Just six years before I was born, LDS Church President Ezra Taft Benson gave a fireside talk that sent ripples throughout the church for decades to come. The church alternately responded with damage control, doubling down, and at last quietly abandoning the more sexist teachings about women's roles espoused in the talk. Of course these teachings were far from new in 1987, but they had rarely been articulated so forcefully and at such length by the highest authority in the church, and never proactively distributed in pamphlets throughout the church afterward. They were also more out of touch with economic realities than ever before. In 2017, LDS historian Kate Holbrook described it as "the most important moment in this history that helps explain where we were until the last 10 to 20 years." I'd call it the most important moment that helps explain why Utah has ranked last among the United States for women's equality several years in a row.
For more historical context, after the talk itself I've included some bonus materials: a Sunstone article that describes the subsequent kerfuffle, a Dialogue article by Lavina Fielding Anderson that critiques it and reflects on its impact almost two years later, and an excerpt from Boyd K. Packer doubling down on it a month before I was born.
For more historical context, after the talk itself I've included some bonus materials: a Sunstone article that describes the subsequent kerfuffle, a Dialogue article by Lavina Fielding Anderson that critiques it and reflects on its impact almost two years later, and an excerpt from Boyd K. Packer doubling down on it a month before I was born.
To the Mothers in Zion
President Ezra Taft Benson
February 22, 1987
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.
At a recent general priesthood meeting, I spoke directly to the young men of the Aaronic Priesthood regarding their duties and responsibilities. Shortly thereafter, at a general women’s conference, I spoke to the young women of the Church, discussing their opportunities and their sacred callings.
Tonight, at this fireside for parents, seeking the sweet inspiration of heaven, I would like to speak directly to the mothers assembled here and throughout the Church, for you are, or should be, the very heart and soul of the family.
No more sacred word exists in secular or holy writ than that of mother. There is no more noble work than that of a good and God-fearing mother.
This evening I pay tribute to the mothers in Zion and pray with all my heart that what I have to say to you will be understood by the Spirit and will lift and bless your lives in your sacred callings as mothers.
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."
President McKay continues: "Motherhood consists of three principal attributes or qualities: namely, (1) the power to bear, (2) the ability to rear, (3) the gift to love....
"This ability and willingness properly to rear children, the gift to love, and eagerness, yes, longing to express it in soul development, make motherhood the noblest office or calling in the world. She who can paint a masterpiece or write a book that will influence millions deserves the admiration and the plaudits of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters, whose influence will be felt through generations to come,... deserves the highest honor that man can give, and the choicest blessings of God" (Gospel Ideals, 452–54).
With all my heart I endorse the words of President McKay.
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.
But a mother’s role is also God-ordained. Mothers are to conceive, to bear, to nourish, to love, and to train. So declare the revelations.
In section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord states that the opportunity and responsibility of wives is "to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified" (D&C 132:63).
With this divine injunction, husbands and wives, as co-creators, should eagerly and prayerfully invite children into their homes. Then, as each child joins their family circle, they can gratefully exclaim, as did Hannah, "For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him: Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord: as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord" (1 Samuel 1:27–28).
Isn’t that beautiful? A mother praying to bear a child and then giving him to the Lord.
I have always loved the words of Solomon: "Children are an heritage of the Lord: and... happy is the man [and woman] that hath [their] quiver full of them" (Psalm 127:3–5).
I know the special blessings of a large and happy family, for my dear parents had a quiver full of children. Being the oldest of eleven children, I saw the principles of unselfishness, mutual consideration, loyalty to each other, and a host of other virtues developed in a large and wonderful family with my noble mother as the queen of that home.
Young mothers and fathers, with all my heart I counsel you not to postpone having your children, being co-creators with our Father in Heaven.
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 of children.
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.
Brigham Young emphasized: "There are multitudes of pure and holy spirits waiting to take tabernacles, now what is our duty?—To prepare tabernacles for them; to take a course that will not tend to drive those spirits into the families of the wicked, where they will be trained in wickedness, debauchery, and every species of crime. It is the duty of every righteous man and woman to prepare tabernacles for all the spirits they can" (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1954], p. 197).
Yes, blessed is the husband and wife who have a family of children. The deepest joys and blessings in life are associated with family, parenthood, and sacrifice. To have those sweet spirits come into the home is worth practically any sacrifice.
The deepest joys and blessings in life are associated with family, parenthood, and sacrifice.
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.
Through pure faith, pleading prayers, fasting, and special priesthood blessings, many of these same lovely sisters, with their noble companions at their sides, have had miracles take place in their lives and have been blessed with children. Others have prayerfully chosen to adopt children, and to these wonderful couples we salute you for the sacrifices and love you have given to those children you have chosen to be your own.
Now, my dear mothers, knowing of your divine role to bear and rear children and bring them back to Him, how will you accomplish this in the Lord’s way? I say the "Lord’s way," because it is different from the world’s way.
The Lord clearly defined the roles of mothers and fathers in providing for and rearing a righteous posterity. In the beginning, Adam — not Eve — was instructed to earn the bread by the sweat of his brow. Contrary to conventional wisdom, a mother’s calling is in the home, not in the marketplace.
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.
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.
In a home where there is an able-bodied husband, he is expected to be the breadwinner. Sometimes we hear of husbands who, because of economic conditions, have lost their jobs and expect their wives to go out of the home and work even though the husband is still capable of providing for his family. In these cases, we urge the husband to do all in his power to allow his wife to remain in the home caring for the children while he continues to provide for his family the best he can, even though the job he is able to secure may not be ideal and family budgeting will have to be tighter.
Our beloved prophet Spencer W. Kimball had much to say about the role of mothers in the home and their callings and responsibilities. I am impressed tonight to share with you some of his inspired pronouncements. I fear that much of his counsel has gone unheeded, and families have suffered because of it. But I stand this evening as a second witness to the truthfulness of what President Spencer W. Kimball said. He spoke as a true prophet of God.
President Kimball declared: "Women are to take care of the family — the Lord has so stated — to be an assistant to the husband, to work with him, but not to earn the living, except in unusual circumstances. Men ought to be men indeed and earn the living under normal circumstances" (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball,... p. 318).
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" (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 319).
Remember the counsel of President Kimball to John and Mary: "Mary, you are to become a career woman in the greatest career on earth—that of homemaker, wife, and mother. It was never intended by the Lord that married women should compete with men in employment. They have a far greater and more important service to render" (Faith Precedes the Miracle [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1975], p. 128).
Again President Kimball speaks: "The husband is expected to support his family and only in an emergency should a wife secure outside employment. Her place is in the home, to build the home into a heaven of delight.
"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" (fireside address, San Antonio, Texas, 3 Dec. 1977).
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 café. 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.
"When you have fully complemented your husband in home life and borne the children, growing up full of faith, integrity, responsibility, and goodness, then you have achieved your accomplishment supreme, without peer, and you will be the envy [of all] through time and eternity" (fireside address, San Antonio, Texas).
President Kimball spoke the truth. His words are prophetic.
No career approaches in importance that of wife, homemaker, mother.
Mothers in Zion, your God-given roles are so vital to your own exaltation and to the salvation and exaltation of your family. A child needs a mother more than all the things money can buy. Spending time with your children is the greatest gift of all.
With love in my heart for the mothers in Zion, I would now like to suggest ten specific ways our mothers may spend effective time with their children.
Be at the Crossroads. First, take time to always be at the crossroads when your children are either coming or going —when they leave and return from school, when they leave and return from dates, when they bring friends home. Be there at the crossroads whether your children are six or sixteen. In Proverbs we read, "A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame" (Proverbs 29:15). Among the greatest concerns in our society are the millions of latchkey children who come home daily to empty houses, unsupervised by working parents.
Be a Real Friend. Second, mothers, take time to be a real friend to your children. Listen to your children, really listen. Talk with them, laugh and joke with them, sing with them, play with them, cry with them, hug them, honestly praise them. Yes, regularly spend unrushed one-on-one time with each child. Be a real friend to your children.
Read to Your Children. Third, mothers, take time to read to your children. Starting from the cradle, read to your sons and daughters. Remember what the poet said:
You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be--
I had a mother who read to me.
(Strickland Gillilan, 'The Reading Mother.')
You will plant a love for good literature and a real love for the scriptures if you will read to your children regularly.
Pray with Your Children. Fourth, take time to pray with your children. Family prayers, under the direction of the father, should be held morning and night. Have your children feel of your faith as you call down the blessings of heaven upon them. Paraphrasing the words of James, "The... fervent prayer of a righteous [mother] availeth much" (James 5:16). Have your children participate in family and personal prayers, and rejoice in their sweet utterances to their Father in Heaven.
Have Weekly Home Evenings. Fifth, take time to have a meaningful weekly home evening. With your husband presiding, participate in a spiritual and an uplifting home evening each week. Have your children actively involved. Teach them correct principles. Make this one of your great family traditions. Remember the marvelous promise made by President Joseph F. Smith when home evenings were first introduced to the Church: "If the Saints obey this counsel, we promise that great blessings will result. Love at home and obedience to parents will increase. Faith will be developed in the hearts of the youth of Israel, and they will gain power to combat the evil influence and temptations which beset them" (James R. Clark, comp., Messages of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 vols. [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965–75], 4:339). This wonderful promise is still in effect today.
Be Together at Mealtimes. Sixth, take time to be together at mealtimes as often as possible. This is a challenge as the children get older and lives get busier. But happy conversation, sharing of the day’s plans and activities, and special teaching moments occur at mealtime because mothers and fathers and children work at it.
Read Scriptures Daily. Seventh, take time daily to read the scriptures together as a family. Individual scripture reading is important, but family scripture reading is vital. Reading the Book of Mormon together as a family will especially bring increased spirituality into your home and will give both parents and children the power to resist temptation and to have the Holy Ghost as their constant companion. I promise you that the Book of Mormon will change the lives of your family.
Do Things as a Family. Eighth, take time to do things together as a family. Make family outings and picnics and birthday celebrations and trips special times and memory builders. Whenever possible, attend, as a family, events where one of the family members is involved, such as a school play, a ball game, a talk, a recital. Attend church meetings together and sit together as a family when you can. Mothers who help families pray and play together will stay together and will bless children’s lives forever.
Teach Your Children. Ninth, mothers, take time to teach your children. Catch the teaching moments. This can be done anytime during the day — at mealtime, in casual settings, or at special sit-down times together, at the foot of the bed at the end of the day, or during an early morning walk together. Mothers, you are your children’s best teacher. Don’t shift this precious responsibility to day-care centers or baby-sitters. A mother’s love and prayerful concern for the children are her most important ingredients in teaching her own.
