It’s been a while since I followed my muse off into a totally off-topic story for your entertainment pleasure. I was just off reading The Great Padded Bra Incident of 1982 at Chubby Girl Brigade and was reminded of my very own Evil Boy.

I went to school with Evil Boy from kindergarten until the day I graduated. Lucky me.

I grew up in a really small town in Southern Utah. This is the kind of small town that Eastern types and European types just don’t get. They (you) say “small” and think something with only one McDonalds and a half-hour drive to the good shopping. I say small and I mean no stoplights, theatres, shopping, or fast food for a good two and a half hours. Over a mountain, a desert and a couple’a creeks. Wide open spaces. Sage brush and tumble weeds. Got it? Okay.

Here’s some pictures of the pretty parts.

My entire county (the size of Rhode Island) went to one high school. And it still weren’t big. And in junior high I lived in the wrong small town and had to bus through an hour of ugly desert every single day.

I was a socially awkward girl. Bright enough to be a know-it-all, but not bright enough to figure out the social skills thing. And I was (am) an under-dogger. I may have been a reject, but I still had reject friends. And Jr. High may have been torture, but it wasn’t pure living hell.

Well for Kelly, it was pure living hell. Kelly was the stinky girl. She and her nine stinky siblings lived in filth a few houses down the road. I know I tend to exaggerate, but it really was filth. Smears of black stuff on the walls, the stench of dead mice rotting in the corners (I saw them myself), a huge clump of dried-hard yellow mayonnaise in front of the stove, a turkey bone left from Thanksgiving under the couch in April, dog crap everywhere.

Well, soon after Junior High started, the bus driver took me aside and asked me to sit with Kelly, to be her assigned seat partner and general protector. I didn’t want to, but I did. I didn’t want to because my own social standing was so precarious that I knew being her friend was the kiss of death to my peace. I did, because I knew I was strong, and I had so much more than she did.

I didn’t always perform my function well. Like the time in computer class when she started saying “Aye” as an answer when she meant “yes”, but all we heard was “eye”, and I looked at her, disdain in my eye and said in an ugly tone, “Eye, what’s that supposed to mean?”

I didn’t when I’d sit on the other side of the classroom, and do the aloof thing so people would know she wasn’t “really” my friend. I still feel bad about that.

But all in all, I took this charge seriously. I took her to my house “to play dress up” and pushed her into the shower when the stink got too much to endure. I tried to help her cut and style her hair. And whenever possible, I deterred and deflected the torture.

At least I could sometimes make the evil boy feel stupid, Kelly needed.

One day the seating chart changed and the Evil Boy was assigned seat right in front of Kelly and me. The Kelly-torture started immediately. I don’t remember exactly what he said to her, or what I said back, but I do remember, in sharp detail, the moment he turned around and spit in my face.

The smell of another person’s bodily fluids invading my space. The degrading sticky slimy vileness. A visceral reaction I just can’t make real enough in words went straight to the core and shredded my reason.

The evil boy smiled, and turned around giggling with his evil companion.

And I reached forward and grabbed a huge chunk of his hair and pulled as hard as I could.

I remember looking down at my hand in utter shock. A huge ball of black fuzz clenched in my fist. Then up at his head, a bald spot the size of a fist. Then down at my fur ball. Then the open window. The wind caught it and it floated away. Bye bye hair.

He screamed, cried. And never turned around to taunt Kelly again.

In fact I never spoke to him again, not once in six more years of school together.

He died in a motor cycle accident a few years after we graduated.

I’ve been feeling guilty (who me? What am I, a Mormon woman?) for not replying to comments more. This guilt stems from that fact that I know what a thrill I get when people reply to my comments on their blogs. Someone acknowledged me! Pure joy right into my veins.

And the thing is, I want to reply to most of the comments. I read all of them, and nearly every time I feel the urge to either a) tell you how smart you are for agreeing with me, b) thank you for teaching me something or c) tell you why you’re totally wrong (because you didn’t agree with me). But when I start to indulge in this desire to reply to every comment, or even a fraction of the comments, my life starts to stink. Literally.

The bathrooms start to reek of urine, the house of old socks, and the children of peanut butter and pickle juice. It’s not a pretty sight . . . er . . . scent, let me tell ya.

So I’m posting this to tell you I love your comments. LOVE them. I can’t tell you how many things I’ve learned, how many brain doors have opened because of comments from you all. And it also amazes me how often I decide I really have to respond to some comment, only to read on and find someone else has already said exactly what I would have said only better.

And most of all, Thank you for making this blog such a comforting community. I needed this spot desperately. Thank you for making it with me.

Aimee says this about herself:

About myself… hmmm… I really never know what to say. I am an artist, a stay at home wife, and soon to be a student again. I love being outside and being active, and I really love to rollerblade. I run an animal rescue website to help rescue groups get more traffic so pets can be adopted, I do this because it is my hearts work. My favorite Easter treat is Peeps, and Easter and Halloween are my favorite holidays.

