“…our culture is set up so that when we arrived to our new ward, everyone asked me what job brought me here, while ignoring my wife who had the fabulous job opportunity that moved us across the country.”

That certainly is not church-wide. We live in a college town, and when new families come, I routinely ask, “So who is going to school?”

I think you have raised important issues, but probably the answers are going to be worked out on an individual basis, as you have in your family, with no one-size-fits-all solution.

Give it some time. Getting married or having children can mess with you like that but many people seem to find a happy medium after exploring the extremes.

I don’t see someone abandoning worldly ambitions as that big of a deal. They’re just worldly ambitions. If a person has the means and would rather perform the very important and difficult work of teaching their children and keeping their house in order, more power to them.

People can be equal partners with different roles. If one spouse works 40 hours per week to pay the bills and fill the pantry and another works 40 hourse per week teaching and caring for children and keeping the house in order, that looks like an equal partnership to me. Equal partnership doesn’t need to mean splitting all responsibilities 50/50.

Bryant, your title for this post is ironic, because you demonstrate the very cultural bias over gender roles that you are decrying! Homemaking “makes things nice at home,” but it is lesser than “providing money”? Your sister can only be an equal partner to her husband if she is following the same marketplace path as he is? All the money in the world isn’t going to make things “nice at home” if your sister is too tired or too focused elsewhere to support her family at home.

Your sister has not abandoned her ambition. She has rearranged her priorities and wants to focus on her new family (lucky husband, blessed future children). Without knowing her at all, I’ll bet the farm that she doesn’t really aspire to secretaryhood — she aspires to wifehood and motherhood, and, at least now, in her inexperience, she is mentally exploring work options that will allow her to achieve her primary goals with the least amount of interference. You can help her become aware of loftier academic or marketplace options without denigrating her family ambitions, can’t you?

Thanks for all of the comments. I appreciate the insights about the adjustments that come with marriage and parenthood.

I worried about being misunderstood when I wrote this (I was up a little bit late and didn’t proofread as well as I should have), and, based on some of the comments, I want to clarify my position a little bit.

I don’t think that being equal partners necessarily means that husband and wife need to split responsibilities 50-50 or that both spouses have work outside the home. Of course, I recognize that the work of a parent in the home is vital and can be rewarding. Dedicating oneself to raising a family and running a home is a noble pursuit. Equal partners often divide tasks, such as one parent supporting the family financially while the other does all the necessary tasks around the house. I apologize if I suggested otherwise.

I wasn’t trying to denigrate those who choose to stay home. I was trying to point out that in LDS culture (which, as Naismith pointed out, isn’t the same everywhere) it is sometimes assumed that the right division of marital labors is that the husband makes all the money and the wife stays home. While this is one good way to divide responsibilites, there are many other responsibility divisions that will be better in certain situations. I guess I felt like my sister was ruling out these other possibilities before she knew what was going to work best for her and her family.

Ardis and PDOE, you’re right that my tone suggested that a woman needs to work to be an equal partner. Of course, that is not the case.

As a side-note, I think we can stop affirmative action and choose instead to support those children who have beaten the odds and are seeking higher education above and beyond what their parents have attained.

My wife and I are pondering right now about how to best utilize her particular (and valuable) skills. We’re just at the beginning of my professional career, and as such, our income isn’t that high. Her degrees, experience and skills are more valuable on the market than mine are. She could probably find herself a job paying up to $120,000. We have a baby, a beautiful girl who will be one year old in just two months. Do we go for the jobs that she can do that will give us a very high income? My wife saw herself as a very independent woman who didn’t think she was ever going to get married, before we got married. Suddenly nine months into our marriage, we have a baby girl. It has certainly changed her outlook at her life.

I think that we, as a society, need to find ways to get mothers jobs from home. Technologically speaking, the possibilities are endless.

In case there is any confusion where this idea comes from among Latter-day Saints that it is preferable that mothers not be employed, there’s this from Gordon Hinckley, president of the church:

“Some years ago President Benson delivered a message to the women of the Church. He encouraged them to leave their employment and give their individual time to their children. I sustain the position which he took.

