10/08/2007

Motherhood, housework, and who irons the clothes?

There's been a furor in the Mormon blogworld about the leader of Mormon women, President Beck, and her speech this weekend about Motherhood. She said such things as:
"Mothers who know" are nurturers. This is their special assignment and role in the plan of happiness. To nurture means to cultivate, care for, and make grow. Therefore, mothers who know create a climate for spiritual and temporal growth in their homes. Another word for nurturing is homemaking. Homemaking includes cooking, washing clothes, and dishes and keeping an orderly home. Home is where women have the most power and influence. Therefore, Latter-day Saint women should be the best homemakers in the world.

She adds: I have visited sacrament meetings in some of the poorest places on the earth, where mothers have dressed with great care in their Sunday best, despite walking for miles on dusty streets and using worn out public transportation. They bring daughters in clean and ironed dresses. Their sons where white shirts and ties and have missionary haircuts. [Cultural note: missionary haircuts are short 'dos for men where the hair is above the ears and above their shirt collar. There is a cultural norm for boys/men to wear white shirts each Sunday for church and for girls/women to wear their best dresses. Mormon mothers who don't enforce such dress rules for their children are sometimes maligned by church leaders...]

Wow, this was hard for many women to hear. To equate mothering with housekeeping seems an antiquated notion anyways. I'm also sad to hear her say that women's power and influence is limited to a domestic sphere. And to call on LDS women to be the best homemakers in the world seems a shallow goal in the midst of so many ways that LDS women could make an impact on the world.

She said later in her speech:
"Mothers who know" do less. They permit less of what will not bear good fruit eternally. They allow less media in their homes, less distraction, less activity that draws their children away from their home. Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world’s goods in order to spend more time with their children, more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time laughing, talking, singing, and exemplifying.

On this, I am on the same page with her in many respects. I think it is important for _everyone_ to carefully guard against too much busy-ness. It pains me that so many of us are too busy for relaxation, eating meals together, or for an evening stroll. Simplicity is an important goal, and perhaps our biggest challenge as 21st century Americans--especially those of us who live in urban and suburban regions of the country.

As I read through Pres Beck's talk I thought back on my own mother. She gave birth to 5 children in a seven year span of time. About midway through her childbearing years, our family moved out of state--hundreds of miles away from all extended family members--and she had to care for her own growing family while my Dad traveled extensively with his job, sometimes he was gone three weeks/month. She had a large home to care for (4 or 5 bedrooms) and we moved every 5 years or so. Mom was called to lead the regional LDS women's organization that covered parts of three states--meaning that she was frequently on the road traveling to distant church branches and leading meetings. During all that time she kept her teaching credential active in each state where we lived, often taking night classes or taking re-certification exams. By the time her youngest child was in the upper-grades of elementary school, she worked full-time as a teacher and was earning her master's degree.

My Mom was an awesome mother in so many ways. Yes, she was busy. Yes, her health suffered at times from stress-related ailments. But she raised a great crew of kids. Um, and she wasn't always the best homemaker. I don't mean that as any kind of slight AT ALL. The house was rarely 'messy.' She had hearty meals on the table every night of the week. We had clean clothes to wear (sometimes even home-sewn clothes, because Mom is a great seamstress). But she hired a housecleaner to help fill in the gap. And later a gardener and a pool-cleaner, too. She taught us to do our own laundry as soon as we were in Jr High. We also made our own lunches and after school snacks and occasionally cooked dinner for the family.

And probably the most important part of this story is that when my Dad died after a rather aggressive bout with cancer, Mom had a good job (two of them, actually, because she was a school administrator by day and a college professor by night at that point). She had taught us all great life skills, too--we can each sew, clean, cook, budget, etc. Though all of us kids are creative types of people that sometimes find writing a story more important than scrubbing the bathtub, I think we all turned out well (we've all been gainfully employed, three of us have graduate degrees, etc).

I guess the upshot is, if Mom had stayed home and had only been a remarkable homemaker, well I don't know that things would've turned out quite so well for her or for us. Of course everyone's situation is different, which is why I'm dismayed to see a one-size-fits-all approach to motherhood that's portrayed by Pres. Beck. IMO, parenthood has so little to do with how clean your house is and _everything_ to do with how you nurture, care, and respect for the children in your life, as well as making sure that you do all you can to teach them self-reliance and to provide for them financially.

14 comments:

amelia said...

ah, but jana, didn't you see where she said that nurturing = house-cleaning?

this particular talk made me so angry that i swore at president beck while she was speaking. a first, i think. i don't typically react to conference talks by swearing.

i appreciate some elements of her message (the point about simplicity resonates with me, too). but as a whole it made me angry and sad. is being the best homemakers in the world really the highest we can ask our women to strive for?

jana said...

amelia:
I didn't have the knee-jerk reaction to this talk that many women did, but it pains me that it has hurt so many of my sisters--especially those who aren't in a position to be "women who know" for all kinds of good reasons.

jana said...

I should add that I meant the above comment only in terms of Pres Beck's definition. By every other imaginable definition of the phrase "women who know", all of my female friends are "in the know."

Caroline said...

Wow, this talk was a doozy. I'm so glad I missed it. It probably would have driven me to tears of disgust and anger.

I like your last paragraph, Jana. As someone who is sanitationally challenged, I'd like to think there's still hope for me to be a good parent.

Anonymous said...

I am amazed that any women in the Church would have any problems with this talk.

A. It was said over the pulpit at General Confence, which means it is what the Lord wanted to be said, and is modern day scripture.