Aimee’s Animals*Pet Rescue Web Site Resource

Art in the Home

At my house, we like to have a variety of artwork, like Monet, and other classic artisits, but also new artists, retro poster art, and of course our own art. We feel that it is important to have beautiful things around us that inspire and uplift as part of making our home a sanctuary for ourselves. However, although we are LDS, we don’t have any “LDS art” in our house. It is a choice that we made because although a lot of it is beautiful, none of it is really our style or taste. You might have a hard time coming into our home and knowing right away that we are LDS, because there just isn’t any of the usual stuff on the walls.

We do have photos of the temple, but those are wedding photos. After visiting other members homes, I have often wondered how much of the phenomenon of having a lot of “LDS specific” art in the home is a cultural thing… or if it is all a choice… or a combo of both culture and personal tastes.

I think it may have more to do with culture. I get a sneaking suspicion that some may feel like they aren’t “good members” of the church unless they have their walls adorned in a certain way (with paintings purchased at Deseret Book, and the like). I even noticed that this cultural oddity was referenced in The Singles Ward. It was just shown on TV a couple of weeks ago, and during the mission call scene the wall behind them had a lot of the standard LDS art, complete with a photo of the prophet. It seems that if it is happening enough to make it into a movie that is all about making fun of our cultural oddities, the choice of art in LDS homes must be something more specific to our culture.

If the point is to have art that centers around Christ, or otherwise inpires, I can think of many classical paintings that could be just as inspiring. I feel like even if the painting wasn’t specifically about Christ, it could still inspire a reverence for the spiritual. I know that I get a good feeling looking at Monet’s work, since his subject was nature, and God created nature (but I am easily inspired by nature).

Overall though, I think it is important to choose the things that are in our home based on what we like and what we want around us. I know that I have worked hard to only have things in my house that I use, love, or that make me feel happy when I see them. A lot of time, clutter clearing, and honest evaluation took place, but I can say now that everything I see in my home makes me smile. In fact, I will even give away a gift if it is something I don’t like, rather than have something in my home that drains my energy every time I see it.

So, if your home is wall to wall LDS art and you love every bit of it, and put it there because you loved it, then I applaud your choice. However, if it is there just because you think it should be there, maybe it is time to rethink things… get to a museum, go look at art books, explore the art world until you know what your personal taste really is.

Ok this a little bit of fishing for help with a lesson I have to teach in a few weeks, but I’m interested in people’s thoughts on Temptation.

How does it present itself?
What kind of things are a temptation?
What can we do to overcome temptation?

The floor is open……

Did anyone else hear This American Life today?

I heart TAL. It’s the best radio program in the UNIVERSE.

It’s all about how much fear and loathing comes to any man who acts feminine. Even out, open, gay men. Acting girlie or ‘fem’ makes them a subject of ridicule and torture. Fems are not desirable partners, even in Seattle.

We all knew this guy in high school, didn’t we? The one with a high voice and a passion for drama club. I knew him, and I thought he was a freak too. I’m sure I tortured him too, not blatantly. But with my disapproval and distance.

Why is being feminine so embarrassing, so horrible that boys much be tortured for it?
Why did I find it so horrible, that I shunned a boy for it?

We don’t torture tomboys. Nope. If a girl likes snakes and snails and puppy dog tails, then we grant her a grudging respect.

But if a boy likes sugar and spice, then he’s supposed to be embarrassed, and we’re all supposed to make him miserable. So miserable that even in the gay community, being a ‘fem’ is just about the worst insult around.

That is just sick.

We hate the feminine so much, that we will torture any boy who likes tiaras. (Unless he is so obviously masculine that it’s clearly just a joke. Ha ha.) We train men with leers and torture and cruelty to shy away from any kind of activity that might give them a taint of the feminine.

No wonder men are so bottled up and scared to engage.
Is there any way out? Any way to teach our children to value the feminine no matter where they find it? Any way to teach our sons that emotions and love and pink and community are not frivolous and silly, but powerful and important? There must be. We must find it.

We here at FMH have been told (by a bunch of know-it-all types)(verse us, the know-it-nothing types) that we are out-growing blogger.

This blogger, it is not making us happy.

The readers . . . perfection. (mmwah, mmwah)
Especially those who comment about sex and use their real names. They have huevos. The ladies at least. I myself use one a month.
The men sometimes say they have huevos, but they do not.
Men have esperma, er, or something.

Wait, did I get side-tracked again? Yes I believe so.
Where were we?
Huevos.
No.

Growth. That’s it.

So J has so very generously offered to help us set up new digs. But we needs some money for the url and server and stuff (stuff is very much influenced by the high price of oil, ya know). It’s not much really, but,

. . . you may not know this, judging from my big-time sophisticated-type language skills, not to mention the superb spelling ability and unparalleled run-on sentence generation, all compl(e,i)ments of my big-wig high falutin’ public education, Har, (no this sentence is not done yet)

. . . but I sorta live on the lower-end of middle class-ness. What with being a housewife, and the husband working lovingly, day in and out in a crap job. I just don’t feel like I could justify that hobby expense to my dh and kids right now. If I could even dig it up after paying for the new arm and my fancy new writing accessory. The loving family of high moral standards don’t want me to shop at the devil’s arm pit any more.

If everyone who came here in a day donated two bucks, we’d have enough to support this site for three years.

So if you like FMH and have a buck or two to spare, we are now accepting donations.
Or if you don’t like us, but this blog is hurting your eyes with its unforgiving pinkness and you’d do anything to Make. It. Stop. We are now accepting donations.