Teach children gospel principles. Teach them it pays to be good. Teach them there is no safety in sin. Teach them a love for the gospel of Jesus Christ and a testimony of its divinity.
Teach your sons and daughters modesty, and teach them to respect manhood and womanhood. Teach your children sexual purity, proper dating standards, temple marriage, missionary service, and the importance of accepting and magnifying Church callings.
Teach them a love for work and the value of a good education.
Teach them the importance of the right kind of entertainment, including appropriate movies and videos and music and books and magazines. Discuss the evils of pornography and drugs, and teach them the value of living the clean life.
Yes, mothers, teach your children the gospel in your own home, at your own fireside. This is the most effective teaching that your children will ever receive. This is the Lord’s way of teaching. The Church cannot teach like you can. The school cannot. The day-care center cannot. But you can, and the Lord will sustain you. Your children will remember your teachings forever, and when they are old, they will not depart from them. They will call you blessed — their truly angel mother.
Mothers, this kind of heavenly, motherly teaching takes time — lots of time. It cannot be done effectively part-time. It must be done all the time in order to save and exalt your children. This is your divine calling.
Truly Love Your Children. Tenth and finally, mothers, take the time to truly love your children. A mother’s unqualified love approaches Christlike love.
Here is a beautiful tribute by a son to his mother: "I don’t remember much about her views of voting nor her social prestige; and what her ideas on child training, diet, and eugenics were, I cannot recall. The main thing that sifts back to me now through the thick undergrowth of years is that she loved me. She liked to lie on the grass with me and tell stories, or to run and hide with us children. She was always hugging me. And I liked it. She had a sunny face. To me it was like God, and all the beatitudes saints tell of Him. And Sing! Of all the sensations pleasurable to my life nothing can compare with the rapture of crawling up into her lap and going to sleep while she swung to and fro in her rocking chair and sang. Thinking of this, I wonder if the woman of today, with all her tremendous notions and plans, realizes what an almighty factor she is in shaping of her child for weal or woe. I wonder if she realizes how much sheer love and attention count for in a child’s life."
Mothers, your teenage children also need that same kind of love and attention. It seems easier for many mothers and fathers to express and show their love to their children when they are young, but more difficult when they are older. Work at this prayerfully. There need be no generation gap. And the key is love. Our young people need love and attention, not indulgence. They need empathy and understanding, not indifference from mothers and fathers. They need the parents’ time. A mother’s kindly teachings and her love for and confidence in a teenage son or daughter can literally save them from a wicked world.
In closing, I would be remiss this evening if I did not express my love and eternal gratitude for my sweetheart and companion and the mother of our six children. Her devotion to motherhood has blessed me and our family beyond words of expression. She has been a marvelous mother, completely and happily devoting her life and her mission to her family. How grateful I am for Flora!
May I also express my gratitude to you fathers and husbands assembled this evening. We look to you to give righteous leadership in your home and families and, with your companions and the mothers of your children, to lead your families back to our Eternal Father.
Now God bless our wonderful mothers. We pray for you. We sustain you. We honor you as you bear, nourish, train, teach, and love for eternity. I promise you the blessings of heaven and “all that [the] Father hath” (see D&C 84:38) as you magnify the noblest calling of all — a mother in Zion. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
At a recent general priesthood meeting, I spoke directly to the young men of the Aaronic Priesthood regarding their duties and responsibilities. Shortly thereafter, at a general women’s conference, I spoke to the young women of the Church, discussing their opportunities and their sacred callings.
Tonight, at this fireside for parents, seeking the sweet inspiration of heaven, I would like to speak directly to the mothers assembled here and throughout the Church, for you are, or should be, the very heart and soul of the family.
No more sacred word exists in secular or holy writ than that of mother. There is no more noble work than that of a good and God-fearing mother.
This evening I pay tribute to the mothers in Zion and pray with all my heart that what I have to say to you will be understood by the Spirit and will lift and bless your lives in your sacred callings as mothers.
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."
President McKay continues: "Motherhood consists of three principal attributes or qualities: namely, (1) the power to bear, (2) the ability to rear, (3) the gift to love....
"This ability and willingness properly to rear children, the gift to love, and eagerness, yes, longing to express it in soul development, make motherhood the noblest office or calling in the world. She who can paint a masterpiece or write a book that will influence millions deserves the admiration and the plaudits of mankind; but she who rears successfully a family of healthy, beautiful sons and daughters, whose influence will be felt through generations to come,... deserves the highest honor that man can give, and the choicest blessings of God" (Gospel Ideals, 452–54).
With all my heart I endorse the words of President McKay.
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.
But a mother’s role is also God-ordained. Mothers are to conceive, to bear, to nourish, to love, and to train. So declare the revelations.
In section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord states that the opportunity and responsibility of wives is "to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified" (D&C 132:63).
With this divine injunction, husbands and wives, as co-creators, should eagerly and prayerfully invite children into their homes. Then, as each child joins their family circle, they can gratefully exclaim, as did Hannah, "For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him: Therefore also I have lent him to the Lord: as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord" (1 Samuel 1:27–28).
Isn’t that beautiful? A mother praying to bear a child and then giving him to the Lord.
I have always loved the words of Solomon: "Children are an heritage of the Lord: and... happy is the man [and woman] that hath [their] quiver full of them" (Psalm 127:3–5).
I know the special blessings of a large and happy family, for my dear parents had a quiver full of children. Being the oldest of eleven children, I saw the principles of unselfishness, mutual consideration, loyalty to each other, and a host of other virtues developed in a large and wonderful family with my noble mother as the queen of that home.
Young mothers and fathers, with all my heart I counsel you not to postpone having your children, being co-creators with our Father in Heaven.
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 of children.
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.
Brigham Young emphasized: "There are multitudes of pure and holy spirits waiting to take tabernacles, now what is our duty?—To prepare tabernacles for them; to take a course that will not tend to drive those spirits into the families of the wicked, where they will be trained in wickedness, debauchery, and every species of crime. It is the duty of every righteous man and woman to prepare tabernacles for all the spirits they can" (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1954], p. 197).
Yes, blessed is the husband and wife who have a family of children. The deepest joys and blessings in life are associated with family, parenthood, and sacrifice. To have those sweet spirits come into the home is worth practically any sacrifice.
The deepest joys and blessings in life are associated with family, parenthood, and sacrifice.
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.
Through pure faith, pleading prayers, fasting, and special priesthood blessings, many of these same lovely sisters, with their noble companions at their sides, have had miracles take place in their lives and have been blessed with children. Others have prayerfully chosen to adopt children, and to these wonderful couples we salute you for the sacrifices and love you have given to those children you have chosen to be your own.
Now, my dear mothers, knowing of your divine role to bear and rear children and bring them back to Him, how will you accomplish this in the Lord’s way? I say the "Lord’s way," because it is different from the world’s way.
The Lord clearly defined the roles of mothers and fathers in providing for and rearing a righteous posterity. In the beginning, Adam — not Eve — was instructed to earn the bread by the sweat of his brow. Contrary to conventional wisdom, a mother’s calling is in the home, not in the marketplace.
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.
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.
In a home where there is an able-bodied husband, he is expected to be the breadwinner. Sometimes we hear of husbands who, because of economic conditions, have lost their jobs and expect their wives to go out of the home and work even though the husband is still capable of providing for his family. In these cases, we urge the husband to do all in his power to allow his wife to remain in the home caring for the children while he continues to provide for his family the best he can, even though the job he is able to secure may not be ideal and family budgeting will have to be tighter.
Our beloved prophet Spencer W. Kimball had much to say about the role of mothers in the home and their callings and responsibilities. I am impressed tonight to share with you some of his inspired pronouncements. I fear that much of his counsel has gone unheeded, and families have suffered because of it. But I stand this evening as a second witness to the truthfulness of what President Spencer W. Kimball said. He spoke as a true prophet of God.
President Kimball declared: "Women are to take care of the family — the Lord has so stated — to be an assistant to the husband, to work with him, but not to earn the living, except in unusual circumstances. Men ought to be men indeed and earn the living under normal circumstances" (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball,... p. 318).
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" (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 319).
Remember the counsel of President Kimball to John and Mary: "Mary, you are to become a career woman in the greatest career on earth—that of homemaker, wife, and mother. It was never intended by the Lord that married women should compete with men in employment. They have a far greater and more important service to render" (Faith Precedes the Miracle [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1975], p. 128).
Again President Kimball speaks: "The husband is expected to support his family and only in an emergency should a wife secure outside employment. Her place is in the home, to build the home into a heaven of delight.
"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" (fireside address, San Antonio, Texas, 3 Dec. 1977).
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 café. 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.
"When you have fully complemented your husband in home life and borne the children, growing up full of faith, integrity, responsibility, and goodness, then you have achieved your accomplishment supreme, without peer, and you will be the envy [of all] through time and eternity" (fireside address, San Antonio, Texas).
President Kimball spoke the truth. His words are prophetic.
No career approaches in importance that of wife, homemaker, mother.
Mothers in Zion, your God-given roles are so vital to your own exaltation and to the salvation and exaltation of your family. A child needs a mother more than all the things money can buy. Spending time with your children is the greatest gift of all.
With love in my heart for the mothers in Zion, I would now like to suggest ten specific ways our mothers may spend effective time with their children.
Be at the Crossroads. First, take time to always be at the crossroads when your children are either coming or going —when they leave and return from school, when they leave and return from dates, when they bring friends home. Be there at the crossroads whether your children are six or sixteen. In Proverbs we read, "A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame" (Proverbs 29:15). Among the greatest concerns in our society are the millions of latchkey children who come home daily to empty houses, unsupervised by working parents.
Be a Real Friend. Second, mothers, take time to be a real friend to your children. Listen to your children, really listen. Talk with them, laugh and joke with them, sing with them, play with them, cry with them, hug them, honestly praise them. Yes, regularly spend unrushed one-on-one time with each child. Be a real friend to your children.
Read to Your Children. Third, mothers, take time to read to your children. Starting from the cradle, read to your sons and daughters. Remember what the poet said:
You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be--
I had a mother who read to me.
(Strickland Gillilan, 'The Reading Mother.')
You will plant a love for good literature and a real love for the scriptures if you will read to your children regularly.
Pray with Your Children. Fourth, take time to pray with your children. Family prayers, under the direction of the father, should be held morning and night. Have your children feel of your faith as you call down the blessings of heaven upon them. Paraphrasing the words of James, "The... fervent prayer of a righteous [mother] availeth much" (James 5:16). Have your children participate in family and personal prayers, and rejoice in their sweet utterances to their Father in Heaven.
