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Ray wrote:
The irony is that many of the women who stay home have more kids still at home (both prior to school age and in school), are expected to more of the housework and school help, have husbands who are gone longer hours due to professional, salaried jobs, etc. Those factors, however, aren’t considered often – because, well, we all know SHMs have more time, since they have nothing else to do
Ray, you are correct. And I have been that SAHM with little kids who volunteered for everything. It was being Primary President, on PTA Board, I cooked a dinner for 50-60 at homeless shelter once a month that my husband and children could serve. I was active in the Legal Auxiliary and was the local county president and VP for the state. I also volunteered through the local chapter of a women’s league. All with a baby on one arm and a couple little ones behind me.
I know how a SAHM can volunteer and how devalued SAHMs have become culturally. I used to ask myself why SAHMs were so under-valued. Then I started coordinating volunteers for PTA. It was such a eyeopener. There were dads who volunteered, but the vast majority were women. Of those women, there were those who would help out in any way possible. There were women who would volunteer for a single shift if it is directly related to their child. Then there were the women who would only volunteer if their friends were involved. Without that dynamic, they were unable to do anything because they have young children.
The truth is that many SAHMs do not volunteer. They do social events, craft nights, and not much else. These are the ones who do not have job skills nor education and they do not want the situation to change. IMO, this group with a firm sense of entitlement is growing. I’m not sure if it is just a LDS dynamic or if it is a reflection of a larger societal issue.
Quote:Hawkgrrl wrote:
Some of the staunchest sexists are women who benefit from patriarchy and who have sacrificed much to get those benefits. Be wary of such women.
My thought is that there are two separate dynamics going on:
1. Local leadership fills YW leadership positions with women who they know will promote a certain viewpoint. In my ward experience, there has been a statistically improbable number of women called to YW positions who do not have daughters. These mothers of teenage boys talk to the YW about “the kind of girl I want my son to marry” and the “kind of girl I want to raise my grandchildren”. These women do not stop to think that they have moved the goals of YW away from what is best for the individual young woman and have changed the YW goal to be “what is best for my sons and for me”
2. The second dynamic is about women and power. Traditionally, LDS women achieve power and position through whoever they are married to. Some women have interpreted that as an expectation to be financially supported without any effort on their part once the children are raised. As families have gotten smaller and household labor has become less labor intensive, there are LDS women who feel it is their God-ordained right to have children and then just be a financially well supported slacker for the rest of their lives. They see any push towards education or employment as ruining the great situation that they have landed in. They teach LDS girls to expect a free ride through life.
The YW leaders at the very top come from privileged backgrounds. The few girls who manage to duplicate that model of life is done at the expense of the vast majority of YW who would be better served by learning the importance of employment skills and education
Quote:DarkJedi wrote:
FWIW, one of the counselors in our stake RSP is a single professional woman in her 30s, and we previously had a divorced single mother, also a professional, in that position. The former was released to be YWP in her ward. One of the counselors in the stake Primary presidency is also a single (divorced, childless) professional woman.
Yes! Exactly this.
In our area, single professional women with or without children do just fine in the church. It is the women who followed the church CES and culture advice and did NOT get professional-class credentials who suffer. All is fine as long as they are married and SAHMs. But once divorced, without marketable skills, they either re-marry within a month or two, move in long-term with relatives, or are supported socially and financially by their wards.
Everything went better if women had ignored the YW lessons and made sure they were well educated with marketable skills.
Visiting with people over the years, my perception is that families with a husband was better cared for on every level by a ward in times of financial hardship than a single mother with children.
That would certainly vary by circumstance and location.
I am curious to see what others have seen.
Quote:NightSG wrote:
“More to the point, this leaves a lot of women financially trapped in bad marriages because they have no means of supporting themselves and the children once they find out that the RM everybody else thinks can walk on water is a very different person behind closed doors.”