And if this just makes you mad, then as always, we are also accepting hate mail.
But it’ll probably make us cry. Sniff.

I got this little email from Rosalynde. I hope she doesn’t mind if I post it, because if she does I’m in so much trouble.

Hi Lisa–I have an idea for you. Yesterday on Oprah (shh! don’t tell anybody), (It’s our little secret Ros, I promise!) the big O opined that most married women have sex less than once a week–and many of them far, far less than that. I couldn’t believe that, and I got really curious about whether it’s true. Why don’t you set up a poll where people can indicate (anonymously) how often they do it? I’d be really interested to see the results.

Keep up all the good work!
Rosalynde

Ask and you shall receive.

(If you’re using IE and you can’t see it, then download Firefox Already. Barring that, you’re going to have to scroll all the heck down to the bottom until the sidebar shows up. Yes I should fix this, but all my attempts so far have failed.)

And in case you missed it, Rosalynde was watching Opera . . erp . . Oprah.

J has a great post on Women and the Gift of Tongues. Sorry it’s a bit of a late link, but I’m swimming up stream lately.

Allison’s New Blog. , including a fun post on Sex Toys and Soccer Moms.

And a very interesting paper and discussion on gender and language.
(hat tip, ethesis)

Discussion on Spanking.

A nice poem.

I was reading Newsweek last week and found this funny little article about what your choice of shoe says about you.

Stilettos: You’re your own woman and are likely to be self-possessed. You can stand on your own two feet.

Mary Janes: You’re prone to order and tidiness. your life is as clean as your MJs.

Knee-High Boots: You’re well read and kind. There’s a good chance that you’re loaded, too.

Running Shoes: You’re bubbly yet businesslike. And quick on your feet.

Work boots: Flirtation? Not really. Agitation? Rock on! You might organize a political protest.

I guess I identify myself with the stiletto description, but I don’t own a pair and couldn’t walk in them if I had them!

For the first in a series of interviews called, “In Search of Mormon Feminism”, we asked Lorie Winder Stromber a few questions. Lorie graduated with a M.A. in humanities from Brigham Young University. She was the editor of the Mormon Women’s Forum Quarterly for seven years. Her essay “Power Hungry” can be read here.

(more…)

Okay, it’s confession time. I’ve got an addiction that I just can’t shake, and every time I give in, I feel dirty and ashamed.

It’s not crack. It’s not p0rn. It’s not even lip gloss.

Have you guessed it yet? Okay, I’ll just get this over with.
Gulp.
Wal Mart.

That’s right. I can’t stop going. Just when I think that WinCo and Costco with their progressive health care coverage and living wages and near total lack of Evil are enough, Wal Mart draws me back with it’s heroine like convienence and the behemoth seeping puss of rock bottom low prices at whatever cost to the planet and its people. Because somehow, when that last dollar is stretched so thin that I could read through it, and the apple sauce is running out, and the surgery bills are an inch and a half thick, and the kids want banana’s dangit . . . somehow it seems okay to slip in, just for a few things, and then not come out again until I’ve spent my last red cent making sure that 2/3 of Walmart employees will go bankrupt if a child breaks her arm.

Why must they have everything, including really cheap fake diet coke for my addict husband. And natural apple sauce in special flavors. And big bags of fake cheetoes for a buck.

I think I need a twelve step program. And a support group.

I am so ashamed.

Sunday morning I caught the end of a very interesting radio discussion called “Catholic Women on the Conclave”. The summary from CBC’s “The Sunday Edition”, hosted by Michael Enright, reads:

“Shortly after 4:30 local time tomorrow, 115 Roman Catholic Cardinals will file into the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican to begin the process of choosing a new Pope. They will be locked in and beneath the magnificent ceiling of Michelangelo”s The Last Judgement, will vote for one of their own as successor to John Paul the Second. It is a ritual as old as the church itself. And because disclosure of what goes on in the Conclave is punishable by excommunication, we know very little about what actually happens. We do know that the cardinal electors are all men. And we do know that the next Pope will be a man.

But what would happen if that were not the case? What would happen if those cardinals, or many of them or most of them were women? After all, the rule of the church is that a Cardinal must be a baptized Catholic; there’s nothing about gender. How would this effect the election of the next Pope? How would the issues of those female Cardinals resonate in the modern church?

This morning, we conduct our own Conclave, but without the key and without the locked doors. Our conclave is made up entirely of women, articulate observant Catholics who are deeply concerned about the future of their church.

Michael’s guests are: in Edmonton AUDREY WHITSON, a theologian who has taught at St. Joseph’s and St. Stevens Colleges at the University of Alberta; In Sudbury, MARIE BOUCLIN. She is a former nun and the international co-ordinator of the Catholic feminist organization, Women’s Ordination Worldwide; With me in Toronto JANET SOMMERVILLE, former associate editor of the Catholic New Time as and the first woman and first Roman Catholic to serve as General Secretary of the canadian Council of Churches; AND DOROTHY CUMMINGS, a graduate student completing her Masters of Divinity at Regis College at the University of Toronto and about to start her Ph’D studies at Boston College.”

