I am guest-teaching a lesson this afternoon to a group of six young women, ages 12-18, titled "How can I prepare now to become a righteous wife and mother?"
When I first saw that the topic of the month was family, my initial reaction was: dang. Not that I don't love my family, or understand that family is important. Quite the opposite. But I feel like as I have lived my life, interacted with more and more kinds and definitions of family, lived in and defined my own marriage and role within our little family, things have become less, not more, clear.
Two of the leaders that will be sitting in that room want to be mothers and are instead dealing with infertility. All of the girls that will be listening have value and purpose even if they do not end up being a wife or a mother. I wish the lesson were just titled "How can I be useful, righteous, and happy?" which would in turn prepare them for whatever life may give them.
I am grateful however, that the lesson is not "How can I prepare for my wedding?" as it seems like it is in so many teenage girls' minds. The focus on preparing to BE something, rather than just for an event, is really great. So too is getting them think about the whys and goals of their current crushes and relationships. Maybe get them to try and be just a little less silly about it all. Preparation is good. It's just that being these particular things (a wife and a mother) are not really within their control.
I have no idea how or why I ended up getting married the way I did. I didn't ever focus too much on it, and if I'm honest, growing up I really wanted to be a mom more than be married. While I remember lot of silly lessons and activities in YW swirling around wedding dresses and preparing ourselves for the roles we would all be taking on, I also remember the faces and lives of all the real women that came to church each week. The stories and lives that didn't fit the script really of when and how to get married or become a mother or be a woman. Some did. All were a blessing to me as I tried to sort through what my real purpose and value was.
Then it just happened. I had a boyfriend without ever planning on it or really wanting one. It was confusing and great and overwhelming. And then years later, another, who I just felt I would marry almost from the first time I saw him, but had no idea why. Had I not run into these two very unique people, I am sure I would be living abroad right now, unmarried, teaching or doing some sort of volunteer work, and I would be okay with that. I recognized that I wasn't the type of girl most boys would want to marry, and marriage was something I vaguely hoped for, but didn't necessarily expect or seek. Why did it happen for me, and not yet for my practically perfect little brother, or fantastic former mission companions, or so many many people truly seeking it, with no control over who gets placed in their lives? Preparing for the fact that it may not happen will have to be part of this lesson.
Then if we are going to learn about marriage, gender roles inevitably come up. They must. They are so clearly taught and emphatically supported by so many. But I must say I have a difficult time with many modern mainstream mormon ideas about womens' roles, in marriage or otherwise. Primary manuals end up being slightly reworked before I teach them to our class. I cringe at some wording in the temple. I search for meaning, almost hoping what I think is there is actually very different. So many of the ideas about who women and men are in relation to one another have not yet settled into sense in my head. I want so much more information. I don't understand my own heavenly family. I don't know my heavenly mother, and I'm not supposed to talk about or to her. I do not know to what role I aspire, to whom I look for my guide, my possibility. I don't know what a heavenly marriage or eternal gender roles look like.
As for our own family, my husband does not preside over me in our earthly relationship. We view ourselves standing on the same plane, with different ideas and strengths, but neither above the other. We have so far each taken turns being the sole provider. I know this is not unique, and that most of these girls I am teaching would not (unless they are taught in church) expect to be in a relationship where the word "preside" (and all it connotes) exists. And I don't want to tell them, wish it didn't exist. But every week in primary, I sit on a small metal chair and hear our four year old class sing the verse to
this year's theme song, "A father's place is to preside, provide, to love and teach the gospel to his children...."
Mormonism is in no way lacking strong female heroines, trail blazers, and women who excelled in these two roles (wife and mother) as well as those who proved roles or positions previously forbidden to women were completely possible. I cannot read enough about those fascinating early years. But I feel like so much of what was incredible and accomplished in young mormonism was somewhat smothered by the cultural norms and church restructuring of the 40's and 50's, which were then held onto tightly against the 60's and 70's, painted pastel for the 80's, and still somehow linger on today. Doctrine and culture all blur together.
But yet so much is so lovely, so healthy, so practical, in how we are taught about families in our church. It has brought forth much good fruit. And many good children. Striving to live and be as Christ, controlling appetites, valuing the family as the most important endeavor, all serve to help build and maintain strong families and marriages.
As for motherhood, the teaching that "motherhood is women's holiest calling" always felt fine to me, since it really was something I personally wanted and saw great value in. It resonated that mothering, such a sacrificial, exclusively female, and downright miraculous act
was holy. Thousands of years of ancient religions and fertility cults back me up on that. After we were married however, there were two long years where I had to deal with the reality that it wasn't happening for me, and may never. I wanted to fulfill my "calling", but could not. Was there anything else about me that mattered? Many women find themselves in this situation, and the constant focus on motherhood as the most important thing a woman can and should do, stings.
Then there are women who simply feel no desire to be a mother. They come to church and wonder if they then have any role to play, if they are less. And regardless of whether or not the opportunity comes, women are consoled that "we are all mothers". Yet we never hear similar language spoken to the men. They are taught that fatherhood is
one of their important roles, but not the only. They are never praised for their innate qualities that make them so perfect for fatherhood, or told when they are not married or have no children that "It's okay, all men are fathers." Are parenting roles then not really of equal importance?
But back to the teaching of the lesson.
I am going to start by having the girls write down what they feel like the word "righteous" means. After we read them, we'll talk about the need for a personal understanding of their goals or standard of goodness. How do they know or have cause for belief in God? How and where do they find guidance, inspiration, motivation? The importance of taking that on for themselves, not waiting for someone else to define it for them. Of being seekers of truth and knowledge.
Then write down their answers to these questions:
What does a healthy boyfriend/girlfriend relationship look and feel like?
What do you think marriage will be like?
What parts of marriage excite you? Scare you?
Write down all the places/ways you have learned about marriage?
In general, do you like yourself? Why?
What do you hope to accomplish or become in your life? Why?
What does it mean to you to commit to something?
I'm not sure exactly where it will go from there, depending on their responses. But at some point throughout I hope to discuss their thoughts on the following:
Individuality, equality, and vulnerability in marriage.
Expectations of what it is, what it will provide, what it will require.
What are their thoughts on if they don't ever marry or have children?
And possibly
How would they handle it if a spouse changes, or at least certain key aspects of who they fell in love with or expected to live their life with are no longer a part of that person. Or if they themselves are the one who changes?
How would they deal with it when things they thought
would change, do not?
"First, a partnership focuses on the best way to do the task, not on who gets to give the orders. Second, partnership always builds strengths in both partners, even though each partner has different strengths." Chieko Okazaki
Marriage is simply not one thing. It is an idea, a lived reality, each as unique and diverse as the humans who live within it.
