood holder, he is ultimately responsible for any major family failure that occurs, such as a child becoming inactive, etc.
Loran:
First, men are expected to be the sole provider. This is a gospel principle, and mountains of social science evidence suggest that this traditional division of labor is the best, both for a marriage and for children; having a mom at home on a continual basis, and a father who provides economically. Ideology aside, the primary reason this has become so difficult is the impact of high taxes and inflation on the ability of a single earner to keep up. By the end of the nineties, the second earner was working almost solely to pay taxes, and inflation has eaten up much of what a single earner would have brought home and used within the family. I'm not making a strictly economic argument here. Its also true that Mormons have bought into the materialism of western culture to some degree, and too many live beyond theit means as needs become confused with wants. This is all true. However, its also true that middle class affluence does buy things that the poor, and my grandparents, could never have done for their children: piano lessons, dance, martial arts, sports etc. Nice things, and before the Industrial Revolution, most simply struggled to survive.
Feminism (radical) also has had an effect, transferring to woman many of the worst aspects of the American male psych (self worth is bound up with financial success and corporate careerism over family).
Keep in mind too that the Church has never had a doctrine or official counsel on the size of families. That's always been understood to be between the Lord and the married couple. Pres. Kimball had a modest sized family, and he was clear that childbirth is conditioned by consideration for the woman's health and psychological state (this was in the early seventies). Large families are not an official Church position, and I'm aware of no stigma attached to small ones. Most LDS I know have a modes family size, perhaps three to five (and some with only one or two), which are far more than the standard Yuppie 1.3, but hardly the eight, ten, and twelve of past generations, when much of the population was on the farm and mortality rates were higher. I support large families in general, especially as we are heading for serious economic problems within the next few of decades due to our preoccupation with small families that became all the rage after the sixties and was itself a feature of our galloping materialism.
It seems then, that we are faced with a complex of external conditions and internal priorities that must be balanced, and any such balancing act is going to have to include the leaving of some unnecessary luggage behind.
Liz:
You're right, Coggins. The gospel doesn't preach these things. But the culture of the Church has interpreted these things. I agree with you. We need to make things more simple, and get back to more of the basics of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Loran:
Again, I would say its not the culture of the Church so much as a mutant intermingling between Church culture and the secular culture, and some inability to disentangle the two, that is producing much of the problem.
Care to engage any of these points? Or are they not serious?