Have Weekly Home Evenings. Fifth, take time to have a meaningful weekly home evening. With your husband presiding, participate in a spiritual and an uplifting home evening each week. Have your children actively involved. Teach them correct principles. Make this one of your great family traditions. Remember the marvelous promise made by President Joseph F. Smith when home evenings were first introduced to the Church: "If the Saints obey this counsel, we promise that great blessings will result. Love at home and obedience to parents will increase. Faith will be developed in the hearts of the youth of Israel, and they will gain power to combat the evil influence and temptations which beset them" (James R. Clark, comp., Messages of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 6 vols. [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965–75], 4:339). This wonderful promise is still in effect today.
Be Together at Mealtimes. Sixth, take time to be together at mealtimes as often as possible. This is a challenge as the children get older and lives get busier. But happy conversation, sharing of the day’s plans and activities, and special teaching moments occur at mealtime because mothers and fathers and children work at it.
Read Scriptures Daily. Seventh, take time daily to read the scriptures together as a family. Individual scripture reading is important, but family scripture reading is vital. Reading the Book of Mormon together as a family will especially bring increased spirituality into your home and will give both parents and children the power to resist temptation and to have the Holy Ghost as their constant companion. I promise you that the Book of Mormon will change the lives of your family.
Do Things as a Family. Eighth, take time to do things together as a family. Make family outings and picnics and birthday celebrations and trips special times and memory builders. Whenever possible, attend, as a family, events where one of the family members is involved, such as a school play, a ball game, a talk, a recital. Attend church meetings together and sit together as a family when you can. Mothers who help families pray and play together will stay together and will bless children’s lives forever.
Teach Your Children. Ninth, mothers, take time to teach your children. Catch the teaching moments. This can be done anytime during the day — at mealtime, in casual settings, or at special sit-down times together, at the foot of the bed at the end of the day, or during an early morning walk together. Mothers, you are your children’s best teacher. Don’t shift this precious responsibility to day-care centers or baby-sitters. A mother’s love and prayerful concern for the children are her most important ingredients in teaching her own.
Teach children gospel principles. Teach them it pays to be good. Teach them there is no safety in sin. Teach them a love for the gospel of Jesus Christ and a testimony of its divinity.
Teach your sons and daughters modesty, and teach them to respect manhood and womanhood. Teach your children sexual purity, proper dating standards, temple marriage, missionary service, and the importance of accepting and magnifying Church callings.
Teach them a love for work and the value of a good education.
Teach them the importance of the right kind of entertainment, including appropriate movies and videos and music and books and magazines. Discuss the evils of pornography and drugs, and teach them the value of living the clean life.
Yes, mothers, teach your children the gospel in your own home, at your own fireside. This is the most effective teaching that your children will ever receive. This is the Lord’s way of teaching. The Church cannot teach like you can. The school cannot. The day-care center cannot. But you can, and the Lord will sustain you. Your children will remember your teachings forever, and when they are old, they will not depart from them. They will call you blessed — their truly angel mother.
Mothers, this kind of heavenly, motherly teaching takes time — lots of time. It cannot be done effectively part-time. It must be done all the time in order to save and exalt your children. This is your divine calling.
Truly Love Your Children. Tenth and finally, mothers, take the time to truly love your children. A mother’s unqualified love approaches Christlike love.
Here is a beautiful tribute by a son to his mother: "I don’t remember much about her views of voting nor her social prestige; and what her ideas on child training, diet, and eugenics were, I cannot recall. The main thing that sifts back to me now through the thick undergrowth of years is that she loved me. She liked to lie on the grass with me and tell stories, or to run and hide with us children. She was always hugging me. And I liked it. She had a sunny face. To me it was like God, and all the beatitudes saints tell of Him. And Sing! Of all the sensations pleasurable to my life nothing can compare with the rapture of crawling up into her lap and going to sleep while she swung to and fro in her rocking chair and sang. Thinking of this, I wonder if the woman of today, with all her tremendous notions and plans, realizes what an almighty factor she is in shaping of her child for weal or woe. I wonder if she realizes how much sheer love and attention count for in a child’s life."
Mothers, your teenage children also need that same kind of love and attention. It seems easier for many mothers and fathers to express and show their love to their children when they are young, but more difficult when they are older. Work at this prayerfully. There need be no generation gap. And the key is love. Our young people need love and attention, not indulgence. They need empathy and understanding, not indifference from mothers and fathers. They need the parents’ time. A mother’s kindly teachings and her love for and confidence in a teenage son or daughter can literally save them from a wicked world.
In closing, I would be remiss this evening if I did not express my love and eternal gratitude for my sweetheart and companion and the mother of our six children. Her devotion to motherhood has blessed me and our family beyond words of expression. She has been a marvelous mother, completely and happily devoting her life and her mission to her family. How grateful I am for Flora!
May I also express my gratitude to you fathers and husbands assembled this evening. We look to you to give righteous leadership in your home and families and, with your companions and the mothers of your children, to lead your families back to our Eternal Father.
Now God bless our wonderful mothers. We pray for you. We sustain you. We honor you as you bear, nourish, train, teach, and love for eternity. I promise you the blessings of heaven and “all that [the] Father hath” (see D&C 84:38) as you magnify the noblest calling of all — a mother in Zion. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
This talk was printed as a pamphlet and distributed throughout the church
"Prophet's Talk Prompts Examination of Role of Women," in Sunstone,
March 1987
The satellite-broadcast speech immediately prompted widespread discussion throughout the Church, especially in the intermountain area where members who missed the fireside could watch or listen to recordings friends made from the local broadcast on BYU’s radio and television stations.
The Church received numerous telephone calls about the speech and along Utah’s Wasatch Front some mothers quit their jobs, prompting exaggerated rumors about large numbers of working mothers quitting work at the Church Office Building.
The following Sunday’s church services became forums for discussion in Relief Society and priesthood meetings, and many monthly testimony meetings witnessed comments on the talk. At one stake conference, the stake president mentioned the prophet’s points; then, with an ambiguous smile, he counseled his members to "adjust them into our lives until we feel comfortable with them."
Other members also emphasized the role of personal revelation or viewed the prophet’s comments as a goal. "He’s talking about what would be a wonderful ideal, but it’s an ideal few people are able to realize," said Mary Stovall, director of the Womens Research Center at BYU. "What his talk hopefully will do is help people re-evaluate the situation. Are they giving enough time to their family?"
People who wanted to know what the fuss was about found little cause for controversy in the Church News account of Benson’s talk, which left out the debated quotes and emphasized that his counsel applied to both parents, not just mothers.
"It is going to be an extremely wrenching experience for Mormon families to implement that teaching in their lives," said Carlfred Broderick, director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Center at the University of Southern California. Broderick, who was quoted in an Associated Press news story, added "It’s easier to deal with guilt than to do without the income."
However, others welcomed the president’s address. "A firm statement was needed to get the people’s attention," said Bryce Christensen, editor of Family Newsletter. "If he had used too many qualifiers and concessions to the spirit of the times, his message would have been dismissed. Instead of looking for a million excuses to evade what the prophet is saying, LDS intellectuals ought to be looking for ways to deal with the unprecedented economic and cultural pressures causing women to enter the work force."
A 1981 Church-sponsored study indicates that 40 percent of all LDS women work and an additional 6 percent are looking for work. Of mothers with school-age children, 57 percent work either full- or part-time.
Not surprisingly, some of the most intense discussions took place at Brigham Young University, where childbearing-age women pursue career-oriented studies. Some counselors in the Office of Student Life told the flood of women students who asked whether the Church wanted them to leave the university that they should seek personal revelation to guide them in applying the prophet’s instructions.
The debate was particularly intense in the BYU law school, where women students are obviously preparing for a vocation and not just obtaining emergency backup skills. Moreover, the men are often supported by working wives, who may have consciously delayed having children until after graduation. Before the intense feelings subsided and regular study habits resumed, an open meeting of professors and students was held to discuss how to put the prophet’s counsel in the context of all other Church teachings and expectations.
"This kind of experience illustrates the value of having a law school at BYU,' said Law School Dean Bruce Hafen. "Here the professors share their commitment to the church and explain how they try to apply its counsel." Hafen said that the Church’s goal is to "solidify the family;" he feels his students understand the Church’s concerns and work not to neglect their children.
Although many people felt that President Benson had simply reiterated the Church’s long-standing position that, ideally, women who are raising children should remain in the home, the ensuing heated discussion was markedly different from the apparent equanimity with which members had received President Kimball’s similar statements on the issue.
The divisive feelings aroused by the talk were amply evident at the BYU Women’s Conference, held March 12-13 and attended by 5,000 LDS women from around the United States.
Probably aware of the distance between President Benson’s comments and the "Diversity in Works, Unity in Faith" conference theme, BYU President Jeffrey R. Holland attempted to bridge the gap in his welcoming comments. He affirmed that BYU was a "place for and a symbol of growth and development and learning, including and especially for women." Using a U.S. Constitution bicentennial theme he described the extension of rights to all and said there is still important work to do, in a tone that implied he was referring to the rights of women.
Holland reminded the audience of President Benson’s commitment to defending constitutional principles and then said, "Recently he has also counseled us to protect the freedoms -and futures - of our children."
Holland then discussed the problems confronting children and adults today as they exercise their freedom of choice and quoted President Benson’s 1965 General Conference counsel on the use of personal revelation in decision making: "Usually the Lord gives us the overall objectives to be accomplished and some guidelines to follow, but he expects us to work out most of the details and methods ourselves. The methods and procedures are usually developed through study and prayer and by living so that we can obtain and follow the promptings of the Spirit.... those spiritually alert look at: the objectives, check the guidelines laid down by the Lord and his prophets, and then prayerfully act - without having to be commanded 'in all things.'"...
The panel discussion on "The Price of Excellence," which included mothers who are pursuing academic and cultural interests. was the most confrontational session. The discussion elicited angry comments from the audience, including accusations that the panelists were not following the prophet’s counsel to stay home.
The majority of women attending seemed to enjoy the conference; yet, despite of the intended celebration of diversity while building a united faith, long-time attenders say this was the most divisive women’s conference ever held. Many women attending were critical of the preponderance of career women with degrees who were held up as role models, and occasionally questioned their faith. President Benson’s talk was often used not just to guide one’s own life but also to judge other’s.
Some women leaders have expressed concern that the discord among women at the conference is an intimation of a serious schism forming among LDS women and they are saddened at the polarization in a society where charity and sisterhood are stated ideals.
Since President Benson’s address is now being distributed in pamphlet form, it will continue to be discussed throughout the Church.
Some insightful comments on the issues concerning the role of women and how to constructively approach them were given in Pat Holland’s Women’s Conference keynote address where she shared her own spiritual struggles with conflicting priorities can help make the dialogue more: constructive. "I am very appreciative of the added awareness that the women’s movement has given to a gospel principle we have had since Mother Eve and before - that of free agency, the right to choose," she stated.