I thought that I would do a post about it this week during the conclave. ( No time for hesitation in this fast paced world!) Now, even though it’s already over, I think the conversation is still interesting.

So here is the link to listen to it (You’ll need Real Player)

For those interested, here is the link to the feminist organization: Women’s Ordination Worldwide: A Voice for Women in the Catholic Church

My opening post on FMH was something that had been on my mind for a while. After thinking about some of the comments made, and a fairly stress free church on Sunday, I felt a little silly. Then surfing around a bit, I felt even worse. I’m not a regular reader of most blogs, but every now and then I have a peruse at Ethesis. I felt really ashamed as I moaned about how hard my church life is with 3 young kids, when some have to go through the pain of losing a child. Steve has had the unbearable loss 3 times over.

So today I celebrate my wonderful children. I couldn’t imagine life without them - even interrupted church life!

Originally from Oregon, Vanessa lives in Salt Lake City with her husband and three children. She is now a SAHM, but worked in the software industry as a technical writer for five years, and still does the occasional freelance job. Although she doesn’t consider herself a feminist, she finds FMH interesting, and is an active LDS member.

On Two-Year-Olds in the Road

My aunt and I are only 2 years apart in age, we were married within a week of each other, and we both have three rambunctious kids. We have many similar life experiences, and I thought philosophies, but recent events make me wonder about the real-life practicality of said philosophies, the applicable one as follows:

“Kids will get hurt, whether they’re at a friend’s house or at your own.”

Basically this means that if a kid gets hurt at a friend’s house, say a big gash on his leg, it could very well have happened at your own house, so there’s no point in getting mad at the friend’s parent.

Last week my 6-year-old daughter went to her friend’s house for their weekly play date. The mother invited my 2-year-old son to stay. He loves to play at their house, and especially idolizes their 10-year-old son, but he’s never stayed without me there before. I had a lot of errands to run so it was tempting. There were two issues, though:

1. Could I trust the mother, who was known to be easily distracted, keep my boy safe?

2. Would my boy, who loves to run out into the street, slip through the fence slats or stay with the kids and play?

The idea of running errands without my two oldest won out my concerns, and he stayed. But while I carted through the grocery aisles, I envisioned my boy running out into the street, and how upset I would be at this parent. Would I let it slide because I should have known better, or would I let the mother, who was my own friend, know the full extent of my disappointment?

Nothing happened, however. I found my children, two hours later, playing happily. My son even screamed as I put him in the stroller to take him home, because he wanted to stay and play.

Fast forward to five days later.

My children and I were in the backyard one morning: I was gardening, they were playing. My daughter was passing through the front yard to the back yard and forgot to close the gate. After 15 seconds of complete silence, I realized I couldn’t see or hear my 2 year old. The first place I went was to the gate and found it hanging wide open. I looked down the driveway to see my neighbor leaning out her car window.

“Vanessa! Your boy is over here!”

He was in the road. Fortunately she was there to point him out, and I was able to quickly find and retrieve him. Needless to say I was very embarrassed and upset.

I realized the extent of my hypocrisy. I had been more upset at my friend’s hypothetical sin than I was of my own mistake. It was then that I realized the applicability of my aunt’s philosophy—to help me remember that forgiveness, even hypothetical, was more important than my sense of justice. Either that or I’m just a bad mother.

The girls didn’t want to go to the gym this morning. And being a woman of deep resolve, I agreed. We are now watching veggie tales and eating cheetoes in our underwear. Except Buttercup, who is naked.

I am blogging. I should be doing about ten loads of laundry and the breakfast dishes and my bathrooms are shameful. SHAMEFUL I say. But instead let me share my navel gazing with you.

First a little gaze into FMH search terms . . .

fat girls wearing those tight pants I prefer chubby, thanks.

housewives, thongs underwear, Not these housewives, I’m afraid. But seriously, you p0rn freak, can’t think of why you’d be like, hum Feminist Mormon Housewives, that’s where the thongs are!

tattoo feminist We do have a few of these actually.

hungry housewives May I recommend cheetoes?

UTI in children-won’t take antibiotics eek! My advice, threaten child with needles.

feminist stuff I don’t know why I think this is funny. But I do. Stuff is sure to narrow that search right down.

My top twenty search terms include:
(beyond the obvious, feminist, mormon, housewives, lds)

1.34% sex

So at least one percent of the searchers who get here are probably p0rn freaks.

0.91% fembots

This is Steve Evan’s fault.

0.79% desperate
0.72% lonely

Hi, lonely deperate types.

0.73% poop

Ah, my favorite favorite subject!

Also worthy of note.

Search for feminist poop on Google, We’re number one. This is very important as I’m sure this search comes up all the time.

Also number one for feminist Mormon.

The top refering sites:
Times and Seasons
New York Times
By Common Consent

Apparently if you are using Explorer, the sidebar is all messed up. (Lesson: Always use Mozilla Firefox) (seriously it’s free, it’s not evil, what’s to lose?) On Explorer the links are right, righter, rightest, and down there instead of up here.

I’m going to try to fix it, but it won’t be any time soon. My kids are not sympathetic to blogging (little devil children). Baby Brick keeps stealing my mouse, he turned off the computer last time I typed this post, ARrrrrrG, and now he’s crying at my feet like I broke his poor delicate little heart. Poor thing.

