How much education does a SAHM need?

[Tex]

I decided I have a little more to say on this (not on SAHM, but on Barbara's contribution).

I try to walk softly when it comes to other people's religions. I grew up in Texas as a minority faith around a lot of diversity in belief. Funny enough, I took very little crap for my own. My Christian friends were typically quite concilliatory, and their acceptance helped me to respect our differences as well as our similarities. I've tried to emulate that everywhere I've gone since.

It's no secret I have fierce words when it comes to "my own": Mormons that I don't think toe the line. But I think you'd be hard pressed to find any of my posts that speak ill of other faiths.

As best as I can remember, Barbara used to follow that paradigm too. I don't recall her getting her hands dirty in some of our huge LDS policy/doctrine arguments. For some reason (maybe because she considered BYU?) that's changed recently, particularly when it comes to the role of women in the church. Apparently spending some time on a sports message board and a pamphlet from the BYU law school suddenly have emboldened her to think she knows what she's talking about. It doesn't help that self-loathers like Waters fan the fire.

It's demeaning. It's really unfortunate. It doesn't help inter-faith discourse.

[MikeWaters]

Tex, what role?

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by Tex

I decided I have a little more to say on this (not on SAHM, but on Barbara's contribution).

I try to walk softly when it comes to other people's religions. I grew up in Texas as a minority faith around a lot of diversity in belief. Funny enough, I took very little crap for my own. My Christian friends were typically quite concilliatory, and their acceptance helped me to respect our differences as well as our similarities. I've tried to emulate that everywhere I've gone since.

It's no secret I have fierce words when it comes to "my own": Mormons that I don't think toe the line. But I think you'd be hard pressed to find any of my posts that speak ill of other faiths.

As best as I can remember, Barbara used to follow that paradigm too. I don't recall her getting her hands dirty in some of our huge LDS policy/doctrine arguments. For some reason (maybe because she considered BYU?) that's changed recently, particularly when it comes to the role of women in the church. Apparently spending some time on a sports message board and a pamphlet from the BYU law school suddenly have emboldened her to think she knows what she's talking about. It doesn't help that self-loathers like Waters fan the fire.

It's demeaning. It's really unfortunate. It doesn't help inter-faith discourse.

This doesn't make sense. Are you suggesting only Mormons can properly discuss whether or not the church and/or BYU incentivize women to either not get an education or, alternatively, not use the education they obtained in the workplace?

[BarbaraGordon]

You know, Tex, you can think of me whatever you wish.

I don't think you can find a single instance in which I have honestly criticized the church (although I did at one point suggest that the doctrinal focus on works can lead to frustration and a sense of inadequacy).

I do think the BYU law school mailing was awfully odd. Even the LDS women I talked to were taken aback (and one was inspired to a very rare fit of profanity) at the material.

In this thread I was sincere in what I wrote to A-A. Are all thirty-year-old Mormon women unhappy? No. Are most? Probably not. But my experience in talking to them is that there's considerable pressure to pursue a certain life course. I believe that that was Mike's point, and I was agreeing with him.

I don't know if you read CUF. If you do, then perhaps you're referring to my trolling of UtahDan two weeks ago. I'm surprised you would fall for that. In general, the use of phrases like "archaic misogyny" and "pathetic holdover from a bygone era" is a pretty good indication that a poster is not engaging in genuine, earnest discussion.

I think my feelings on the church and its members are a well-established matter of record. Do I think there are inherent dangers in the messages that cultures like yours and mine send to young women? Absolutely. But after all I've posted in three years, if you wish to think that I honestly believe that the church is a misogynist mechanism for the institutionalized repression of women, well, nothing I say now is going to change your mind.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

This doesn't make sense. Are you suggesting only Mormons can properly discuss whether or not the church and/or BYU incentivize women to either not get an education or, alternatively, not use the education they obtained in the workplace?

I don't think that is what Tex said at all. He said no one can discuss it.

[All-American]

Originally Posted by BarbaraGordon

A-A, I'd tread carefully here. Take a dozen thirty-year-old LDS women and ask them how they feel about the freedom (or lack thereof) they were afforded. Ask the ones who dropped out of college to have babies. Ask the ones who got graduate degrees that they never used. Ask the ones like BBB who chose career over family and have to justify that decision every single day.

You're talking about an institution whose law school sent me official material reassuring me that it's okay to get a law degree and then stay home in the end. (This is true, of course, but you'd think that a law school would also want to point out that it's okay to get a law degree and then, you know, practice law!!) I am an outsider, but it is my impression that the cultural forces shaping the LDS young woman's understanding of herself and her role in society are real and powerful. What is perhaps most dangerous is that those forces are rarely so explicit as they were in the leaflet I was mailed.

Let me be clear on where I stand on all this.

I believe that it is ideal for a mother to be able to stay at home with her children; consequentially, I have no qualms about the church, BYU, or any other church-affiliated institution encouraging women to do so. Nevertheless, it is not always possible or desirable for a woman to stay at home. The choice of what is best that should be left up to individual families. Consequentially, any attempt to discourage women or actively close off opportunities for them to pursue their goals in order to get them to stay home is reprehensible, and I'm willing to condemn it no less quickly than any other, should I come upon it.