Yes. It is horrific to me that women are too often put into a situation in which there is no easy escape. Lots of children. Poor education and job skills .. And an expectation that extended family and the LDS church will step in to support them financially as needed. Extended family and the church doesn’t expect to help out long term.
The truth is that individual wards are not set up to finacially support divorced parents. In my limited experience, it looks like high earner single mothers seem to keep affiliation with the church. I see too many low earner divorced mothers feel marginalized by their religious communities due to their financial needs .. or they quickly re-marry for financial reasons without full regard for anything else in the relatioship other than financial need.
Roy: I find women have always managed to figure out ways to customize a balance of career and family. It is what women do.
Too often, I see our YW pushed towards careers that are lower paying as a way to force them into a SAHM roll. A dear friend’s daughter wanted to go to medical school. The parents did all in their power to discourage their daughter. When they proudly told me that they had succeeded, I was stunned. That daughter could’ve worked 2 mornings a week as a physician and made more money than working 80 hours a week at minimum wage. The parents have forced her into a role of SAHM. She is financially trapped.
The parents were concerned that if their daughter had the potential to make a significant income, she would be tempted to work. They did what they did out of “love”.
I come across that attitude frequently. It makes me so sad.
A healthier attitude would be to trust adult children to make excellent decisions for themselves and their families.
A YW career night that featured a school teacher, a hair dresser, and a paralegal. Huh. Talk about stereotypes. Those are all wonderful professions, but each woman admitted that she made a poor choice in that she focused on education as a “back up plan” instead of a primary plan. I find it interesting that they didn’t bring in a school principal, a movie set designer, and a litigator. They didn’t bring in women who were pleased with their level of education and accomplishments. They didn’t bring in women who were making 6 or 7 figure incomes.
The people they brought in were women — who by their own admissions — had settled on education, degrees, and positions that were less than their full potential.
Imagine if the YM had a career fair and they brought 3 poorly educated and under-employed men to talk to the YM. That wouldn’t happen.
People learn from example. All the studies show that people will mimic what they know. If you want youth to accomplish great things, you show them inspirational examples. If you want to appear as if you are promoting careers for the YW, but you really want them to be SAHMs, you show them women who have not accomplished fame, financial independence, or reached the upper echelons of their professions.
I knew someone who grew up poor but she had every opportunity for higher education. She chose to complete only an associates degree and married a poor provider. Years later, someone asked her why she had made such choices as she had her impoverished growing-up experience as a obvious lesson on what NOT to do. She reply, “It was all I knew. It was the pattern I was familiar with.”
Let’s show our YW some positive and successful patterns of achievement. Let’s show them women who did not settle for a back-up plan type of profession or education.
LookingHard: Your intentions are excellent. It is easy to envision your bishop listening to you and saying all the right things. There are many videos that show him how to do that. Expect to be released as you are requesting. Bishops know how to call people and how to release them. “Becoming a project” had little to do with a bishop. That had more to do with an individual ward mission leader or a auxiliary president. As an adult, you might make project status for a week if your name comes up in ward council. Then the ward wagon train moves on. Don’t expect lots of drama. Drama happens if you decide to come back — not when you leave.
Do expect a few ward members to ask you very pointed questions and then visibly flinch when you give a gentle but nuanced answer. Do expect people to start acting as if you have moved.
Culturally, it is acceptable to be inactive. It is not acceptable to question doctrine or history. Members learn how to share the gospel and how to handle being attacked. Too often, those are the only two scripts they know. They don’t know how to discuss the history or doctrine of the church with someone who is taking a step away from full belief. Too many have been taught that anyone who questions is an apostate. They end up using their script for “How do I defend the church when I am attacked for my beliefs?” The script tells them, “Bear your testimony as no one can argue with that.” Too many people do not know what to say or do after that. They can share their testimony and use it as a mic drop. Only, it isn’t a mic drop.
I wish the church would teach a script for how to have a real conversation about religion — including history, doctrine, and personal beliefs outside the mainstream church dogma. I think you would LOVE to have that with your bishop.