Princess Buttercup is pulling on my arm saying ‘mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy.’ to which I reply, ‘yes?’ then she smiles, then I smile back. All is well, until I look at the computer again. ‘mommy, mommy, mommy . . . ‘

And they are all naked and covered in bananas. So no fixing the blog today.
And tommorrow I have a hot date, and the apple blossom festival, and spring cleaning and stuff (stuff!).

Like I wanna blog when I’ve got stuff.

So what does the sidebar look like to you?

(also, gratefuly accepting fix-it advice)

A couple of weeks ago at another blog an April fool was posted. A little laugh came, but an even bigger inward groan that I REALLY wished it was true.

For me Sundays is often torture. I have a Jacob, a 5 year old, William, a 21 month old and Mary, a 3 month old. My kids are generally really good, but the stress level increases when we pull in to the car park and William starts crying. He’s knows what’s coming…nursery. He hates it. My husband or I spend half the time in there with him or listening outside the door to make sure he’s stopped screaming. Then when sacrament meeting rolls around, the boys wriggle and squirm and William often ends up outside. Of course at some point Mary needs feeding and I’m in the freezing cold poky mother’s room (the chairs are comfy mind you!).

By the end of church I’m frazzled, wonder what the point was of me being there and a little resentful that church is 3 hours long. I’d be so much happier with just Sacrament Meeting; even 2 hours worth would be better. The reason I want to be there is to worship the Saviour, but as it is I rarely get to do this amongst all the interruptions and think I’d be better off skipping church till the kids are all school age and I can sit through meetings relatively peacefully!

Being that I’m real smart and recognize a good thing when it hits me over the head with a hammer, I’ve invited Becky to be a permafembotbloggernaccer. Here’s the relevant info:

British
3 kids
Dispensing Optician by profession
Love movies
Like playing piano and singing
RS teacher
Becky also blogs at household swap shop and becky news
Married to fellow blogger Ronan (BCC, BT and United Brethren)

We’ve just been included in Belief Net’s new feature, Blog Heaven, where blogs go when they’re good. Whoo Hoo!

Looks like Dave’s Mormon Inquiry has been included too. Good choice!

I’m supposed to put up a button linking back to them, but I haven’t had two seconds to rub together to figure out how. It should be up this afternoon (when I should be doing the bills and the toilets).

Lorie Winder Stromberg introduces herself this way:

“I’m a fourth-generation Mormon, seminary and BYU graduate (BA and MA), married in the temple with two children, ages 16 (a junior in high school) and 21 (a senior at Harvard). Because of my outspoken feminism, I am perpetually what I like to call the “Meals for the Dead Coordinator,” either compassionate service leader or on the activities committee. I’m also a free-lance editor. My husband, an attorney, was just released from the bishopric in our ward and now teaches the High Priests.

I date my feminism from 1973, when I was invited by a BYU Family Home Evening sister to attend a meeting of the Utah Valley Chapter of the Women’s Political Caucus. The discussion focused on The Equal Rights Amendment, which was passed by Congress in 1972 and was being ratified by the States. I was converted.”

Power Hungry (more…)

Generally, we do a pretty good job of holding a family devotional every morning. We begin with a hymn or a primary song, have a prayer, read our scriptures and have what has become known as “gratitude circle”, where everyone shares one thing they are grateful for. Our kids are pretty energetic and are quite happy to belt out all nine verses of “Follow the Prophet” or “The Spirit of God” even at seven o’clock in the morning. A perennial favourite is “Book of Mormon Stories”. This week, as we were singing it, one family member had an epiphany.’

Her little brow furrowed, she crossed her arms and asked, “But, what about the little sisters?” Dh and I exchanged glances. I am constantly amazed at how this little girl asserts her femaleness. Perhaps this is because she has three older brothers and is the only girl. Maybe she creeps into our bedroom and overhears conversations that sometimes keep us up until midnight about women and the Church.

At any rate, the question was asked. We tried singing “Book of Mormon stories say that we must brothers and sisters be …” No, too awkward. “How about, we must siblings be?” my husband suggested. A little formal, but it definitely flows better. So far, it has stuck.

Many years ago, our Anglican neighbours invited us to a Christmas Eve service. We were asked to sing “Good Christian, folk, rejoice!” instead of “Good Christian, men”. Singing it for the first time, the word “folk” did seem kind of weird, but what was worse was hearing the father of the other family defiantly singing “men” anyways. My sister and I rolled our eyes.

Almost a month ago, the opening hymn at the Relief Society Commemoration Dinner I went to, was “Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel”. As we sang, “The world has need of willing men …”, I felt a surge of anger and sadness course through me. While I appreciated the sentiment of building up the kingdom, I found it strange to sing this hymn on this occasion. When it was our opening hymn again at Enrichment two weeks later, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

I sometimes wonder about the energy it requires to insert myself in the text of some of our Relief Society lessons. Some Sundays, the constant mantra of men, man, men quotations, rubs me the wrong way.

Of course, I know that the gospel is for every nation, kindred, tongue, people and gender, but like my daughter, I do confess to sometimes wondering, “What about the little sisters?” In the end, does gender specific language matter? Do we have room for change in this regard?

Stuff of note:

Two great stories:
Falling from Grace.