“Nevertheless, I recognize, as he recognized, that there are some women (it has become very many in fact) who have to work to provide for the needs of their families. To you I say, do the very best you can. I hope that if you are employed full-time you are doing it to ensure that basic needs are met and not simply to indulge a taste for an elaborate home, fancy cars, and other luxuries. The greatest job that any mother will ever do will be in nurturing, teaching, lifting, encouraging, and rearing her children in righteousness and truth. None other can adequately take her place.

“It is well-nigh impossible to be a full-time homemaker and a full-time employee. I know how some of you struggle with decisions concerning this matter. I repeat, do the very best you can. You know your circumstances, and I know that you are deeply concerned for the welfare of your children. Each of you has a bishop who will counsel with you and assist you. If you feel you need to speak with an understanding woman, do not hesitate to get in touch with your Relief Society president.”

Gordon B. Hinckley, “Women of the Church,” Ensign, Nov. 1996

Thanks again for all of the comments.

Tom,
You’re right that the inability of certain people to accept the choices of others can be frustrating. I think your reading of the Family Proclamation is fair. I don’t see a woman pursuing a career as antithetical to nurturing her children, but I can see how people would interpret LDS doctrine to mean ideally women stay home.

Men are often encouraged to help in the nurture of children, the primary responsiblity of women, (sorry I don’t have any citations for you, but I doubt this is contestable) so, wouldn’t be equally appropriate to encourage women to help in the father’s responsibility to provide for the family?

John Mansfield,

So the doctrine is that women who have to work to help provide for the basic necessities of life because of their circumstances should do so after counsel with the Lord or their bishop or other leaders. What strikes me in that statement is that President Hinckley is very kind in recognizing that many women need to work and that he refers to their work as full-time employment. There are a lot of ways women can help provide for basic necessities short of full-time employment, and the reality of many people’s situations is that both parents need to work.

The LDS culture part of all this is, of course, the way women who work are sometimes looked down upon for doing it.

“In case there is any confusion where this idea comes from among Latter-day Saints that it is preferable that mothers not be employed…”

Um, in the quote you cited, it referred to full-time employment. There is a whole lot of room between “not being employed” and “full-time employment.”

I live in that space. I have a part-time professional career. I haven’t held a full-time job since I got married, but I earn enough to support the family if anything happens, and I’ve won awards and been nominated to the national board of my professional organization, etc. I’m also home after school with the kids most every day.

Let’s please all do a paradigm shift and worry about whether the children are being cared for, rather than whether parents work for pay.

A lot of moms at home spend significant amount of times at the gym, involved with PTA, directing community theater, shopping at the mall, doing genealogy, on the phone gossipping with friends. That’s considered okay because at least they are “not working,” but sometimes it can be detrimental, if they are not paying enough attention to their children. And I don’t think it is morally superior to someone like me who uses her free time for a paid career.

Men are often encouraged to help in the nurture of children, the primary responsiblity of women, (sorry I don’t have any citations for you, but I doubt this is contestable) so, wouldn’t be equally appropriate to encourage women to help in the father’s responsibility to provide for the family?

I don’t think that’s necessarily proscribed. The Proclamations doesn’t say anything about mothers not working. I personally think adequately nurturing children when they are very young precludes full time work, but that’s a personal thing.

So you’ve shared *your* opinion of what the Proclamation means. Which is adding significantly to what it actually says.

I simply disagree. I think you’re making it say less than it does.

Then why didn’t they just SAY who should do the work?

It does say that fathers “are responsible to provide.”

If it was so important that dad do the work of earning money, it would say “should provide,” rather than “are responsible.”

I don’t see a difference between “are responsible to provide” and “should provide.” You’re trying to make it say “are responsible to ensure provision” or some other such passive statement that it doesn’t say.

You just did. You have said that men who don’t have a job aren’t fulfilling their responsibility. If that’s not judging, what is?

Such a person is not providing the necessities of life for his family, which activity is assigned to him in the Proclamation. That’s not a judgment of the rightness or wrongness of any individual’s decision. If an individual has a compelling reason to go against the instruction then that’s between them and the Lord. Asserting that there is a prescribed ideal isn’t the same as judging people whose situations don’t match the ideal. I have acknowledged and the Proclamation itself acknowledges that there are circumstances in which deviations are acceptable.

Sorry, there is no prescribed ideal. Other than to follow the promptings of the Spirit, which is more accurate than listening to any words of men.

Then why doesn’t it just say “follow the promptings of the Spirit” instead of giving men the responsibility to preside and to provide?