"But one of the most unfortunate side effects we have faced in this matter of agency is, because of the increasing diversity of life styles for women today, we seem even more uncertain and less secure with each other. We are getting not closer, but further away from that sense of community and sisterhood that has sustained and given us unique strength for generations. There seems to be an increase in our competitiveness and a decrease in our generosity with one another.
"We simply cannot call ourselves Christian and continue to judge one another - or ourselves - so harshly. No Mason jar of bing cherries is worth a confrontation that robs us of our compassion and sisterhood.
"Obviously the Lord has created us with different personalities, as well as differing degrees of energy, interest, health, talent, and opportunity. So long as we are committed to righteousness and living a life of faithful devotion, we should celebrate these divine differences, knowing they are a gift from God. We must not feel so frightened; we must not be so threatened and insecure; we must not need to find exact replicas of ourselves in order to feel validated as a woman of worth. There are manly things over which we can be divided, but one thing is needful for our unity - the empathy and compassion of the living Son of God."
The Church received numerous telephone calls about the speech and along Utah’s Wasatch Front some mothers quit their jobs, prompting exaggerated rumors about large numbers of working mothers quitting work at the Church Office Building.
The following Sunday’s church services became forums for discussion in Relief Society and priesthood meetings, and many monthly testimony meetings witnessed comments on the talk. At one stake conference, the stake president mentioned the prophet’s points; then, with an ambiguous smile, he counseled his members to "adjust them into our lives until we feel comfortable with them."
Other members also emphasized the role of personal revelation or viewed the prophet’s comments as a goal. "He’s talking about what would be a wonderful ideal, but it’s an ideal few people are able to realize," said Mary Stovall, director of the Womens Research Center at BYU. "What his talk hopefully will do is help people re-evaluate the situation. Are they giving enough time to their family?"
People who wanted to know what the fuss was about found little cause for controversy in the Church News account of Benson’s talk, which left out the debated quotes and emphasized that his counsel applied to both parents, not just mothers.
"It is going to be an extremely wrenching experience for Mormon families to implement that teaching in their lives," said Carlfred Broderick, director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Center at the University of Southern California. Broderick, who was quoted in an Associated Press news story, added "It’s easier to deal with guilt than to do without the income."
However, others welcomed the president’s address. "A firm statement was needed to get the people’s attention," said Bryce Christensen, editor of Family Newsletter. "If he had used too many qualifiers and concessions to the spirit of the times, his message would have been dismissed. Instead of looking for a million excuses to evade what the prophet is saying, LDS intellectuals ought to be looking for ways to deal with the unprecedented economic and cultural pressures causing women to enter the work force."
A 1981 Church-sponsored study indicates that 40 percent of all LDS women work and an additional 6 percent are looking for work. Of mothers with school-age children, 57 percent work either full- or part-time.
Not surprisingly, some of the most intense discussions took place at Brigham Young University, where childbearing-age women pursue career-oriented studies. Some counselors in the Office of Student Life told the flood of women students who asked whether the Church wanted them to leave the university that they should seek personal revelation to guide them in applying the prophet’s instructions.
The debate was particularly intense in the BYU law school, where women students are obviously preparing for a vocation and not just obtaining emergency backup skills. Moreover, the men are often supported by working wives, who may have consciously delayed having children until after graduation. Before the intense feelings subsided and regular study habits resumed, an open meeting of professors and students was held to discuss how to put the prophet’s counsel in the context of all other Church teachings and expectations.
"This kind of experience illustrates the value of having a law school at BYU,' said Law School Dean Bruce Hafen. "Here the professors share their commitment to the church and explain how they try to apply its counsel." Hafen said that the Church’s goal is to "solidify the family;" he feels his students understand the Church’s concerns and work not to neglect their children.
Although many people felt that President Benson had simply reiterated the Church’s long-standing position that, ideally, women who are raising children should remain in the home, the ensuing heated discussion was markedly different from the apparent equanimity with which members had received President Kimball’s similar statements on the issue.
The divisive feelings aroused by the talk were amply evident at the BYU Women’s Conference, held March 12-13 and attended by 5,000 LDS women from around the United States.
Probably aware of the distance between President Benson’s comments and the "Diversity in Works, Unity in Faith" conference theme, BYU President Jeffrey R. Holland attempted to bridge the gap in his welcoming comments. He affirmed that BYU was a "place for and a symbol of growth and development and learning, including and especially for women." Using a U.S. Constitution bicentennial theme he described the extension of rights to all and said there is still important work to do, in a tone that implied he was referring to the rights of women.
Holland reminded the audience of President Benson’s commitment to defending constitutional principles and then said, "Recently he has also counseled us to protect the freedoms -and futures - of our children."
Holland then discussed the problems confronting children and adults today as they exercise their freedom of choice and quoted President Benson’s 1965 General Conference counsel on the use of personal revelation in decision making: "Usually the Lord gives us the overall objectives to be accomplished and some guidelines to follow, but he expects us to work out most of the details and methods ourselves. The methods and procedures are usually developed through study and prayer and by living so that we can obtain and follow the promptings of the Spirit.... those spiritually alert look at: the objectives, check the guidelines laid down by the Lord and his prophets, and then prayerfully act - without having to be commanded 'in all things.'"...
The panel discussion on "The Price of Excellence," which included mothers who are pursuing academic and cultural interests. was the most confrontational session. The discussion elicited angry comments from the audience, including accusations that the panelists were not following the prophet’s counsel to stay home.
The majority of women attending seemed to enjoy the conference; yet, despite of the intended celebration of diversity while building a united faith, long-time attenders say this was the most divisive women’s conference ever held. Many women attending were critical of the preponderance of career women with degrees who were held up as role models, and occasionally questioned their faith. President Benson’s talk was often used not just to guide one’s own life but also to judge other’s.
Some women leaders have expressed concern that the discord among women at the conference is an intimation of a serious schism forming among LDS women and they are saddened at the polarization in a society where charity and sisterhood are stated ideals.
Since President Benson’s address is now being distributed in pamphlet form, it will continue to be discussed throughout the Church.
Some insightful comments on the issues concerning the role of women and how to constructively approach them were given in Pat Holland’s Women’s Conference keynote address where she shared her own spiritual struggles with conflicting priorities can help make the dialogue more: constructive. "I am very appreciative of the added awareness that the women’s movement has given to a gospel principle we have had since Mother Eve and before - that of free agency, the right to choose," she stated.
"But one of the most unfortunate side effects we have faced in this matter of agency is, because of the increasing diversity of life styles for women today, we seem even more uncertain and less secure with each other. We are getting not closer, but further away from that sense of community and sisterhood that has sustained and given us unique strength for generations. There seems to be an increase in our competitiveness and a decrease in our generosity with one another.
"We simply cannot call ourselves Christian and continue to judge one another - or ourselves - so harshly. No Mason jar of bing cherries is worth a confrontation that robs us of our compassion and sisterhood.
"Obviously the Lord has created us with different personalities, as well as differing degrees of energy, interest, health, talent, and opportunity. So long as we are committed to righteousness and living a life of faithful devotion, we should celebrate these divine differences, knowing they are a gift from God. We must not feel so frightened; we must not be so threatened and insecure; we must not need to find exact replicas of ourselves in order to feel validated as a woman of worth. There are manly things over which we can be divided, but one thing is needful for our unity - the empathy and compassion of the living Son of God."
Lavina Fielding Anderson
"A Voice from the Past: The Benson Instructions for Parents," in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 1988
In February 1987 at a fireside for parents, President Ezra Taft Benson delivered an address called "To the Mothers in Zion." In October 1987, he delivered a parallel address in the priesthood session of general conference called "To the Fathers in Zion." The first address created a great deal of discussion, both in agreement and in disagreement, among individual women and in gatherings of women. The second seems to have taken its place among other conference addresses in almost total silence. I wish to discuss these two addresses and the responses to them.
I must admit that the immediate reaction to the "Mothers" speech — largely negative in my immediate circle — caught me off guard. I was meeting with a group of women on the night that it was broadcast, and my husband, Paul, thoughtfully recorded it for me. I listened to it the next day, mentally observed that the speech had a decidedly old-fashioned ring to it, and used the tape to record 3-2-1 Contact for our son, Christian. I was immediately sorry. At a midweek lunch with some women, the address was the main topic of conversation, and someone had made photocopies of the delivery text. At a weekend scripture study group with other women, it again dominated the conversation. Network, a newspaper for Utah women, devoted an editorial to it and also published an article reporting comments from twenty-six men and women, both LDS and non-LDS (Shepherd 1987; Hilton 1987).
When the edited version appeared in pink pamphlet form in late March or early April, I found six copies on the doorstep. I assumed that they were either a gift from a friend who knew I'd be interested in the issue or proselyting literature from someone who thought six would be more effective than one. I promptly distributed them to my friends and discovered only later that they were for Paul. He was supposed to take them to his home teaching families that month although, as a letter to bishops clarified, they were not to replace the scheduled home teaching message for the month.
The speech was again the subject of an explosive discussion during an annual women's retreat that I attend in early summer. By then, opinions had crystallized, but much of the tension and emotional response was still there, unresolved.
Basically, the speech advocated that women place mothering responsibilities first by refusing paid employment. Since this has been virtually the major message Mormon women have heard from their male leaders since the 1920s, it is hardly new. Yet it seemed to arouse emotions out of all proportion to its content. I have made no effort to collect opinions randomly and representatively from Church women in a variety of regions, but I have asked many women about their own reactions and those of other women with whom they have talked. It is important to note that no one suggested President Benson's concern about children was misplaced or that child-rearing was not supremely important. Women who responded positively to President Benson's message seemed to focus on the benefits for children; those who responded negatively seemed concerned with the sweeping nature of his instructions, which did not adequately acknowledge the diversity of women and their circumstances.
Among the affirmative responses I have heard to the address was one woman, then pregnant with her third child, who expressed decided approval of the speech: "The world has seduced us away from our children," she said. "We needed this strong reminder to return to them." Another, the mother of four and a schoolteacher, had been trying to spend quality time with her children and her husband, then underemployed. She was driving home at noon to fix his lunch, staying up to help the children with their projects, and getting up at 3 A.M. to correct her students' papers. She felt the address "was exactly what our family needed. I know he was inspired." She stopped teaching in mid-year.
Another, the mother of seven, said, "My husband and I were sitting behind his secretary, and we just watched her squirm. Maybe now she'll quit and take care of her teenagers." My father wrote in early March that he was pleased with the address: "I wondered if any General Authority would dare take that firm stand again." He also reported that his stake president estimated 80 percent of the tithing in the stake came from families "where the mothers are remaining in the home."
