Here’s a secret. Every man in the church, with the possible exceptions of those whose names are Romney or Marriott, feels a strong sense of anxiety and inadequacy when it comes to providing for his family. Regardless of how well a man is performing this task, there is always a need for more money.

Actually, I think it is more common than that. My husband has no idea how much money he makes. We were at a retirement planning seminar a few years ago, and had to calculate something based on his income, and he was off by more than $10,000.

He has direct-deposit, and pays no attention to money whatsoever.

Is it wrong for a woman to prefer to take care of her children instead of working?

Now there’s an oxymoron.

I resent very much that the term “working” has is frequently co-opted to mean only “working for pay.” There is already a word to describe that: employed.

I have a graduate degree and professional job, but the hardest work I have ever done is the years at home with children.

I want to reiterate once more that my comments were not meant to be potshots at all. They were not directed to the many men who care deeply about providing and who probably put more stress and anxiety into it all than I can fully appreciate because I have never have had the burden of being the primary provider for our family. I KNOW it’s a heavy burden, and I want to reiterate that I am deeply aware of that.

But do you not know of men who haven’t fulfilled their roles and their family has suffered or fallen apart? Those are the tragic situations about which I was talking. Even then, my intention is not to take potshots, but to acknowledge the truth in what we are taught. There is power in these principles and roles and truths.

And it’s a process for all of us. Always. The ideals prick us all at some point or another, don’t they? They cause us to reflect and worry and pray and wonder if we are doing enough.

But see? To me that is part of the purpose. It’s not all supposed to be perfectly delineated because we are supposed to get our specific direction from God, to learn to take the counsel and go to Him to figure out the details.

No, I don’t include them on the list of people who misunderstand the line by line concept. I understand what you are saying, and why that can seem to some to be confusing, but in the end, I don’t see it as much different from prophets teaching about the seeds of godliness that we are all born with. We all have divine nature in us. But just because we have those divine qualities in us doesn’t mean they will just manifest naturally, without effort, faith, sacrifice, and patience with the process of development.

Many of the women in the areas where I’ve spent most of the last 12 years of my professional life would praise God continually with tears streaming down their faces for His goodness and mercy if they had a husband who believed in the principles of this proclamation and honored them as equal partners.

Yup. Exactly.

Mark (thanks for your comment on my blog, although fwiw, I didn’t see your comments here until just now, and wrote that post last nite),:

FWIW, I was not talking about men who provide and care about it. I was talking about men who sit home or do very little and expect their wives to do it all…or close to that extreme, anyway. There is not partnership as it is designed to be if one person is doing all the work. You can’t both provide and nurture for the whole family as one person without putting strain on a family. As any single parent how hard it is to play both roles alone.

I have also seen men who won’t take the spiritual leadership to pull the family together under that safe umbrella of gospel living and running the program, and that causes lots of problems. Women shouldn’t have to nag their covenant husbands to have family prayer, family scripture study, FHE, etc.

In a true partnership, both want to do what’s best for the family, not pursue their own selfish goals at the expense of the good of the family.

This is very different from conscientious couples who are honestly seeking to do what’s best, and may goof along the way here and there, as we all do in keeping balance in our homes and lives.

Do you anticipate anytime soon when it will be acceptable to say this:
I know too many men, too, whose wives are not fulfilling those basic roles. IMO, every man deserves to have a wife at least be willing and prepared to do what she can to nurture the family.

I personally think this can be as much as concern as the other. If a couple has children and a woman neglects her role as nurturer and refuses to do her part in caring for the children, it can put burdens on a family and/or on the man, just as when a man doesn’t fulfill his roles.

Again, partnership requires both to be invested in the family and its goals.

I neither said nor implied that. What I said is that there are many people who are living the overall ideal articulated in the Proclamation (adapting the general rule to their own individual circumstances), while the general rule is a wonderful intermediate ideal for those who aren’t mature enough yet to adapt the general rule to their own individual circumstances. I also NEVER said that following the general rule is a bad or inferior thing – IF it fits one’s individual circumstances.

Just so you understand the experiences from where I am coming when I say that:

In the 21 1/2 years of our marriage, my wife has been both a SAHM and been employed – both full-time and part-time. I have been a full-time student and full-time employee simultaneously, a full-time employee, a part-time employee and unemployed. Each instance has been a result of our own circumstances that literally required us to make “individual adaptations” to what we both really wanted – for her to stay home while I worked full-time.

What I’m saying is a DEFENSE of the Proclamation and the “doctrines” in it. I’m saying it is comprehensive enough to fit EVERY circumstance my wife and I have encountered in over 20 years of marriage (and those which every other couple in existence will experience). I am saying ALL of the assumed conflicts concerning this particular issue that drive so many members and non-members nuts disappear when the full meaning and implications of that paragraph are understood. It says, in essence:

“Here is the general rule. Every couple must consider their own circumstances and determine if there is an individual adaptation that would create their own unique ideal.”

How in the world can you interpret my comments here as anti-Proclamation? All I’ve really done, at the most fundamental level, is parse the actual Proclamation. I can understand disagreeing with my conclusions, but I don’t understand how you go from my actual comments to the paragraph I quoted at the beginning of this comment.

Ouch! I’m truly sorry if I offended. I thought my post was meant to illicit answers to honest questions I have, given what working mothers I’ve known have told me. I haven’t surveyed any large samples or anything. And you’re right that I certainly don’t know the motivation of most (let alone individual) working mothers.

I had previously assumed that most working mothers believed that they really needed to work outside the home in order to provide for the family. I’m just surprised that most working mothers I’ve worked with have NOT expressed a real financial need for them to work. That surprised me.

Starfoxy said, “Kids don’t benefit from a stay at home mom if she is depressed, lonely, resentful of them, and short tempered. Whatever a mom does to keep herself in a place where she best love and appreciate her kids is worthwhile.”

I agree, because that really is putting the kids first. I think it’s a very reasonable conclusion for a prayerful mother whose primary concern is, “How can I best serve my kids?” It may be by staying at home, but it may not. As long as that’s her honest criteria (which only she and God can know), then I’m confident she’ll come to the right decision.

queuno said, “There hasn’t been a particularly vocal instruction from on high about strict SAHMness from the last couple of presidents of the church.”

Actually, there has. And plenty of it.

m&m said, “It *isn’t* all about individual circumstances. Those only come once we know the doctrine and teachings and ideals. If our leaders did was say, “do whatever you want,” we *would* lose sight of the ideal, the pattern.”

Precisely. Frankly, a lot of people sound like they don’t believe in the ideal, and that mothers and fathers really are generally interchangeable. While that may be so in marginal cases, there is a solid foundation of doctrine that men and women are different, and that they are meant to be different. Gender roles are not sexist assumptions that the church will simply grow out of.

m&m said, “IMO, I can’t help but think that one reason these teachings are sometimes misunderstood is that sometimes people think they describe what we should all be born with. But if that doesn’t apply for any other gospel ideal (minus those few situations where someone may truly have a gift they don’t have to work and pray and sweat to obtain), why should these ideals be any different?”

Well said. Thank you.

Brad said, “…rather than devoting two weeks to pretending that there are some enormous, essential differences between mothers and fathers and between motherly and fatherly duties and responsibilities.”

One problem with that: there ARE enormous, essential differences between mothers and fathers and their duties.

Ray said, “I have no doubt that if most of the men and women in the world were acting maturely enough to not need “primary roles and responsibilities” taught, that the Proclamation would have been worded very differently.”

So, we should take the attitude that we are too enlightened for the doctrines in the Proclamation? We should consider them temporary necessities? Or for the less enlightened? No, thank you.