Let it Be

A Women Stuff Link of interest:
Smith Institute’s Women’s History Initiative

A little Mormon Temple link for Kaimi.

And finally: An Economic Reason That We’re (Definitely) Not Living in a Celestial World

I’m blessed to have a husband that overwhelmingly and enthusiastically supports me in my calling. I may be biased, but YW President can get a little demanding and it’s in large part due to him that I can handle it — he listens to my midnight worries about the girls, pushes me out the door when I’m less than totally motivated to go to mid-week activities, dances, firesides, and temple trips — heck, he even bakes cookies for refreshments (yep, he’s a good cook too — I’ve got a keeper).

On the other hand, I know of others that aren’t as blessed. Specifically, I have a good friend whose husband is not LDS but is very much a “family man.” She recently got called into YW as well and is encountering tremendous resentment from him in the time it takes her away from home and family. He has an interesting point here, that the Church centers on the family as the top priority, most important unit, etc. and yet asks us to undertake responsibilities that present huge demands in our time and effort, taking us away from family. Case in point is YW: In addition to 3 hours on Sunday, we have presidency meetings, class presidency meetings, mid-week activities, stake activities, dances, firesides, regional activities. And when we’re at home, lessons and activities need prepared, phone calls need to be made, the list goes on and on.

I obviously see it as something that actually strengthens my family. After all, there may come a day when my sweet 3 year old boy doesn’t want to spend much time with his parents or thinks we’re pretty dumb, actually (I’m sure this won’t happen, as he currently worships us, but you never know). But he may have a leader that is a role model, strengthens his testimony, gives him advice, etc. And even now, I think that my support for my husband’s calling and his support of mine strengthens and enhances our marriage.

So what would you tell this husband? When do church responsibilities become too much, taking away from our other priorities? How do you handle it?

Okay, so call me lazy, but I figure someone who reads this must know something. I’ve been asked to give a talk on Visiting Teaching for some Visiting Teaching something something that’s coming up. (Sorry the RS pres called me while the kids were screaming and the details are all fuzzy now)

Anyway, I don’t want to do the generic How VT has Touched My Life talk. I’d like to do a little history. Anyone know anything about the history of Visiting Teaching? Or know sources of information?

I think it’s a good program. I know VT annoys a lot of people, but I’m not one of them. I like it, but I tend to be a big enthusiastic nerd at times. But even with my positive feelings, I’d be hard pressed to come up with how VT has touched my life stories.

Hum, nope, can’t think of any. In fact the only stories that come to mind are the years and years and years (did I say years? Years!) I had The Most Annoying Visiting Teachers on the Planet. I’m sure that’s not the talk they want me to give. Although . . . ligthbulb . . . I tell it here. What a good post idea.

Also I’d like to make this an open thread on VTing and get thoughts, opinions, stories. Just for fun.

I’ve been fretting, I’ve been mulling, I’ve been fomenting, and finally, epiphany, I’ve located the problem. It’s The Church Lady.

You see, conversations like this one on Teaching Modesty to Children really get under my skin. I start to itch and twitch and feel like I need a shower. A few dozen comments in and I was disturbed. Ill, even.

Just so we’re perfectly clear, it wasn’t Julie’s original post that bothered me so much (It did a little. I like the gender equality, dislike the slightly arbitrary, IMO, modesty rules) but the hundred plus comments that ensued . . . well . . . it really got me to wondering if this could possibly be what our Heavenly Father wants his church to look like? Who are these people finding Satan in Santa’s pelvic region and a five-year-old’s shoulder-baring sundress? Searching for evil where none exists. It’s sad, it’s useless, it must be draining. (again, in case I wasn’t clear before, I’m not talking about Julie here, who is in all things sensible and moderate).

I start feeling twitchy like this anytime people start pulling rules out and disconnecting them from common sense. Yes, we need modesty rules for children, I’m not advocating that you dress your three-year-old like Britney Spears, turn on HBO, and hand him some marijuana (those crazy cross-dressing toddlers). But one of the least attractive things about very religious people (and there are plenty of very attractive things as well) is this tendency toward Church-Lady-itis.

Standards are good. We Mormons love upholding standards. But the problem is that standards of modesty are not eternal standards, they are based entirely upon the culture of the people asked to live these standards. I’ve no doubt that if Joseph Smith had lived in the Amazon Rain Forest instead of Upper New York State, standards of Mormon modestly would have been vastly different than they are today. And I don’t for a moment think that the Kingdom of God is somehow tied to Traditional European Dress and the accompanying climatic conditions. Also, I’ve no doubt that if the modesty police of 1830 were to judge my uber-modest t-shirt, Capri pants, and flip flops (can’t call them thongs anymore) they’d send me straight into the fiery pits of Church Lady Hell. And even they probably wouldn’t have had a problem with naked three-year-old shoulders.

And it’s more than just that people can take a good thing (modesty) too far. I think that this disconnected-from-context illogical rule-making can be damaging itself. A sin, if you will, that can do much more actual harm to the participant than the purported sin (such as immodesty) itself might.