Another woman commented that her sister, the full-time mother of five, was greatly distressed because other women in her ward, also not employed, had made "strident" comments in Relief Society and during testimony meeting about women in the ward who were "violating" the prophet's counsel. Still another friend commented during late spring that her bishop had held up the pink pamphlet in church for three weeks running with approving references and strongly encouraged all women of the ward to read it. (His wife, whose job at the University of Utah had been eliminated due to budget cuts and was therefore unemployed at the time the speech was given, found another job within a few weeks.)
These positive reactions seem to come from people who found the counsel helpful to them personally, either in validating choices that they had made or in helping them to make such choices. Another group seems to have approved of the speech because they felt that its counsel would help resolve or eliminate problems that other people were having or because they generally gave their support to any strong position taken by a Church leader.
However, such reactions were not the most common ones, in my experience. Overwhelmingly, the reaction I have heard from women has been one of pain and of anger, whether they have been employed or not. One woman, who has worked all her adult life and has five children, said that her husband, who was a bishop, had been besieged during the week following the address by women full of hurt and resentment. One in particular came to his office, spilled forth angry feelings at what she considered to be the "unreasonable and unreasoning" attitude conveyed in the speech, and was "quite deflated" to hear this bishop agree, "You're right. I agree with you completely. It's the worst advice to women I've ever listened to."
Another, whose husband was bishop of a student ward, said that for the next three or four weeks, she had many young student wives come to her privately in tears and pain. "There're not talking to each other," she said. "They don't even seem to be talking to their husbands, but they have to talk to someone." One of these young women with one child and a ten-hour-aweek part-time job quit her job; the family moved into a small basement apartment, and her husband, who was already going to school full-time and working part-time, got a second part-time job. However, when my friend told her bishop-husband about the young women who came to her, he told her that the husbands of these women in pain were, for the most part, singularly unaffected. None of them voluntarily brought up the subject to him. He learned about the couple who moved into the basement apartment only because the husband explained why they had to move out of the ward. This bishop also reported one husband summarizing what seemed to be a group consensus when the topic came up during priesthood meeting: "My wife and I talked about what we wanted to do educationally, when we wanted to start our family and why, and we knew what the Church position was when we made those decisions. Nothing has changed, including the Church position and our own situations. I don't see any reason to reevaluate our decision."
One single man told a friend that he was "devastated" by the speech because his skills are such that he will probably never have a job that will pay more than medium range. "Looking at things objectively," he said, "on the salary I'm likely to make, I could probably not afford to feed, clothe, and educate any children. Does this mean I should not get married?"
A Relief Society president whose children are adopted wept, "I've struggled with infertility for more than fifteen years. I thought I'd resolved the issue. But when he said that a woman's first responsibility is to bear children, that knife turned in my heart again. I felt that it didn't really matter what else I did because what I couldn't do was so much more important."
An older working-class couple in my ward who raised their nine children in West Virginia both did shift work in a factory so that one of them would be home with the children. Now retired, they are routinely on call when their married children here have a sick child who cannot go to school or its usual daycare. The woman bristled a bit, referring to the address, in defending her daughter and daughters-in-law, while her husband observed mildly in his Southern accent, "If'n you can get jobs out of the top drawer all your life like he's got, I think that's just fine. But it took both of us workin' just about as hard as we could all our lives — and the kids workin' too — to get our family raised, and I don't see things gettin' any easier."
Still another woman reported that her neighbor, now a grandmother, came to her in "agony." Not all of her children have turned out in the perfect church image, yet my friend had never heard this woman be other than positive, cheerful, loving, and accepting of even her deviant children. "I've never seen such pain and such a sense of betrayal," my friend recalled. "She had a photocopy of the talk and had the ten ways of spending quality time with children underlined. She wept, 'I stayed home, I never worked, I was always there when they got home from school, I made cookies, I read to them, I prayed with them, I always had hot meals for them, and I loved them. Tell me, what more could I have done? I did everything on this list and it still didn't work."
What caused these powerful emotional responses? Why did so many women react with guilt, anger, and pain? First, the language of the address was directive and prescriptive. Thus, it was possible to hear it as also accusatory, despite President Benson's obviously sincere desire to "lift and bless your lives." Although the fireside was for "parents," the instructions were focused only on mothers. Women were thus assigned, by implication, total responsibility for the emotional and spiritual welfare of their children. ("Mothers . . . are, or should be, the very heart and soul of the family," p. 1).
Second, the lack of differentiation between the physical and the emotional components of motherhood can easily put women in a double bind. Misleadingly, women are often praised for quantity (having a large number of children) as though they were simultaneously producing quality children, usually a much more difficult process.
For example, the address describes a mother's "God-ordained" role as being "to conceive, to bear, to nourish, to love, and to train" (p. 2). However, the physical processes of conception, pregnancy, and birthing are not "quality" operations, like loving and training. In fact, they are virtually involuntary operations. While a woman's attitude about pregnancy may greatly affect her feelings about the experience, the physical facts of the experience are largely out of her control. It has always seemed somewhat paradoxical to me that women are so urgently commanded to — and commended for — allowing a natural process, over which they have little or no control, to continue to its end. Making direct comparisons between the "creative" process of pregnancy and the "creative" process of writing or painting is to completely ignore will and talent as elements of creativity. I fully acknowledge, however, that raising a healthy, happy, productive child in the years after birth taxes every ounce of creativity — and many other qualities — to the fullest.
Third, the view of mothers "in the marketplace" as being the "world's way" not the "Lord's way" seemed to arouse particularly painful emotions. This section impressed me as perhaps being least in touch with the realities of the 1980s. Again, the prescriptive language virtually ignores the economic realities that have shelved or underemployed large numbers of men, plus the rising costs of living and education that have made one-salary families a minority. The speech seemed to envision the "marketplace" for men as a farm where harder work would invariably produce more food. This situation is no longer the case in our monetized society.
The evidence lies in the patterns of women's lives. In the United States as a whole when the 1980 federal census was taken, 51 percent of all women were working. In Utah, over 52 percent were (Cannon 1988, 50). Nationally, the average is now "some 70 percent" ("Do" 1988). Because women are paid less than men, their wages represent about 30 percent of the wages paid in Utah. Even so, a drop of 30 percent in the taxes paid state and local government would represent a reduction in services almost certain to have far-reaching and undesirable negative consequences.
When it comes to Latter-day Saint women in the United States, data collected in 1981 by the Church Research and Evaluation Department (Goodman and Heaton 1986) indicate that 35 percent of the Church's women will experience divorce and that only 19 percent will, at age sixty, be in an intact first marriage (p. 92). While United States women average 2.23 children, LDS women have an average of 3.27 — 3.46 if temple married (p. 95).
Fifty-one percent of LDS women were either working or looking for work in 1981, compared to a national average of 52 percent. If a married LDS woman has children under age six, the figure drops to 36.5 percent but climbs to 57 percent of mothers with children between six and seventeen. Over 80 percent of the single women in the Church are in the work force, including those with children (Goodman and Heaton 1986, 100). Thirty-three percent of single Mormon mothers with three children survive at or near the poverty level; so do 7 percent of married couples with at least two children (p. 101). I have no reason to believe that any of these figures have decreased in the seven intervening years.
Despite President Benson's acknowledgment of divorced and widowed women and those "in unusual circumstances" who are "required to work for a period of time," I found it perplexing to have the address state that "these instances are the exception, not the rule." I know of virtually no divorced or widowed mother who can look forward with any confidence to a time when she will not be required to work. And as Claudia L. Bushman trenchantly observed about the lack of welfare funds supplied to single mothers, "The luxury of being a full-time mother is only for those who can afford it. Single and poor mothers who have to work, have to work. The Church does not put its money where its mouth is" (1987, 39).
I also have some question about whether the "rule" really is an employed father and an at-home mother with several children. Nationally, such a configuration occurs in only 7 percent of the households; and within the Church, only 19 percent — fewer than one in five — of LDS households have two adult members with a temple marriage and children at home (Goodman and Heaton 1986, 95). There was no breakdown on how many of these mothers were employed; but if they followed the more general pattern, up to 57 percent of them would be.
If I were a single parent, I would also be deeply concerned about the implication that a full-time mother is essential for the child of a two-parent family but optional in the case of my child. This position seems illogical on its face. Should it not be twice as important for the remaining parent to be fully available all the time to the children?
The address also quotes President Spencer W. Kimball's "John and Mary" article, published in 1949 when he was an apostle, urging married women not to " 'compete with men in employment' " and a 1977 area conference speech begging them to " 'come home from the typewriter, the laundry, the nursing, . . . 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' " (p. 7). I am not the only person to observe that this list of tasks could be performed by any man, any woman, and any child over a certain age. What is missing from this role definition of a mother is a description of interactions with children or with a husband.
Furthermore, I found myself needing to translate this 1977 language into possible careers. "Nursing" is obvious. The typewriter implies secretarial skills, the factory describes a setting, but the cafe suggests waitressing as a career, and the reference to "the laundry" left me baffled. Certainly all of these services are important and necessary, but they are all, with the exception of nursing and some secretarial jobs, relatively low paid and relatively unskilled labor. If such activities were the sole income for a family, the family would probably be below the poverty level. If women were engaged in these activities to earn money, a more persuasive argument to keep them home would be to compare what they would be making on welfare payments. I also wondered about the omission of teaching, long considered to be a suitable occupation for women, from this list.
An additional difficulty I have with this advice is that it does not acknowledge the reality that many women have serious educational commitments to demanding, complex, and highly skilled employment and literally cannot afford to work at low-paying jobs, dropping in and out of the work force, any more than men can. According to the LDS demographic study already cited, 53.5 percent of LDS men and 44.3 percent of LDS women — "about a third more than among U.S. men and women" — have some college experience (Goodman and Heaton 1986, 97).
Another philosophical difficulty with this address is that by focusing so narrowly on the task of mothering, President Benson implies that mothering is not only a woman's most important responsibility but that it is also her only responsibility and that it is only her responsibility. There is little expression in this address of the role of a father although he is supposed "to provide, to love, to teach, and to direct" (p. 2). The implication is that the mother alone is responsible for "the salvation and exaltation of your family" (p. 8). Teaching children the gospel is assigned to the mother. "It cannot be done effectively part-time," says the address. "It must be done all the time in order to save and exalt your children" (p. 11). If this were true, then fathers are truly expendable, except for conception and money.
I am reminded of the first priesthood meeting my husband attended in our current ward. The elders' quorum president announced that he had just taken his second part-time job. (He was already working full-time.) He asserted with conviction, "No one else is going to raise my children." What he had overlooked is that obviously he was not going to raise his children.