I will concede that the assignment to mothers is a passive construction. It doesn’t say that mothers are responsible to nurture. It says that they “are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.” Taken in isolation, that gives mothers a responsibility and not an active assignment, in contrast to the assignments given to fathers.

The point of this post is not really how individual families decide to share the “responsibilities” of providing and nurturing, but how the “cultural ideals” are impacting women making educational and career choices.

My wife is a physician and she frequently has women in the church tell her that they would have loved to be a doctor, but never thought that they could balance it with a family. Strange that LDS men don’t shy away from becoming physicians because they worry about balancing family life.

I will admit that there is clearly confusion for LDS women. The prophet has told them to “get all the education they can,” and that “the whole gamut of education is open to you.” And yet, LDS women feel negative pressure if they use this education to forward career ambition.

ARJ,
Is your wife Susanna? If so she was an intern when my wife was her third year medical student. Small world.

An example was mention in 13. If for example, a mother can work a 40 hour week and make $120,000 compared to a father working a 40 hour week and making $50,000, and the monthly expenses require a $100,000 salary to meet the necessities, what is the best solution? Should that mother work, should that father work two jobs, or should they both work part time to make ends meet? If that mother went to work for 40 hours a week and the father did full time child care and home care, do you really think he would be shirking priesthood duties?

I wouldn’t say that. All I’m saying is that the Proclamation assigns X and if you don’t do X, you’re not doing what the Proclamation assigns. How to regard the Proclamations assignments and how much weight to give to it is up to each person. There is no enforcement. Besides, the Proclamation also suggests that adjustments may be necessary, so situations that don’t match what the Proclamation prescribes (like those in which fathers are not providing the necessities of life) aren’t necessarily contrary to the Proclamation and only the Lord can say whether someone whose situation doesn’t match the Proclamation is “shirking priesthood duties.” Anyways, neither I nor the Proclamation has said anything about priesthood duties.

But we shouldn’t pretend that the Proclamation makes no assignments. It clearly does.

I am currently the breadwinner. My husband stays home with our 8 month old son. He has moved with me to two states for my job. Currently he does most the housework, cooking, etc. He doesn’t like it staying at home, but understand that is the situation we are in right now. some men have no problem being at home and that’s great too. There is no right or wrong way to provide for a family (with the bounds of reason). I think part of it is just stepping up and help each other out. Why is that so hard? Why do jobs/duties have to be hardwired into people. We are to help each other, it’s a partnership.

That being said, I am sick of working full-time. I want to be home with my son. Partly I guess because of that being burned into my brain, but mostly because I want to be home with him. I have the opportunity to work part-time with my husband taking a full-time job. For us, it’s the best of both worlds. I can continue to work and have that adult interaction, but I also get to be home with my son a ton more.

Each couple is different. Why do we continue to want to place everyone into a neat little stereotype? When we moved here, people asked why. We said for my job. A few people gave us looks, but most are gracious enough to realize it’s none of their business.

I think the Church may be right in principle. Most fathers have a desire to provide for their families and they should if they can. But that is not always possible, especially today. If they don’t have the desire and the wife does, fine. As long as it’s taken care off and the marriage partners are happy, who are we to judge. Of course, your bishop or stake president might say otherwise and as a representative of the Church I wouldn’t fault them for that unless they were being overly harsh about it. I think the paradigm is shifting, but still has a ways to go.

Though I can see the point that Elder Eyring is making, how does this coexist with all that President Hinckley has said about preparing for an uncertain future?

We are a church that is built on the fundamental value of self reliance, why are women not required to be just as self reliant as men? Individuals that cannot support themselves and/or their families are not self reliant. Is that not a necessary attribute of each parent? That they can be self reliant?

The GAs have taught that the most important work any of us will do is our own home and, as quoted above, that women should get as much education as possible, which education obviously must include practical experience. That’s why the topic is interesting, not because some of you are perfectly obedient to all the counsel of the brethren and others of us aren’t.

I don’t know what’s motivating this comment. You don’t know anything about my family. I’m not saying what’s right and what’s wrong or who’s better. I’ve made it completely clear that none of us are in a position to judge anyone whose situation doesn’t match what’s taught. I’m pointing out what the Proclamation says and what the leadership has taught and citing that as the basis of the attitudes of members towards the idea of women pursuing demanding careers. The pressure that LDS women feel to not puruse demanding careers when they have children in the home is by design. If you don’t like what’s taught, your beef should be with the leadership, not the membership. Of course, again, nobody should treat anyone badly or look down on anyone whose situation doesn’t match what’s taught as the ideal.