They change modesty from a good healthy guideline for deflecting attention from our bodies or our clothes and toward our full selves (how ever that may work in cultural context) to hard-and-fast rules that must be obeyed even if the rules themselves break the goal of modesty in the first place. They dress their girls in long skirts and don’t allow them to cut their hair, or they insist that hair is covered, and/or the face too, and then try to drown their poor girls in this get-up. And that is then the only acceptable standard of modesty. Even out-of-cultural-context when a head covering, or long skirts and a big bun, or that horrifying swim suit draws attention instead of deflecting it.

It is exactly this kind of small-minded thinking about modesty that makes it sound like such a quaint notion to most modern-thinking types. It is flagrantly apparent to 95% of the population that little girls in sundresses and babies in diapers and little boys wearing shorts are entirely appropriate no matter how you slice it, and when over-vigilant Church Ladies start implying that modesty insists that these kids put more clothes on, then sensible people roll their eyes and think “modesty” is something for clueless nut-jobs.

Frankly that’s what I was thinking by the time I way halfway through reading those comments on Julie’s post.

I know post is somewhat incomplete but I need to scoot to bed. I wrote and erased a couple of paragraphs about why the rigid illogical rules thing is so harmful, but I don’t have it all clear in my mind yet. But it has something to do with the effect it has on people, making them into small-minded, shallowly-focused, rigid, and illogical prigs. Mixed with some self-righteous just for fun.

We all have a little bit of the Chruch Lady in us. I just don’t think we should feed her if we can help it.

(Oh and please do not turn this into another Modesty debate T&S style. If you do I will close the comments, I just couldn’t handle it. If you want to discuss how to draw logical lines about rules/concepts without feeding the Church lady, I’m all ears, otherwise, sit on your hands.)

Rebecca McLaverty Head introduces herself this way:

I am a British member of the Church, currently living in Baltimore, MD. I have 3 kids and a bloggernacle husband - Ronan Head. I consider myself pretty liberal and enjoy FMH becuase of that.

She can also be found at Becky News and Household Swap Shop.

What Relief??

Early in December I asked a member of our Relief Society Presidency what kind of service we would be doing in the run up to Christmas. In my home ward it was something we always did, as well as other service projects throughout the year. I was told we weren’t doing anything. But after my suggestion that we should, I was told a service project would be organized after Christmas. Almost 5 months later nothing has happened.

It made me think about the beginnings of Relief Society. Sis Shirley W Thomas of a previous General RS Presidency reminds us:

“Following his (Joseph Smith’s) injunction to search out the poor and needy and minister to their wants, they called a committee that went from house to house. The members who had means were asked to give, and the needy were referred to the society for aid.”

The sisters made clothes for the men who were working on building the Temple. The society was named so because as well as building sisterhood one with another, they gave relief to others. Emma Smith at the first meeting of Relief Society said,

“Each member should be ambitious to do good.”

Good to whom? Relieve whom? The church as a whole helps the poor with the welfare program and we do a great job in Relief Society, I think of taking care of each other - the structure of visiting teaching certainly allows for and encourages that. We should take care of each other, but Christ spent His ministry caring for others - the undesirables of the time, the down and outs. I’d love to see a bigger emphasis on service to non-members. Surely it’s a little selfish just to help ourselves? There are others in much greater need of a helping hand…and a little relief.

After reading Sarah’s Post over at Various Stages, this subject is on my mind again. I never got the talk, my mom never talked about sex. I had no idea how the whole thing worked until I was much much too old, like seventeen or eighteen I’d say.

A few day before I got married at twenty (I had figured it out by then), my mom’s entire sex advice was this (I am not making this up) “So you know how it all works?” I nod, “Good then let me just tell you a little something my dad told me, ‘Once a king a king all your life, but once a night is enough.’”

Oh joy.

That’s all I got, and ten years later I’m of the opinion that it’s plain-old bad advice anyway. (The advice I wish someone really would have given me was Pee! Pee after every time or you’re gonna get yourself the worst UTI in the history of the world and you’re going to ruin your honeymoon. That, virgin girls, is the best bit of pre-sex advice on the planet.)

Don’t get me wrong, my mom is the best mom ever, but this was one area where she flopped.

Anyway, it seems Sarah’s mom was just the opposite, sex talk all the time, and Sarah found this mortifying. Just knowing my lay-it-all-out-there–secrets-are-for-sissys self, I’m more likely to be like Sarah’s mom by natural inclination. I like sex and I’m not shy about talking about it (with consenting adults, that is). But I’m thinking there must be a good balance, and wondering where that is.

My oldest is four, old enough that we’ve had a few private parts talks. Mostly for her safety and to avoid public embarrassment. She just barely gets it, a little bit. And still I’m at such a loss as to how we’re going to handle things as they get more nuanced.

And I have to tell you, I’m very disinclined to handle things in many of the traditional ways I was subjected to in Young Women’s. And what I mean by that is a mixed bag. On the one hand, I was taught that sex is special and sacred and wonderful in the right setting (marriage), but that meanwhile I shouldn’t think about it, want it, or do it. And people who did were bad, bad, bad. I think boys were taught almost exactly the same thing. Overall, this isn’t a horrible way to learn about sex, but it’s way too black and white, it’s not . . . enough. And I’m not even really sure what I mean by that.