Successful motherhood is difficult to define since it is a process that lasts intensively for at least twenty years, since it never really ends, and since the ultimate evaluation depends on how well someone else — namely the child — does, not on what you yourself do. No wonder so many women feel inadequate, guilty, and defensive about their parenting.
The speech lists "ten ways to spend time with your children." This list is vast, encyclopedic, and comprehensive. It recommends (1) being home "when your children are either coming or going . . . from school, . . . from dates, when they bring friends home," (2) regularly spending] unrushed one-on-one time with each child," (3) "read[ing] to your children . . . starting from the cradle," (4) "pray[ing] with your children, . . . under the direction of the father, . . . morning and night," (5) "hav[ing] a meaningful weekly home evening with your husband presiding," (6) "be[ing] together at mealtimes as often as possible . . . [for] happy conversation, sharing of the day's plans and activities, and special teaching moments," (7) "daily . . . reading] the scriptures together as a family," (8) "do[ing] things together as a family," (9) "teaching] your children .. . at mealtime, in casual settings, or at special sit-down times together, at the foot of the bed at the end of the day, or during an early morning walk together," and (10) "truly lov[ing] your children" (PP-8-10).
Certainly the counsel in this list is good. I know no mother, including myself, who does not enjoy spending time with her children and who does not try to do most of the things on this list. However, following this list completely is impossible because it is vague and lacks any standard of "enough." Item 8, doing "things" together as a family, could cover virtually every other item on the list. Furthermore, it assumes that spending time doing these things will automatically produce the promised results: "Your children will remember your teachings forever, and when they are old, they will not depart from them. They will call you blessed — their truly angel mother" (p. 11). But what if the children fall away from the Church, are alienated from the family, and call you something besides their "angel mother"? The implication is clear that it is because you didn't spend enough time with them. The woman who wept in betrayal and anger at this list provides the balancing perspective that time is not the only factor.
Thus, a serious problem with this presentation is its assumption that only women can mother children. The related problem — that a mother should only mother, has the automatic effect of condemning women who do other things. Since the quotations from President Kimball seemed uncharacteristically harsh compared to my memory of how he typically addressed women, I curiously compared this speech with his address at the first women's fireside in 1978. Certainly he made a great many references to marriage and motherhood. Out of 96.5 column inches, 36.25 are devoted to such topics as marriage, divorce, motherhood, bearing children, and homemaking. But he discusses the importance of marriage as "re-emphasizing some everlasting truth," the first of which is "to keep the commandments of God," pray, study the scriptures, and "keep your life clean and free from all unholy and impure thoughts and actions" (p. 102). Between the sections on marriage (p. 103) and those on motherhood and home life (p. 105), he pays tribute to the "talents and leadership" of his wife, praises Mormon women as "basically strong, independent, and faithful," characterizes "selflessness [as] a key to happiness and effectiveness," urges Christian service in many settings, encourages women to "have a program of personal improvement," and observes:
I must admit that the immediate reaction to the "Mothers" speech — largely negative in my immediate circle — caught me off guard. I was meeting with a group of women on the night that it was broadcast, and my husband, Paul, thoughtfully recorded it for me. I listened to it the next day, mentally observed that the speech had a decidedly old-fashioned ring to it, and used the tape to record 3-2-1 Contact for our son, Christian. I was immediately sorry. At a midweek lunch with some women, the address was the main topic of conversation, and someone had made photocopies of the delivery text. At a weekend scripture study group with other women, it again dominated the conversation. Network, a newspaper for Utah women, devoted an editorial to it and also published an article reporting comments from twenty-six men and women, both LDS and non-LDS (Shepherd 1987; Hilton 1987).
When the edited version appeared in pink pamphlet form in late March or early April, I found six copies on the doorstep. I assumed that they were either a gift from a friend who knew I'd be interested in the issue or proselyting literature from someone who thought six would be more effective than one. I promptly distributed them to my friends and discovered only later that they were for Paul. He was supposed to take them to his home teaching families that month although, as a letter to bishops clarified, they were not to replace the scheduled home teaching message for the month.
The speech was again the subject of an explosive discussion during an annual women's retreat that I attend in early summer. By then, opinions had crystallized, but much of the tension and emotional response was still there, unresolved.
Basically, the speech advocated that women place mothering responsibilities first by refusing paid employment. Since this has been virtually the major message Mormon women have heard from their male leaders since the 1920s, it is hardly new. Yet it seemed to arouse emotions out of all proportion to its content. I have made no effort to collect opinions randomly and representatively from Church women in a variety of regions, but I have asked many women about their own reactions and those of other women with whom they have talked. It is important to note that no one suggested President Benson's concern about children was misplaced or that child-rearing was not supremely important. Women who responded positively to President Benson's message seemed to focus on the benefits for children; those who responded negatively seemed concerned with the sweeping nature of his instructions, which did not adequately acknowledge the diversity of women and their circumstances.
Among the affirmative responses I have heard to the address was one woman, then pregnant with her third child, who expressed decided approval of the speech: "The world has seduced us away from our children," she said. "We needed this strong reminder to return to them." Another, the mother of four and a schoolteacher, had been trying to spend quality time with her children and her husband, then underemployed. She was driving home at noon to fix his lunch, staying up to help the children with their projects, and getting up at 3 A.M. to correct her students' papers. She felt the address "was exactly what our family needed. I know he was inspired." She stopped teaching in mid-year.
Another, the mother of seven, said, "My husband and I were sitting behind his secretary, and we just watched her squirm. Maybe now she'll quit and take care of her teenagers." My father wrote in early March that he was pleased with the address: "I wondered if any General Authority would dare take that firm stand again." He also reported that his stake president estimated 80 percent of the tithing in the stake came from families "where the mothers are remaining in the home."
Another woman commented that her sister, the full-time mother of five, was greatly distressed because other women in her ward, also not employed, had made "strident" comments in Relief Society and during testimony meeting about women in the ward who were "violating" the prophet's counsel. Still another friend commented during late spring that her bishop had held up the pink pamphlet in church for three weeks running with approving references and strongly encouraged all women of the ward to read it. (His wife, whose job at the University of Utah had been eliminated due to budget cuts and was therefore unemployed at the time the speech was given, found another job within a few weeks.)
These positive reactions seem to come from people who found the counsel helpful to them personally, either in validating choices that they had made or in helping them to make such choices. Another group seems to have approved of the speech because they felt that its counsel would help resolve or eliminate problems that other people were having or because they generally gave their support to any strong position taken by a Church leader.
However, such reactions were not the most common ones, in my experience. Overwhelmingly, the reaction I have heard from women has been one of pain and of anger, whether they have been employed or not. One woman, who has worked all her adult life and has five children, said that her husband, who was a bishop, had been besieged during the week following the address by women full of hurt and resentment. One in particular came to his office, spilled forth angry feelings at what she considered to be the "unreasonable and unreasoning" attitude conveyed in the speech, and was "quite deflated" to hear this bishop agree, "You're right. I agree with you completely. It's the worst advice to women I've ever listened to."
Another, whose husband was bishop of a student ward, said that for the next three or four weeks, she had many young student wives come to her privately in tears and pain. "There're not talking to each other," she said. "They don't even seem to be talking to their husbands, but they have to talk to someone." One of these young women with one child and a ten-hour-aweek part-time job quit her job; the family moved into a small basement apartment, and her husband, who was already going to school full-time and working part-time, got a second part-time job. However, when my friend told her bishop-husband about the young women who came to her, he told her that the husbands of these women in pain were, for the most part, singularly unaffected. None of them voluntarily brought up the subject to him. He learned about the couple who moved into the basement apartment only because the husband explained why they had to move out of the ward. This bishop also reported one husband summarizing what seemed to be a group consensus when the topic came up during priesthood meeting: "My wife and I talked about what we wanted to do educationally, when we wanted to start our family and why, and we knew what the Church position was when we made those decisions. Nothing has changed, including the Church position and our own situations. I don't see any reason to reevaluate our decision."
One single man told a friend that he was "devastated" by the speech because his skills are such that he will probably never have a job that will pay more than medium range. "Looking at things objectively," he said, "on the salary I'm likely to make, I could probably not afford to feed, clothe, and educate any children. Does this mean I should not get married?"
A Relief Society president whose children are adopted wept, "I've struggled with infertility for more than fifteen years. I thought I'd resolved the issue. But when he said that a woman's first responsibility is to bear children, that knife turned in my heart again. I felt that it didn't really matter what else I did because what I couldn't do was so much more important."
An older working-class couple in my ward who raised their nine children in West Virginia both did shift work in a factory so that one of them would be home with the children. Now retired, they are routinely on call when their married children here have a sick child who cannot go to school or its usual daycare. The woman bristled a bit, referring to the address, in defending her daughter and daughters-in-law, while her husband observed mildly in his Southern accent, "If'n you can get jobs out of the top drawer all your life like he's got, I think that's just fine. But it took both of us workin' just about as hard as we could all our lives — and the kids workin' too — to get our family raised, and I don't see things gettin' any easier."
Still another woman reported that her neighbor, now a grandmother, came to her in "agony." Not all of her children have turned out in the perfect church image, yet my friend had never heard this woman be other than positive, cheerful, loving, and accepting of even her deviant children. "I've never seen such pain and such a sense of betrayal," my friend recalled. "She had a photocopy of the talk and had the ten ways of spending quality time with children underlined. She wept, 'I stayed home, I never worked, I was always there when they got home from school, I made cookies, I read to them, I prayed with them, I always had hot meals for them, and I loved them. Tell me, what more could I have done? I did everything on this list and it still didn't work."
What caused these powerful emotional responses? Why did so many women react with guilt, anger, and pain? First, the language of the address was directive and prescriptive. Thus, it was possible to hear it as also accusatory, despite President Benson's obviously sincere desire to "lift and bless your lives." Although the fireside was for "parents," the instructions were focused only on mothers. Women were thus assigned, by implication, total responsibility for the emotional and spiritual welfare of their children. ("Mothers . . . are, or should be, the very heart and soul of the family," p. 1).
Second, the lack of differentiation between the physical and the emotional components of motherhood can easily put women in a double bind. Misleadingly, women are often praised for quantity (having a large number of children) as though they were simultaneously producing quality children, usually a much more difficult process.
For example, the address describes a mother's "God-ordained" role as being "to conceive, to bear, to nourish, to love, and to train" (p. 2). However, the physical processes of conception, pregnancy, and birthing are not "quality" operations, like loving and training. In fact, they are virtually involuntary operations. While a woman's attitude about pregnancy may greatly affect her feelings about the experience, the physical facts of the experience are largely out of her control. It has always seemed somewhat paradoxical to me that women are so urgently commanded to — and commended for — allowing a natural process, over which they have little or no control, to continue to its end. Making direct comparisons between the "creative" process of pregnancy and the "creative" process of writing or painting is to completely ignore will and talent as elements of creativity. I fully acknowledge, however, that raising a healthy, happy, productive child in the years after birth taxes every ounce of creativity — and many other qualities — to the fullest.