Tom,

I must have misunderstood your comment. I have no beef with the leadership of the church, but you and I obviously disagree about what the doctrine is on this point.

John Mansfield,

I see your point about your degree narrowing your career options. I was thinking more about doctors or dentists or lawyers who share a practice where they can go in 1-2 days a week even teachers who can pursue their careers without neglecting their family.

It is interesting that Elder Eyring would make this statement when many of the brethren had careers that seem to fall into the category of careers that might unbalance family life.

Thanks both of you for your participation in the discussion.

“As soon as LDS mothers in Latin America are having this conversation, I will consider whether or not President Hinckley feels that women should not have a marketable skill and should always be stay at home moms.”

What a great insight. I do believe that this is part of what President Hinckley had in mind when the PotF talked about divinely designed responsibilities, but did not lay out specifics.

When I lived in Brazil, our family was looked at askance because our 4-year-old was not in school. In our area, kids typically started school at age 3. Such things vary from place.

Not to mention that the PotF talks about “necessities of life” without specifying “holding a paid job” which really may have no meaning in parts of Africa.

The counsel from the Church authorities today recognize the frequent need for women to work outside the home, but maintains the counsel of the priority of the home as the woman’s number one responsibility. Here is a statement from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism on the subject—

“The Church does not oppose women working outside the home per se, and recognizes the contributions that they make in government, professions, business, and in creative fields. Marvin J. Ashton of the Quorum of the Twelve explained that “a woman should feel free to go into the marketplace and into community service on a paid or volunteer basis if she so desires when her home and family circumstances allow her to do so without impairment to them” (Ashton, p. 93). It is understood that some mothers are required to work for the support of their children, but it is hoped that whenever possible, mothers with children in the home will make home their priority career” (Encyclopedia of Mormonism, edited by Daniel H. Ludlow, New York: Macmillan, 1992, p.1577).

“I recognize that some sisters are widowed or divorced. My heart is drawn to you who are in these circumstances. The Brethren pray for you, and we feel a great obligation to see that your needs are met. Trust in the Lord. Be assured He loves you and we love you. Resist bitterness and cynicism.
I also recognize that not all women in the Church will have an opportunity for marriage and motherhood in mortality. But if you in this situation are worthy and endure faithfully, you can be assured of all blessings from a kind and loving Heavenly Father—and I emphasize all blessings.
Solutions for you who are in a minority are not the same as for the majority of women in the Church who can and should be fulfilling their roles as wives and mothers.
It is a misguided idea that a woman should leave the home, where there is a husband and children, to prepare educationally and financially for an unforeseen eventuality. Too often, I fear, even women in the Church use the world as their standard for success and basis for self-worth. ” – President Ezra Taft Benson

“There are impelling reasons for our sisters to plan toward employment. . .
We want them to obtain all the education and vocational training possible
before marriage. If they become widowed or divorced and need to work, we
want them to have dignified and rewarding employment. If a sister does not
marry, she has every right to engage in a profession that allows her to
magnify her talents and gifts.”

(Howard W. Hunter, “Prepare for Honorable Employment,” Ensign, Nov. 1975, 124)

in fact there are innumerable quotes on the topic that clearly state the church’s position on the matter. So clearly in fact that I am very surprised this is even debatable to people that would be close to the prophets.

it seems much more the issue that people don’t know how to live within their means.

If I were to earn minimum wage where I live (which is 11.00/per hour) and work 40 hours a week I would earn $440. Then lets go through my current expenses… 20% tax = $80 leaving me with $360. Take away tithing 10% = $44 leaving me with $316. Its $170 for rent which leaves me with $146. Take away $90 for groceries leaving me with $56 to use for those other random things that come up.

That is literally how my money gets used up, I earn a little over minimum wage so we have a bit more excess which all goes to savings and set aside $40 for the random things that come up. Granted I only have 1 kid at the moment, but it doesn’t change the fact of the matter. If I were working at KFC, and earning the absolute minimum, then what I alone earn… allowing my wife to be at home with our children, is enough.