Welcome. Know that there are people willing to listen and discuss your concerns. Embrace your thoughts and questions. Recognize that they are worth conversations.
When someone goes to God and asks for inspiration and revelation, and then follows what they feel is an inspired path, I look for one very specific thing. Who is sacrificing and who is benefiting. The answer to that tells me many things. It mirrors the old “Follow The Money” adage. If someone feels inspired to dedicate their time, talents, and their resources to a specific cause, I can respect and honor that. When that same person gives up nothing, but feels inspired to tell me that I should donate MY all to their cause, then I am suspicious.
Applying that to JS: if JS had felt inspired to promote polygamy, but never personally participated himself, he would have more credibility. If he had married Emma to other men to bring about pure spiritual sealings, it would be easier to believe that the practice was not about purely sexual relationships. If the marriages and sealings were to elderly widows and the infirm, JS would come across as a saint.
Unfortunately, the ages, the numbers, and the secrecy of the marriages all make it appear more self-serving than inspired.
If JS was trying to bring back all the things found in the OT, he could’ve started with dietary laws, laws about not mixing
textiles, and sabbath observation. Why jump straight to polygamy unless it was an attempt at self-justification.
Heber13: She is 16 and living at home. She spent a semester away living in a special dorm for young students at a very large university as a 15 year old. She struggled to stay organized, so we pulled her out and tossed her back in high school. She is a junior this year. AP calculus, AP Physics C, interns at a biomedical engineering lab and leads a group of 14 as their Dungeon Master. She was just asked to put together a rubric for teaching Linear Algebra to younger kids. She is bright .. but is still struggling to stay organized .. and really NOT the average YW of our ward. There are days I wonder if I will survive raising her. Other days, I wonder if SHE will survive my parenting.
DD just got back. She enjoyed the service, the music, and the luncheon afterwards at First Baptist. She was introduced to the youth pastors who wanted to know what church she usually attended. When she said LDS, the discussion started and went on and on. They gave her a New Visitor bag of info, a T-shirt, and a pamphlet of bible quotes. She responded by giving them a “For The Strength of Youth” pamphlet. She came home quite pleased with herself and her pamphlet placement.
Maybe I need to quit worrying about her. Good ward or not, she is a good kid, loves God, loves to do acts of kindness, and she will find her own way in life. Just like the rest of us.
But please Lord, don’t let her be a Baptist.
Quote:Ann wrote: “You might have spoken to this in another post, but do you have enough of a relationship with any of these women to discuss it? I say that, but also know how the mothers/daughters scene can be – at school and church.”
2 years ago, I talked to the YW leaders and the bishop. I had actually asked to be released from my own calling in YW in protest over how DD was being treated. Her then Mia Maid leader told me, “You don’t understand. I am a parent volunteer. I show up every Sunday and I teach YW then I go home. My kids have lots of activities and lots of friends. We are really busy in our lives. This is really not my problem.” That YW leader’s husband was in the bishopric.
At that point, the YW president was someone whose 2 older boys had left the church. She was focused on her younger kids staying active through social connections. At any cost or price, her children were going to be socially connected and part of the “in crowd”. If there were casualties, she really didn’t care, as long as her kids stayed connected.
As individuals, these are all good people with their own challenges in life. There is something broken on the ward dynamic level. I think it is left over from the past bishop. The ward dynamic is still somehow “off”.
Daughter needs to belong somewhere. She has that at the lab and in the D & D group she leads. She needs to find that in a church, and the LDS ward has not been kind. I guess that is what I hate. She isn’t leaving over doctrine, she is leaving over lack of kindness.
It is ironic to me that the leaders who give these talks haven’t sat through a SS or PH lesson in years. And probably never a RS lesson. They are on the road, going to conferences, knowing that each area is going to put their best efforts into any meeting that a GA attends. Usually, they are going to be the speaker. They might find that many things .. but probably not boring.