Third, the view of mothers "in the marketplace" as being the "world's way" not the "Lord's way" seemed to arouse particularly painful emotions. This section impressed me as perhaps being least in touch with the realities of the 1980s. Again, the prescriptive language virtually ignores the economic realities that have shelved or underemployed large numbers of men, plus the rising costs of living and education that have made one-salary families a minority. The speech seemed to envision the "marketplace" for men as a farm where harder work would invariably produce more food. This situation is no longer the case in our monetized society.
The evidence lies in the patterns of women's lives. In the United States as a whole when the 1980 federal census was taken, 51 percent of all women were working. In Utah, over 52 percent were (Cannon 1988, 50). Nationally, the average is now "some 70 percent" ("Do" 1988). Because women are paid less than men, their wages represent about 30 percent of the wages paid in Utah. Even so, a drop of 30 percent in the taxes paid state and local government would represent a reduction in services almost certain to have far-reaching and undesirable negative consequences.
When it comes to Latter-day Saint women in the United States, data collected in 1981 by the Church Research and Evaluation Department (Goodman and Heaton 1986) indicate that 35 percent of the Church's women will experience divorce and that only 19 percent will, at age sixty, be in an intact first marriage (p. 92). While United States women average 2.23 children, LDS women have an average of 3.27 — 3.46 if temple married (p. 95).
Fifty-one percent of LDS women were either working or looking for work in 1981, compared to a national average of 52 percent. If a married LDS woman has children under age six, the figure drops to 36.5 percent but climbs to 57 percent of mothers with children between six and seventeen. Over 80 percent of the single women in the Church are in the work force, including those with children (Goodman and Heaton 1986, 100). Thirty-three percent of single Mormon mothers with three children survive at or near the poverty level; so do 7 percent of married couples with at least two children (p. 101). I have no reason to believe that any of these figures have decreased in the seven intervening years.
Despite President Benson's acknowledgment of divorced and widowed women and those "in unusual circumstances" who are "required to work for a period of time," I found it perplexing to have the address state that "these instances are the exception, not the rule." I know of virtually no divorced or widowed mother who can look forward with any confidence to a time when she will not be required to work. And as Claudia L. Bushman trenchantly observed about the lack of welfare funds supplied to single mothers, "The luxury of being a full-time mother is only for those who can afford it. Single and poor mothers who have to work, have to work. The Church does not put its money where its mouth is" (1987, 39).
I also have some question about whether the "rule" really is an employed father and an at-home mother with several children. Nationally, such a configuration occurs in only 7 percent of the households; and within the Church, only 19 percent — fewer than one in five — of LDS households have two adult members with a temple marriage and children at home (Goodman and Heaton 1986, 95). There was no breakdown on how many of these mothers were employed; but if they followed the more general pattern, up to 57 percent of them would be.
If I were a single parent, I would also be deeply concerned about the implication that a full-time mother is essential for the child of a two-parent family but optional in the case of my child. This position seems illogical on its face. Should it not be twice as important for the remaining parent to be fully available all the time to the children?
The address also quotes President Spencer W. Kimball's "John and Mary" article, published in 1949 when he was an apostle, urging married women not to " 'compete with men in employment' " and a 1977 area conference speech begging them to " 'come home from the typewriter, the laundry, the nursing, . . . 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' " (p. 7). I am not the only person to observe that this list of tasks could be performed by any man, any woman, and any child over a certain age. What is missing from this role definition of a mother is a description of interactions with children or with a husband.
Furthermore, I found myself needing to translate this 1977 language into possible careers. "Nursing" is obvious. The typewriter implies secretarial skills, the factory describes a setting, but the cafe suggests waitressing as a career, and the reference to "the laundry" left me baffled. Certainly all of these services are important and necessary, but they are all, with the exception of nursing and some secretarial jobs, relatively low paid and relatively unskilled labor. If such activities were the sole income for a family, the family would probably be below the poverty level. If women were engaged in these activities to earn money, a more persuasive argument to keep them home would be to compare what they would be making on welfare payments. I also wondered about the omission of teaching, long considered to be a suitable occupation for women, from this list.
An additional difficulty I have with this advice is that it does not acknowledge the reality that many women have serious educational commitments to demanding, complex, and highly skilled employment and literally cannot afford to work at low-paying jobs, dropping in and out of the work force, any more than men can. According to the LDS demographic study already cited, 53.5 percent of LDS men and 44.3 percent of LDS women — "about a third more than among U.S. men and women" — have some college experience (Goodman and Heaton 1986, 97).
Another philosophical difficulty with this address is that by focusing so narrowly on the task of mothering, President Benson implies that mothering is not only a woman's most important responsibility but that it is also her only responsibility and that it is only her responsibility. There is little expression in this address of the role of a father although he is supposed "to provide, to love, to teach, and to direct" (p. 2). The implication is that the mother alone is responsible for "the salvation and exaltation of your family" (p. 8). Teaching children the gospel is assigned to the mother. "It cannot be done effectively part-time," says the address. "It must be done all the time in order to save and exalt your children" (p. 11). If this were true, then fathers are truly expendable, except for conception and money.
I am reminded of the first priesthood meeting my husband attended in our current ward. The elders' quorum president announced that he had just taken his second part-time job. (He was already working full-time.) He asserted with conviction, "No one else is going to raise my children." What he had overlooked is that obviously he was not going to raise his children.
Successful motherhood is difficult to define since it is a process that lasts intensively for at least twenty years, since it never really ends, and since the ultimate evaluation depends on how well someone else — namely the child — does, not on what you yourself do. No wonder so many women feel inadequate, guilty, and defensive about their parenting.
The speech lists "ten ways to spend time with your children." This list is vast, encyclopedic, and comprehensive. It recommends (1) being home "when your children are either coming or going . . . from school, . . . from dates, when they bring friends home," (2) regularly spending] unrushed one-on-one time with each child," (3) "read[ing] to your children . . . starting from the cradle," (4) "pray[ing] with your children, . . . under the direction of the father, . . . morning and night," (5) "hav[ing] a meaningful weekly home evening with your husband presiding," (6) "be[ing] together at mealtimes as often as possible . . . [for] happy conversation, sharing of the day's plans and activities, and special teaching moments," (7) "daily . . . reading] the scriptures together as a family," (8) "do[ing] things together as a family," (9) "teaching] your children .. . at mealtime, in casual settings, or at special sit-down times together, at the foot of the bed at the end of the day, or during an early morning walk together," and (10) "truly lov[ing] your children" (PP-8-10).
Certainly the counsel in this list is good. I know no mother, including myself, who does not enjoy spending time with her children and who does not try to do most of the things on this list. However, following this list completely is impossible because it is vague and lacks any standard of "enough." Item 8, doing "things" together as a family, could cover virtually every other item on the list. Furthermore, it assumes that spending time doing these things will automatically produce the promised results: "Your children will remember your teachings forever, and when they are old, they will not depart from them. They will call you blessed — their truly angel mother" (p. 11). But what if the children fall away from the Church, are alienated from the family, and call you something besides their "angel mother"? The implication is clear that it is because you didn't spend enough time with them. The woman who wept in betrayal and anger at this list provides the balancing perspective that time is not the only factor.
Thus, a serious problem with this presentation is its assumption that only women can mother children. The related problem — that a mother should only mother, has the automatic effect of condemning women who do other things. Since the quotations from President Kimball seemed uncharacteristically harsh compared to my memory of how he typically addressed women, I curiously compared this speech with his address at the first women's fireside in 1978. Certainly he made a great many references to marriage and motherhood. Out of 96.5 column inches, 36.25 are devoted to such topics as marriage, divorce, motherhood, bearing children, and homemaking. But he discusses the importance of marriage as "re-emphasizing some everlasting truth," the first of which is "to keep the commandments of God," pray, study the scriptures, and "keep your life clean and free from all unholy and impure thoughts and actions" (p. 102). Between the sections on marriage (p. 103) and those on motherhood and home life (p. 105), he pays tribute to the "talents and leadership" of his wife, praises Mormon women as "basically strong, independent, and faithful," characterizes "selflessness [as] a key to happiness and effectiveness," urges Christian service in many settings, encourages women to "have a program of personal improvement," and observes:
We should be as concerned with the woman's capacity to communicate as we are to have her sew and preserve food. Good women are articulate as well as affectionate. One skill or attribute need not be developed at the expense of another. Symmetry in our spiritual development is much to be desired. We are as anxious for women to be as wise in the management of their time as we are for women to be wise stewards of the family's storehouse of good. We know that women who have a deep appreciation for the past will be concerned about shaping a righteous future (p. 105).
President Kimball then goes on to talk about cultivating Christlike qualities, free agency, trust in the Lord and "each other," the importance of "reaching] your fullest potential," and a reminder that "in you is the control of your life" (p. 105). He then discusses the importance of home and family life, speaking of marriage as "a contributing and full partner [ship]." He concludes: "We thank the sisters of the Church for being such great defenders of the church, in word and in deed. We love and respect you!", then quotes Joel's prediction of prophetic gifts for "your sons and your daughters" and of an outpouring of the Lord's spirit "upon the handmaids" in the latter days.
Rather than a narrow focus on mothering tasks alone, this speech is widely based, positively stated, and actively encouraging. It counsels women to make a broad range of choices, fulfill potential, and exercise agency. It clearly communicates love, appreciation, encouragement, and respect for women. This tone, which permeates President Kimball's address was, in my memory, a trend-setting approach to women that was generally typical of the addresses of other General Authorities and of the women leaders during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
I feel that President Benson was completely sincere in such statements as: "I pay tribute to the mothers in Zion and pray with all my heart that what I have to say to you will be understood by the Spirit and will lift and bless your lives in your sacred callings as mothers" and in his tribute to his own wife. The tone in the "Mothers of Zion" address may seem more narrow, rigid, and authoritarian than it really is, simply because the contrast is so great with what women have been accustomed to hearing. The basic information about the importance of motherhood is very similar in both addresses; the second address may seem controlling and coercive simply because of how it is said, not because of the information itself.
Certainly, similar prescriptive language is used in President Benson's address to fathers given at the October 1987 general conference: "You have a sacred responsibility to provide for the material needs of your family. . . . Adam, not Eve, was instructed to earn the bread by the sweat of his brow." Being financially supported is "the divine right of a wife and mother. While she cares for and nourishes her children at home, her husband earns the living for the family, which makes this nourishing possible." He rebukes men who "because of economic conditions . . . expect the wives to go out of the home and work" and reiterates the "importance of mothers staying home to nurture, care for, and train their children in the principles of righteousness" (pp. 48, 49).