What I see here in this thread is an attempt to discern where BYU in particular and the church in general is on the spectrum. There's a fine line between church leaders encouraging women to do what they feel will ultimately lead to the greatest happiness for them in life and coercing them to do it. Mike and Babs see coercion; I don't.

I will concede this much, though: I am not a thirty-something LDS woman who forsook educational and vocational opportunities to bear children and stay at home with them. I have not spoken extensively with members of that particular group on this matter. If they say that they experienced encouragement so extreme as to constitute institutional repression, I will not refute their testimony. I will say, however, that those with whom I have spoken on this issue did not feel that doors were being closed off to them, nor were they being actively discouraged from pursuing their goals.

I will not condemn anybody who encourages somebody to do what they think would be best for that individual, even if I disagree with them. I will absolutely condemn anybody who tries to force somebody from pursuing what they believe is best for themselves. There is obviously going to be some disagreement as to what constitutes what, but if institutional repression is there, I want to see it so I can add my name to the list of those who despise it.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by All-American

Let me be clear on where I stand on all this.

I believe that it is ideal for a mother to be able to stay at home with her children; consequentially, I have no qualms about the church, BYU, or any other church-affiliated institution encouraging women to do so. Nevertheless, it is not always possible or desirable for a woman to stay at home. The choice of what is best that should be left up to individual families. Consequentially, any attempt to discourage women or actively close off opportunities for them to pursue their goals in order to get them to stay home is reprehensible, and I'm willing to condemn it no less quickly than any other, should I come upon it.

...Mike and Babs see coercion; I don't.

Clear as mud.

You are fine with BYU officially and overtly encouraging women to stay at home with children, yet you find the discouragement of "goals" to be reprehensible.

Sounds like someone is confused inside.

I'm betting AA no one has questioned your decision to go to law school, in terms of how it is you will have a family.

[MikeWaters]

I don't have a problem, per se, with x% of LDS women choosing to be SAHMs or homemakers.

What I am saying is that the 100-x% who are not, ought to feel safe and welcome in the church. I am afraid we have lost many of them, and will lose most of them, because the culture is unfriendly to them. And that, moreover, the culture asks them to make false choices.

The church is failing in retention. If the church wants to toss me out the window because they don't want people like me introducing ideas and discussing issues, that's going to be up to them, I guess.

Because some here get their panties in a wad doesn't mean that the problem will go away. (is that analogy/insult sexist?)

People like me don't come to power. Elder Browns are once-in-generation or perhaps once-in-a-century (I can't hold a candle to Elder Brown, btw)--people that rise through the ranks but are willing to take hard looks at the traditions of our fathers. Yes, literally "fathers" because it is an overwhelmingly patriarchal system. But people like me can say something hoping that someone who comes to power will take a nugget of these ideas and run with them, in the different ways that can happen.

[All-American]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Clear as mud.

You are fine with BYU officially and overtly encouraging women to stay at home with children, yet you find the discouragement of "goals" to be reprehensible.

Sounds like someone is confused inside.

I'm betting AA no one has questioned your decision to go to law school, in terms of how it is you will have a family.

You've not understood my distinction. I believe there is a difference between encouraging somebody to do something and discouraging them from doing anything else. It's the difference between, say, supporting your child's decision to go on a mission and threatening to cut them off if they don't.

My decision to go to law school makes for an insufficient example, but you brought it up, so I'll use it. For most of my college career, I very seriously considered going into academia. When I talked with friends and family about the decision, many if not most expressed concern over whether going into teaching would be the best decision in terms of raising a family, but every last one of them encouraged me to do what I thought was right. My grandfather, for example, is as big a proponent of this model of the family as anybody out there, and was only slightly less vocal in expressing his concern over whether this was right than in expressing his support of whatever I chose to do. One of the reasons I eventually decided to go into law (though, I note, not by any means the only one) is that I believe it will make for a better family life than academia. That was my choice alone; nobody ever tried to keep me from going into teaching.

In fact, I think my grandfather, a retired doctor, is more disappointed by me going into law than he would have been had I gone into teaching. He wanted me to be a doctor. Said as much on a number of occasions. But that's all parenthetical.

So yes, I've made career and educational decisions based on how I thought it would affect raising a family. But as I said, I think this is a big fat orange, and we're talking about apples at the present.

[All-American]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I don't have a problem, per se, with x% of LDS women choosing to be SAHMs or homemakers.

What I am saying is that the 100-x% who are not, ought to feel safe and welcome in the church. I am afraid we have lost many of them, and will lose most of them, because the culture is unfriendly to them. And that, moreover, the culture asks them to make false choices.

The church is failing in retention. If the church wants to toss me out the window because they don't want people like me introducing ideas and discussing issues, that's going to be up to them, I guess.

Because some here get their panties in a wad doesn't mean that the problem will go away. (is that analogy/insult sexist?)

People like me don't come to power. Elder Browns are once-in-generation or perhaps once-in-a-century (I can't hold a candle to Elder Brown, btw)--people that rise through the ranks but are willing to take hard looks at the traditions of our fathers. Yes, literally "fathers" because it is an overwhelmingly patriarchal system. But people like me can say something hoping that someone who comes to power will take a nugget of these ideas and run with them, in the different ways that can happen.

Aside from the parts where you cast yourself in the mold of a martyred prophet, I actually agree with the general sentiment expressed here.