To the Mothers in Zion

Generally good advice at the end to men AND women presented in a bad doctrinal frame – with some really era-specific quotes that are horrible for our time. (and weren’t all that good in the time they were given) Just much, much too black-and-white, simplistic and sexist for me.

That’s my take, anyway.

I really like a lot of things about Pres. Benson, even as I really don’t like a lot of other things. He toned down a LOT of things once he became President, but this wasn’t one of them. Thankfully, the current official teachings about this topic are quite different than this talk.

Highlights of the lingering side effects and consequences of ETB fireside talk:

Negative (IMO)

*Women should not work outside the home – to “provide piano lessons and extra sweaters for her children.”

*If a women chooses career over home-maker, she is in violation of the Heavenly Father’s plan.

*It’s okay, and PREFERRED, for women to forsake education, to get married and have kids.

*”Mothers are to conceive, to nourish, to love, and to train. So declare the revelations.”

*The Lord never intended women to compete with men in the work place.

*A woman’s place is in the home bearing children for her husband.

*Men and women should not POSTPONE having kids (birth control).

*Men and women should have as many kids as possible.

*There are spirit children waiting to have bodies, and it’s the LDS membership’s responsibility to provide as many bodies as possible so they will have a good home.

Positive

There is no theme I would rather speak to than home and family, for they are at the very heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Church, in large part, exists for the salvation and exaltation of the family.

– ETB

President Benson should have just read this paragraph and closed. That would have been a good talk.

President David O. McKay declared: “Motherhood is the greatest potential influence either for good or ill in human life. The mother’s image is the first that stamps itself on the unwritten page of the young child’s mind. It is her caress that first awakens a sense of security, her kiss, the first realization of affection; her sympathy and tenderness, the first assurance that there is love in the world.” (Gospel Ideals, p. 452.)

This is certainly true in the vast majority of cases. Bad motherhood = bad adults twenty years down the line. That said, I believe it is good for the father to bond with the child, and show it kindness too.

In the eternal family, God established that fathers are to preside in the home. Fathers are to provide, to love, to teach, and to direct.

In theory, but in reality, one finds that in a lot of households, especially Italian ones, the mother is the dominant figure. She may not be the official head of the household, but she often runs the place, even in a pre-feminist setting. In some marriages without children, the man takes a more submissive role. This isn’t exactly anything new either. It’s been going on for years.

With this divine injunction, husbands and wives, as co-creators, should eagerly and prayerfully invite children into their homes.

“Co-creator” is a positive term here, IMHO.

Do not use the reasoning of the world, such as, “We’ll wait until we can better afford having children, until we are more secure, until John has completed his education, until he has a better paying job, until we have a larger home, until we’ve obtained a few of the material conveniences,” and on and on.

This is the reasoning of the world and is not pleasing in the sight of God. Mothers who enjoy good health, have your children and have them early. And, husbands, always be considerate of your wives in the bearing children.

While it’s certainly true women shouldn’t prevaricate about this until the menopause, I have seen many cases where people have had children who could NOT afford them. My math teacher in elementary school, for example, became completely demented because he had seven children, and obviously couldn’t handle the fact.

Do not curtail the number of your children for personal or selfish reasons. Material possessions, social convenience, and so-called professional advantages are nothing compared to a righteous posterity. In the eternal perspective, children–not possessions, not position, not prestige–are our greatest jewels.

This is a matter of degree. I think too many people put their careers over their children, which is a bad thing, but I also know people who had children in their teens and have paid for it.

We realize that some women, through no fault of their own, are not able to bear children. To these lovely sisters, every prophet of God has promised that they will be blessed with children in the eternities and that posterity will not be denied them.

A good sentiment followed by a patronizing one.

Again, in the Doctrine and Covenants, we read: “Women have claim on their husbands for their maintenance, until their husbands are taken” (D&C 83:2). This is the divine right of a wife and mother. She cares for and nourishes her children at home. Her husband earns the living for the family, which makes this nourishing possible. With that claim on their husbands for their financial support, the counsel of the Church has always been for mothers to spend their full time in the home in rearing and caring for their children.

This puts a tremendous burden on the man. Especially if the wife is a spendthrift/shopaholic.

We realize also that some of our choice sisters are widowed and divorced and that others find themselves in unusual circumstances where, out of necessity, they are required to work for a period of time. But these instances are the exception, not the rule.

No, they’re not the exception… they’re actually pretty common.

President Kimball continues: “Too many mothers work away from home to furnish sweaters and music lessons and trips and fun for their children. Too many women spend their time in socializing, in politicking, in public services when they should be home to teach and train and receive and love their children into security” (Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 319).

This is very unfair on intelligent and sociable women.