I am concerned about three issues: (1) Children are defined as the woman's not as the couple's. (2) There is not a syllable in this speech that recognizes the responsibilities of divorced fathers to continue to supply economic support for their children and that at a time when the percentage of nonpayment of child support is a national scandal. (3) Third, and perhaps most important, there is no acknowledgment of work as anything other than as a means of providing money. Are there no reasons besides monetary ones why men work? What about status, power, ability to control and make things happen, association with peers and friends, the stimulation of growth, the selfesteem of responding successfully to challenges, and the ability to make a difference in a community, business, or industry?
True, one could argue that parenthood supplies many of the same satisfactions and challenges for men as for women. True, many men have unsatisfying or limiting jobs. But these conditions aside, I find that this second speech is similarly out of touch with current economic realities and leaves untouched and unexplored the psychological realities of men and women by its strict focus on gender-assigned tasks.
I also find it unbecoming for men to urge women to do a job that the men themselves express no desire to do. It arouses in me the suspicion that they might not choose to do it themselves, even if they had that ability. For example, how different would be the tone of a man giving an address that said, "My dear sisters, it has been a source of great longing to me all my life to bear a child, to feel that little body growing within me, to experience birth, and then to nourish that child from my own body. I realize that my assignment to the priesthood is of equal value to the Lord and that the work I do there is extremely important; but I can't help wishing that I could also have the opportunity to experience the joys and challenges of your role. Because I can't, I plead with you to fully appreciate the unique blessing that you have been given."
I wonder why groups of men have not discussed President Benson's address to them, why I have sensed no emotional reaction and not even much interest. As I have asked among my circle of male acquaintances for responses, most didn't pay much attention to it. One man joked, "I remember exactly how I felt. Disappointed. He [President Benson] prefaced his talk by saying the meeting had been great and he was debating about just having his talk published but dismissing the meeting. And then he decided to give it anyway." Another one said, "I could tell it was supposed to be the other side of the coin for the mothers' talk, but I'm not sure that it really evens things up to just be sure you've dumped on everybody." Still another shrugged, "It was nothing new." These responses do not shed much light on a basic underlying question: Why did women hear the counsel addressed to them so personally and react so passionately while men seemed to consider the counsel addressed to them as optional?
I'm happy with strong statements about the centrality and value of family life. But I want them addressed evenly to both fathers and mothers. I want them to address the economic and social realities of childrearing in this generation. I do not want to hear motherhood equated with priesthood again — ever, as long as I live. I want an acknowledgment of the diversity of family types in the Church, not the monolithic insistence on only one model. I want the Church to respect, support, and help all types of families, not just one. I want the Church to acknowledge that our lives have many facets in addition to that of parenting and to respect and support those facets. I want to find in my church a source of love, communion with God, and celebration of community rather than separation, isolation, and guilt.
We have heard such uplifting addresses in the past. I look forward to the time when we will hear them again.
Rather than a narrow focus on mothering tasks alone, this speech is widely based, positively stated, and actively encouraging. It counsels women to make a broad range of choices, fulfill potential, and exercise agency. It clearly communicates love, appreciation, encouragement, and respect for women. This tone, which permeates President Kimball's address was, in my memory, a trend-setting approach to women that was generally typical of the addresses of other General Authorities and of the women leaders during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
I feel that President Benson was completely sincere in such statements as: "I pay tribute to the mothers in Zion and pray with all my heart that what I have to say to you will be understood by the Spirit and will lift and bless your lives in your sacred callings as mothers" and in his tribute to his own wife. The tone in the "Mothers of Zion" address may seem more narrow, rigid, and authoritarian than it really is, simply because the contrast is so great with what women have been accustomed to hearing. The basic information about the importance of motherhood is very similar in both addresses; the second address may seem controlling and coercive simply because of how it is said, not because of the information itself.
Certainly, similar prescriptive language is used in President Benson's address to fathers given at the October 1987 general conference: "You have a sacred responsibility to provide for the material needs of your family. . . . Adam, not Eve, was instructed to earn the bread by the sweat of his brow." Being financially supported is "the divine right of a wife and mother. While she cares for and nourishes her children at home, her husband earns the living for the family, which makes this nourishing possible." He rebukes men who "because of economic conditions . . . expect the wives to go out of the home and work" and reiterates the "importance of mothers staying home to nurture, care for, and train their children in the principles of righteousness" (pp. 48, 49).
I am concerned about three issues: (1) Children are defined as the woman's not as the couple's. (2) There is not a syllable in this speech that recognizes the responsibilities of divorced fathers to continue to supply economic support for their children and that at a time when the percentage of nonpayment of child support is a national scandal. (3) Third, and perhaps most important, there is no acknowledgment of work as anything other than as a means of providing money. Are there no reasons besides monetary ones why men work? What about status, power, ability to control and make things happen, association with peers and friends, the stimulation of growth, the selfesteem of responding successfully to challenges, and the ability to make a difference in a community, business, or industry?
True, one could argue that parenthood supplies many of the same satisfactions and challenges for men as for women. True, many men have unsatisfying or limiting jobs. But these conditions aside, I find that this second speech is similarly out of touch with current economic realities and leaves untouched and unexplored the psychological realities of men and women by its strict focus on gender-assigned tasks.
I also find it unbecoming for men to urge women to do a job that the men themselves express no desire to do. It arouses in me the suspicion that they might not choose to do it themselves, even if they had that ability. For example, how different would be the tone of a man giving an address that said, "My dear sisters, it has been a source of great longing to me all my life to bear a child, to feel that little body growing within me, to experience birth, and then to nourish that child from my own body. I realize that my assignment to the priesthood is of equal value to the Lord and that the work I do there is extremely important; but I can't help wishing that I could also have the opportunity to experience the joys and challenges of your role. Because I can't, I plead with you to fully appreciate the unique blessing that you have been given."
I wonder why groups of men have not discussed President Benson's address to them, why I have sensed no emotional reaction and not even much interest. As I have asked among my circle of male acquaintances for responses, most didn't pay much attention to it. One man joked, "I remember exactly how I felt. Disappointed. He [President Benson] prefaced his talk by saying the meeting had been great and he was debating about just having his talk published but dismissing the meeting. And then he decided to give it anyway." Another one said, "I could tell it was supposed to be the other side of the coin for the mothers' talk, but I'm not sure that it really evens things up to just be sure you've dumped on everybody." Still another shrugged, "It was nothing new." These responses do not shed much light on a basic underlying question: Why did women hear the counsel addressed to them so personally and react so passionately while men seemed to consider the counsel addressed to them as optional?
I'm happy with strong statements about the centrality and value of family life. But I want them addressed evenly to both fathers and mothers. I want them to address the economic and social realities of childrearing in this generation. I do not want to hear motherhood equated with priesthood again — ever, as long as I live. I want an acknowledgment of the diversity of family types in the Church, not the monolithic insistence on only one model. I want the Church to respect, support, and help all types of families, not just one. I want the Church to acknowledge that our lives have many facets in addition to that of parenting and to respect and support those facets. I want to find in my church a source of love, communion with God, and celebration of community rather than separation, isolation, and guilt.
We have heard such uplifting addresses in the past. I look forward to the time when we will hear them again.
Apostle Boyd K. Packer
Talk to the All-Church Coordinating Council
May 18, 1993
Those who are hurting think they are not understood. They are looking for a champion, an advocate, someone with office and influence from whom they can receive comfort. They ask us to speak about their troubles in general conference, to put something in the curriculum, or to provide a special program to support them in their problems or with their activism.
When members are hurting, it is so easy to convince ourselves that we are justified, even duty bound, to use the influence of our appointment or our calling to somehow represent them. We then become their advocates -- sympathize with their complaints against the Church, and perhaps even soften the commandments to comfort them. Unwittingly we may turn about and face the wrong way. Then the channels of revelation are reversed. Let me say that again. Then the channels of revelation are reversed. In our efforts to comfort them, we lose our bearings and leave that segment of the line to which we are assigned unprotected. The question is not whether they need help and comfort. That goes without saying. The question is "How?" The Prophet Joseph Smith, when he organized the Relief Society said, "There is the need for decisions of character aside from sympathy."
To illustrate principles which apply to all of these problems, I have taken one common one -- working mothers. President Ezra Taft Benson gave a talk to wives and mothers. There was a reaction within the Church. (Ten years ago, that would not have happened.) That was very interesting, because if you read his talk carefully, it was, for the most part, simply a compilation of quotations on the subject from the prophets who have preceded him.
Some mothers must work out of the home. There is no other way. And in this they are justified and for this they should not be criticized. We cannot, however, because of their discomfort over their plight, abandon a position that has been taught by the prophets from the beginning of this dispensation. The question then is, "How can we give solace to those who are justified without giving license to those who are not?"
The comfort they need is better, for the most part, administered individually. To point out so-called success stories inferring that a career out of the home has no negative effect on a family is an invitation to many to stray from what has been taught by the prophets and thus cause members to reap disappointment by and by.
When members are hurting, it is so easy to convince ourselves that we are justified, even duty bound, to use the influence of our appointment or our calling to somehow represent them. We then become their advocates -- sympathize with their complaints against the Church, and perhaps even soften the commandments to comfort them. Unwittingly we may turn about and face the wrong way. Then the channels of revelation are reversed. Let me say that again. Then the channels of revelation are reversed. In our efforts to comfort them, we lose our bearings and leave that segment of the line to which we are assigned unprotected. The question is not whether they need help and comfort. That goes without saying. The question is "How?" The Prophet Joseph Smith, when he organized the Relief Society said, "There is the need for decisions of character aside from sympathy."
To illustrate principles which apply to all of these problems, I have taken one common one -- working mothers. President Ezra Taft Benson gave a talk to wives and mothers. There was a reaction within the Church. (Ten years ago, that would not have happened.) That was very interesting, because if you read his talk carefully, it was, for the most part, simply a compilation of quotations on the subject from the prophets who have preceded him.
Some mothers must work out of the home. There is no other way. And in this they are justified and for this they should not be criticized. We cannot, however, because of their discomfort over their plight, abandon a position that has been taught by the prophets from the beginning of this dispensation. The question then is, "How can we give solace to those who are justified without giving license to those who are not?"
The comfort they need is better, for the most part, administered individually. To point out so-called success stories inferring that a career out of the home has no negative effect on a family is an invitation to many to stray from what has been taught by the prophets and thus cause members to reap disappointment by and by.