B. She said nothing new. All of what she said has been the Churches position for years and years.

C. Having a clean house is the same as having a clean soul. The spirit cannot dwell in any unclean place, especially a home.

Caroline - Glad to hear that you are glad you missed the Leaders of the Lords church teaching us in this modern age as well. Good Luck.

JohnR said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JohnR said...

Having a clean house is the same as having a clean soul. The spirit cannot dwell in any unclean place, especially a home.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Really, you can't be serious. If you subscribe to this simplistic logic, every prophetic utterance and angelic visitation in filthy conditions (say, Liberty Jail) were w/o the Spirit, and infamous 20th century dictators who were obsessed with cleanliness had blameless souls!

Seriously: it's encounters with this sort of smug self-righteousness and utter absence of understanding and compassion (in this case, I'm thinking of single and working LDS moms who feel even smaller after hearing a talk like this) that make me want to stay far, far away from the Church (unfortunately, this often keeps me away from the good apples as well). I may even share this comment thread with my children as an object lesson.

Anonymous said...

I think in all the examples you gave the men and women there clean up as much as they could. The gospel is very simple. It sounds like if anybody has a problem with what Sister Beck said (in any way shape or form) need to spend time on their knees. You can try to justify your working. And your are right there are a small number of people through no fault of their own have to work to support their family (divorced women who's husbands wanted nothing to do with then, or try to repair their marriage, or widowed sisters who’s Husbands died prematurely). But the majority of the "whiners" are people through their BAD choices have ended up either having to be the bread winner of the family because there is no one else or because the WANT to, to support a life style. The difference is the Lord will judge those that have to live this way and those that chose to live this way differently.

Sister Beck's talk angered those Sisters and Brothers that need to rearrange their beliefs and feeling towards the gospel plan, just like President Hinckley angered those people that have anger problems. Both need to spend time on their knees. Good Luck.

jana said...

To anonymous:
My name isn't Caroline and I'm one DIRTY girl (not that it's any of your business, of course) because I just spent half an hour spreading steer manure in my garden. I know that my lovely plants don't grow without plenty of poo. And its part of my job as a good MOTHER and HOMEMAKER and gardener to make sure that my family is well-fed with tasty organic foodstuffs.

And as much as I'm tempted to delete your rude comment, I'm going to let it stay. Because it's a perfect example of the kind of smelly shmuck that's dished out by patriarchal Mormon ogres whose smug self-satisfaction is far stinkier (and much more repulsive) than anything I've been shoveling recently.

jana said...

fwiw anonymous, I think you've got the wrong blog--I'm not the Exponent writer who's been discussing her work outside the home (I work part-time only when my teenage kids are in school)...so go bother someone else.

besides that, spending time on my knees if right near impossible for me considering the fact that one of them was long ago cremated...

JohnR said...

This is mainly to Jana, but I welcome any thoughts from friends or empathetic commenters as well: My response to anonymous is very strong--almost visceral, and I'm trying to understand this. If it's the empathy and understanding of my LDS friends who kept me struggling in the Church as long as I did, it's the arrogant, self-righteous attitude of people like anonymous who made me feel like I couldn't get away fast enough (and who make me avoid the 'nacle as well).

Every time I feel like the wounds have healed over, and I can start trying to be friendly towards the Church again, something like this comes along...*sigh* I think this whole healing thing is going to take a long time.

Maybe that's the bottom line: I feel deeply wounded: by the Church and its teachings, by its members and leaders (however well-intended) and by monotheistic religion in general. It takes restraint to avoid trying to hurt back. I think this is why I can't engage with Mormonism the way that Jana is courageously trying to do (and I fully support her in it, and she respects my desire for distance).

Jana, sorry for the threadjack. I knew from day one that you had dreams that couldn't be contained within the walls of our domicile, and that your ambition, intelligence, and career pursuits would make you an excellent partner and parent and example to all of us. You're you, thoroughly and authentically you, and you're one of the most compassionate, moral, sensitive people I know (and I've known you long enough to know every foible) and I wouldn't have you any other way. :*

jana said...

johnr: Can you tell that this is raw for me, too? I'm amazed at how my whole tone and demeanor change when someone gets all self-righteous and mormon-y on me. Can't stand it at all. Definitely picking at a raw wound there. And because I'm not much of a masochist, I just want to GET AWAY from whoever's hurting me so badly (tho I don't seem to mind flinging a bit of poo in their direction as I run).

John White said...

Neither of you is being very Quakerly. Perhaps you should spend some time contemplating that.

Not really, but I couldn't really thing of any other accusatory Quaker stuff to bring down on you.

Jen-ben said...

This is my first time on your blog Jana, and I have to say I really had no idea so many women had trouble with that talk. I for one can see both sides. I however would have to disagree at the way anonymous has gone about sharing their feelings. It's never our place to judge someone else...ever. Or at least you could have gone about sharing your ideas with a little more kindness.
I guess I had just assumed that the house-cleaning was only part of the nurturing, after all, spending time with my children is what I consider to be the REAL nurturing, not a spotless house. We just all have to remember that even though that was a conference talk we have to listen to the spirit as we hear these talks- for our own personal message, they may all be different. Sister Parkin (the last Genreal R.S. Pres.) was my mission mom and she always taught us this. If we are always striving to be close to the spirit, we can not go wrong. It will do us absolutely no good to waste our precious time being angry at Sis. Beck.
Jana, you an amazing, strong and wonderful human being....I love your insights!