“Numerous divorces can be traced directly to the day when the wife left the home and went out into the world into employment. Two incomes raise the standard of living beyond its norm. Two spouses working prevent the complete and proper home life, break into the family prayers, create an independence which is not cooperative, causes distortion, limits the family, and frustrates the children already born” (Spencer W. Kimball, San Antonio Fireside, Dec. 3, 1977, pp. 9-10 ).

Most divorces are financially related, but to do with too little money, not too much. Mortgages are a bigger cause of this.

This statement also neglects matters such as wife-beating/abuse (by either partner), mental health issues, incompatible personalities, dull s*x life, mid-life crises, hormonal stuff and so on and so on.

Finally President Kimball counsels: “I beg of you, you who could and should be bearing and rearing a family: Wives, come home from the typewriter, the laundry, the nursing, come home from the factory, the cafe. No career approaches in importance that of wife, homemaker, mother–cooking meals, washing dishes, making beds for one’s precious husband and children. Come home, wives, to your husbands. Make home a heaven for them. Come home, wives, to your children, born and unborn. Wrap the motherly cloak about you and, unembarrassed, help in a major role to create the bodies for the immortal souls who anxiously await.

Traditionally this might have been useful. However we live in an age of labor-saving devices, which curtail housework immensely.

Doug

Thanks for stiring the pot, and CWALD I would like to nominate you as the official stirer! I don’t have much to add, only the perspective of one recently excaped from the “box”. Let me just admit how refreshing it is to view things as they are and not always feeling obligated to defend the doctine or what the “prophets” of the one and only true church have said. I love this place!

f4h1

(Playing Devil’s Advocate)

We usually hear contraception being spoken of in a positive context, i.e. poor etc people having fewer children, or unwanted ones, and the Third World gets thrown in for a bonus.

However, in many rich countries, notably Italy and Japan, there are major demographic problems happening right now. Because each generation has fewer children, it means fewer young adults pay for more elderly people and their benefits etc. There is a top heavy pyramid in these countries – a large section of society too old to work, with a tiny section supporting them…

Hey, don’t blame me for stiring the pot — Doug is the one who brought it up – to begin with. 🙂

Sam – that really is playing the devils advocate – and it’s a stretch of an argument. Yes, there are some negative demographics happening because of birth control – but is that really the issue? The church preached large families for one of two reasons. 1. Because there are spirits waiting up in heaven who need a body and they need to be in an LDS family (the whole Saturday’s Warriors effect). OR 2. To build up membership in the church. Both of these reasons are insane, IMO, to ask individuals to forgo BC, and put themselves in difficult economic, emotional, physical, and spiritual positions just because the ETB or some priesthood authority says so.

Plus —- despite what the church teaches, IMO, the world IS becoming overpopulated, and I think we need to be a bit more responsible with our reproduction habits. I’m speaking of resources here: food, water, energy —- and the effects we are having on the planet. Can you imagine if Japan HAD NOT cultured a small family mentality – what would that country state be right now? Wow.

As far as demographics is concerned —- they now estimate that hispanics will make up 50% of the US population by 2050. Why? Because white people are having small families and hispanics are having large families. I’m sure my Dad, and many other million bigots are terribly worried about the possibility. A couple years ago I told my Dad that the Hispanics as a group are much more spiritual and religious devout and family orientated than white folks in general, that is why the LDS church has so much success in south and Latin America, if he truly believed in the church, than he has to see this as inevitable, because the BoM clearly states that if the people are not righteous they will be removed and the lamanites will be restored. Well, this just works right into a traditional LDS believing framework – doesn’t it? Only god doesn’t use war like he did in the BOM —- he just uses culture traditions like BC.

Forgive me, but I feel like stirring the pot. I recall in another thread being surprised … amazed … that few seemed familiar with ETBs talk-cum-pamphlet about women’s roles…I happened upon a link that quotes the talk at FMH and was curious to see what others thought about it.

This topic definitely deserved its own thread to discuss. Personally I think if many Church leaders had their way they would still like to go back to the 1950s or at least some kind of idyllic fairytale notion of what the 50s where like for the average family. The general assumption is that things were better before because, unlike now, most men back then supposedly looked and acted like “real men” and most women looked and acted like women the way God supposedly intended (1 Corinthians 11:3-15). In other words, back then men supposedly wore the pants and provided for their families entirely by themselves and women typically wore dresses and stayed home baking cookies and everyone supposedly couldn’t have been any happier with the way things were before.

But now people have supposedly lost sight of what is truly important because they have all these worldly ideas like trying to “raise the standard of living beyond its norm” and to “create an independence which is not cooperative.” Of course, some of this nostalgia and hypothesizing about what exactly has gone wrong with people nowadays is mostly pointless because like it or not birth control is here to stay and women in the workplace are here to stay too so Church leaders might as well get used to it and deal with it. I think this is the main reason they don’t harp on these ideas nearly as much as they used to, not that they don’t still think this is the ideal but they realize there are too many members that will vote with their feet if they really try to push it with some of this counsel.