Postponing Having Children

[_Jersey Girl]

Let me say this. I gravitate to threads like this for two reasons. One because they have to do with children and families and the other reason is the mention of GSUSA. I sincerely doubt that many of the posters here have much experience or knowledge about GSUSA and I think I can contribute to that.

What I won't have is someone like a Bot misrepresenting GSUSA and it's historical underpinnings in order to spin off the political and religious head trip that the LDS church lays on it's women.

OMG my children were right about me.

[_Jersey Girl]

Bot


Care to try again?

Nope. It is expressly a secular organization. The BSA is not.

The GS is a tremendous organization and I admire it and have bought its cookies. But it is not an analogue.

It's not "The GS", it's GSUSA. You say you admire it. Tell me why you admire it?

[_Jersey Girl]

Bot,

Please give me your short list of why you believe GSUSA is not an analogue.

[_Jersey Girl]

You are both right.

I am married to an extremely bright lady. She was encouraged by the LDS Church classes she attended until she quit going at age 14 to prepare for and become a housekeeper and a mother. She was being inculcated with the notion that the only reason a young woman went to college was to look for a husband, if she hadn't already found someone to be her husband by the end of high school (and wait for him until he returned from a 2-year mission).

My grey matter is not nearly as capable as my wife's, but I was encouraged--and given every opportunity--to develop as a bread winner and a leader. I had family and local societal support to achieve college degrees, and 'make something of myself'--opportunities that my wife, just because of her gender, was discouraged from.

That's an example of your point, harmony, in spades.

Let's take your account as an example, sock. I'm assuming that your wife didn't pursue higher education. Tell me what the church would have expected your wife to do had she become widowed as a young mother?

[_Jersey Girl]

Bot,

Separating my questions for you into manageable pieces.

Tell me why you think that BSA is a religious organization vs secular?

[_Jersey Girl]

Bot,

If LDS are against the GSUSA organization for their girl members, why isn't participation in the American Heritage Girls encouraged?

[_Jason Bourne]

The mission experience does an enormous amount of preparing young men to be good fathers. It doesn't hurt the young women either, though my experience is that pre-mission women are usually more prepared to be good parents than pre-mission men are.

Earning capacity is usually irrelevant because extended family is usually there to help with that if it's needed. And if for some reason the extended family can't help, I'm sure a married couple who came to their bishop for help, due to the fact that they'd followed the Church's advice, would get the financial help they needed.

Getting married very soon after my mission and having our first child one year later with two and three following two years apart there after, as well as me having no college education and not even being sure what I wanted to do has put me and may family about 7-6 year behind financially of where most my business peers are today. Not that this is the end of the world. But it is a simple fact. And we struggled and family did not help nor did we ask the bishop for help. We did get by but man it was hard at times.

[_sock puppet]

You are both right.

I am married to an extremely bright lady. She was encouraged by the LDS Church classes she attended until she quit going at age 14 to prepare for and become a housekeeper and a mother. She was being inculcated with the notion that the only reason a young woman went to college was to look for a husband, if she hadn't already found someone to be her husband by the end of high school (and wait for him until he returned from a 2-year mission).

My grey matter is not nearly as capable as my wife's, but I was encouraged--and given every opportunity--to develop as a bread winner and a leader. I had family and local societal support to achieve college degrees, and 'make something of myself'--opportunities that my wife, just because of her gender, was discouraged from.

That's an example of your point, harmony, in spades.

Let's take your account as an example, sock. I'm assuming that your wife didn't pursue higher education. Tell me what the church would have expected your wife to do had she become widowed as a young mother?

Quickly re-married, and have more babies.

[_Jersey Girl]

sock

Quickly re-married, and have more babies.

I was certain you'd say that. What should she have done in the interim so far as paying the bills?

[_Jersey Girl]

I might be out to lunch on this, but I see another problem with the intended life course of young LDS adults.

You graduate HS at 18, go on your mission at 19, get married at 21 and start a family.

Besides there being not much time to grow and mature prior to having children, there is also no time for the work experience that one would need to provide for the new and growing family while perhaps going to college at the same time.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for stay at home mothers and father provider roles. While I support choice, I do believe that the traditional mother/father roles when they can be had, are best for children and the stability of the family both economically and psychologically.

But in this scenario, isn't the church lobbing on a truckload of overwhelming responsibility to it's young adult males?