Child & Family Advocacy W13

 Mothers Who Know....bear children, honor sacred ordinances and covenants, are nurturers (aka. homemakers), are leaders, are teachers...

These wise mothers who know are selective about their own activities and involvement to conserve their limited strength in order to maximize their influence where it matters most.

Mothers who know do less. They permit less of what will not bear good fruit eternally....They chose carefully and do not try to chose it all.

Who are we? We are women who differ in age, income, race/ethnicity, and marital status. Many of us are mothers, some with exceptionally large families. Some of us are grandmothers and great-grandmothers many times over. Some are young mothers, with infants and elementary-age children. Others of us—for reasons of biology, opportunity, or choice—do not have children. Some of us have never married. Some of us are single because of divorce, widowhood, choice, or limited opportunity. A few of us have been with the same partner more than 50 years. We all work—paid or unpaid, both inside and outside our homes. We share many decades of church service among us. In fact, our LDS background is our common denominator.

Several ideas within the body of President Beck's talk conflict with our inspiration and experience. We are authors of our own lives, and this is the story we know to be true:

What Women Know

Fathers as well as mothers, men as well as women, are called to nurture. Nurturing is not confined to mothering or housekeeping, but is a universal attribute that communicates patience, peacefulness, and care.

Individuals and relationships flourish when we are able to share not only our strengths but also our mutual imperfections and needs. It is difficult to be compassionate with ourselves and others when we internalize injunctions to perform (e.g., “the highest-performing sister missionary,” “the best homemaker in the world,” “the most patient and loving mother”). Motherhood and sisterhood cannot be reduced to the performance of narrowly-prescribed tasks, but emerge from who we know ourselves to be.

Cleanliness depends upon access to resources and has more to do with priorities than purity of heart. We do not place the additional burden of “outward appearances” on our sisters who are hauling fuel and water long distances; who are struggling with poverty, isolation, or ill health; or who choose values that take precedence over orderly living quarters and polished looks.

Housework is something that grownups do and that children learn by example and instruction. Unfortunately, women and girls still perform the bulk of the world's low-paid and unpaid labor, including housework—often at the expense of their own education, leadership, creativity, health, and well-being. Men and boys who share care-work and household responsibilities make it possible for all family members to live happier, more fulfilling lives.

We reverence the responsibility to choose how, when, and whether we become parents. Many of us have adoptive and foster children and grandchildren from diverse ethnicities and cultures. We have given birth to children who range widely on every dimension—from personality, appearance, and sexual identity to physical, social, and mental ability. No matter what their differences, we care for them all.

Effective parenting is a learned behavior, and, as parents, we learn and grow with each child. Children come with their own gifts, challenges, and freedom of choice. We reject teachings that encourage women to shoulder ultimate responsibility for every aspect of child-rearing and family life, and to take on shame and guilt when things do not go according to plan.

The choice to have children does not rule out other avenues of influence and power. By valuing ourselves as lifelong achievers, apart from our roles as mothers, friends, partners, sisters, aunts, and grandmothers, we stand for creativity, public service, competence, and growth. We take joy in the collective contributions we make in the fields of government, medicine, academia, law, journalism, human services, business, art, health care advocacy, music, technology, child development, and science.

When it comes to employment, most women prefer the luxury of choice to the limitations of necessity. Women-friendly policies such as flex-time and comparable pay for women and men, access to health care, family leave for births and care-work, and affordable, high-quality childcare give all of us—single or partnered, impoverished or privileged—greater choice in how to support ourselves and our families.

We work because we want to; because we need to; and because we have no other choice. We know that “children are more important than possessions, position, and prestige.” Some of us have been thrust into the position of sole economic support of our children through desertion, divorce, domestic violence, or death. Indeed, too many of us have learned that we are just one fully-employed male away from poverty.

Men are our fathers, sons, brothers, partners, lovers, and friends. Many of them also struggle within a system that equates leadership with hierarchy and domination. We distrust separate-but-equal rhetoric; anyone who is regularly reminded that she is “equally important” is probably not. Partnership is illusory without equal decision-making power.

We have discovered that healthy relationships are equitable relationships. A relationship that is balanced in terms of economic and emotional power is safer and more resilient than a relationship in which one partner holds most or all of the power. Women with active support networks and marketable skills have greater options, not only in relationships, but in life.

We claim the life-affirming powers of spirit and wisdom, and reject the glorification of violence in all its forms. We are filled with unutterable sadness by the Book of Mormon story of more than 2,000 young soldiers whose mothers teach them that faith in God will preserve them in battles in which they kill other mothers' children. This is not a success story. It is a story of the failure of human relationships and the horrors of war. In a world that has grown increasingly violent, we believe that one of the most important passages in LDS scripture is D&C 98:16: “Therefore, renounce war and proclaim peace. . . .”

Our roles as mothers, sisters, daughters, partners, and friends are just a few of the many parts we will play in the course of our lives. We may influence hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives. But we are not our roles. We are created in the image of the divine—people of worth in our own right, in our choices, in our individuality, and in our belief that the life story we are ultimately responsible for is our own.

Please consider joining with us in affirmation by sending an email (whatwomenknow@gmail.com) to add your name to the list:

 "Women's Roles - President Dallin H. Oaks" Transcript

D. Todd Christofferson: A woman’s moral influence is nowhere more powerfully felt or more beneficially employed than in the home. There is no better setting for rearing the rising generation than the traditional family, where a father and a mother work in harmony to provide for, teach, and nurture their children.

...Whatever else a woman may accomplish, her moral influence is no more optimally employed than here.

Attitudes toward human sexuality threaten the moral authority of women on several fronts. Abortion for personal or social convenience strikes at the heart of a woman’s most sacred powers and destroys her moral authority. The same is true of sexual immorality and of revealing dress that not only debases women but reinforces the lie that a woman’s sexuality is what defines her worth.

There has long been a cultural double standard that expected women to be sexually circumspect while excusing male immorality. The unfairness of such a double standard is obvious, and it has been justifiably criticized and rejected. In that rejection, one would have hoped that men would rise to the higher, single standard, but just the opposite has occurred—women and girls are now encouraged to be as promiscuous as the double standard expected men to be. Where once women’s higher standards demanded commitment and responsibility from men, we now have sexual relations without conscience, fatherless families, and growing poverty. Equal-opportunity promiscuity simply robs women of their moral influence and degrades all of society.⁹ In this hollow bargain, it is men who are “liberated” and women and children who suffer most.

...In blurring feminine and masculine differences, we lose the distinct, complementary gifts of women and men that together produce a greater whole.

Feminism 2.0: we need to say, I will not be defined by anyone else, not by feminists and not by men's sexual desires. That is female power.

“The home is the laboratory of our lives, and what we learn there largely determines what we do when we leave there.” -President Thomas S. Monson,  "Hallmarks of a Happy Home."Links to an external site.

Responsible citizenship Chapter 39: All citizens should bear the burden of good government.

Strengthening Marriages in Your Community: 101 Ideas to Get You Started. (It can be ordered from www.smartmarriages.com for about $3; a portion of the booklet is available on-line.

• At least three ideas or principles from either of the chapters you just read, that, if followed by parents, would be likely to produce a child like the girl in this video.

Optional: 

To be clear, these are conversations that both mothers and fathers should be having with their children. In accordance with what has been taught in the general conference talks above, it was decided that this talk should be placed here. Please watch this entire presentation and take notes on both what you hear and what you feel. You also might want to write down questions that come to your mind.

Below is the link for the handout Brother Rarick provided during this presentation:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JA2aVWRAYOxNpTzh3Ktx1J463hiwn9ml2LDCfBFs3jU/edit