I was reading some post over at Hugo, (sorry too lazy to find it again) and he was talking about how at his church (the liberal All Saints, and other than that I don’t know much about it) they often put too little emphasis on what we do with our bodies, focusing their morality on social justice issues.

I am of the opinion that we Mormon types spend too much time on what we do with our bodies, and too little on social justice. Not that our bodies aren’t important, but fifteen years ago, my opinion of whether you were a good person or a bad person would have weighed heavily on what your sex life looked like, whether you drank or smoked or drank coffee. Heavily, like ninety, ninety-five percent.

Bad people enjoy forbidden sex, drink, smoke and have coffee. . . oh, and they swear. Good people do not.

That’s just wrong.

I’m sure this isn’t what my mother wanted me to think. It probably isn’t even what my Young Women’s leaders wanted me to think. Even I knew there was more too it than that, but those judgments were so much easier than the tricky truth.

Because of the weight we put on these “body” issues, what I thought then is common among our young people. But the fact is, the world is inhabited by really genuinely good people who have sex, drink, smoke and have coffee and even swear on occasion. Moral people, people who care about their fellow human beings and make the world a better place.

I definitely think I want my children to know that the ‘body issues’ are important, they just are, we can’t escape them, we have bodies and treating them right is tricky. But I don’t want them to be as absorbed by, focused on, judgmental about the body issues as I was. I don’t know how to achieve this balance.

How much to talk about sex, when, where, how? And what to say? Is the only way to figure this out trial and mostly error?

Please tell me what you’ve done with your kids, and how your parents talked to you and what you thought of their advice then and now. I’m very very curious.

Elisabeth from Boston wrote this for us:

I just found an interesting handbook the Church published in 2001 on the organization of the family that informs some of the previous comments here - particularly, what it means to “preside”.

This handbook is entitled “Famly Guidebook”, and its audience is for “all members, especially those who are new converts or have limited experience in the Church. It outlines the purpose and organization of the family and contains information on how to teach the gospel in the family, how to fulfill family responsibilities, how the family can be a Church unit, and how to perform ordinances and give priesthood blessings.”

Since the Guidebook is so prominently featured, I guess we can take it as the definitive word on how the First Presidency currently views the roles of the father and mother.

The Family Guidebook is a maroon color (like the color of the regular Church Handbooks), and is 26 pages long.

I read through this Guidebook and have highlighted the general and specific tasks assigned to both fathers and mothers. There are plenty of tasks that don’t specify father or mother (”parents”), but for the purposes of this discussion, I thought I’d focus on the duties specifically outlined for fathers and mothers.

FATHER

General Duties

1. Head or patriarch of family: “he presides over the family and is responsible to teach, bless, and provide the necessities of life for the family.”

2. Basic priesthood ordinances (blessing, baptizing, confirming children, etc.)

3. Personal and family spiritual and temporal preparedness

4. Sharing the gospel

Specific Duties

1. Family history and temple ordinances

2. Family Prayer: Father offers the prayer, or delegates to wife or children. Everyone should have the opportunity to pray.

3. Blessing the food: “Fathers should see that his family members learn to thank God for their food and ask Him to bless it before they eat”.

4. Family Home Evening: Father presides, which means “conducts or appoints a family member to conduct”. He “teaches the lesson or delegates to his wife or to children who are old enough to teach”.

5. Family Councils: “Fathers may call family members together in a family council….Fathers may want to hold a family council each Sunday or in connection with family home evening. Respect for opinions and feelings of others is essential to the success of family councils”.

6. Private Interviews: “Many fathers find that regular private interviews with each child help fathers draw close to their children, encourage them, and teach them the gospel….The father should express his love for and confidence in the child, and the child should have an opportunity to express his or her feelings about any subject, problem or experience.”

7. Family Activities: “The father should plan times often to have the entire family do things together.”

8. Basic Priesthood duties: Too numerous to summarize. Thirteen of 26 pages are devoted to specific instructions on how to conduct basic priesthood ordinances.

MOTHER

General Duties

1. Children: “The mother has the blessing of bearing and nurturing the children.”

2. Partner and Counselor: “She is an equal partner and counselor to her husband. She helps him teach their children the laws of God. If there is no father in the home, the mother is responsible for the family.”

Specific Duties

None specified (that I could find).

I thought that the Handbook was very instructive about the roles of fathers and mothers in home, and that fathers are given specific duties to define their roles (i.e., what it means to “preside”), whereas mothers are not given any specific duties at all. People are obviously free to draw their own conclusions and structure their relationships how they want to, but it seems that the church is fairly clear here in the Handbook that fathers are the leaders of the family, and that the mothers should wait for guidance from their husbands in important family matters.

This is the third time the girls have had it, the second time for me and the dh. Since March 1st. Apparently we have some horrific anti-biotic resistant variety. Isn’t that special? It’s back to the doc this morning and they’re going to drop the bomb on us. Wish us luck!

If I get back in a good mood I’ve had bunch of thoughts on culture, Islam, and feminism I’d like to post once I get about a million other projects done, including the strep-throat laundry that is now spilling out into the hall.

You’d think that after returning from vacation (of sorts) I could make it a whole week without having a break down. But I really lost it today. My kids were monsters. Evil little clingy whiney monsters. I wanted to lock them all in a sound-proof closet and scream until my voice went horse, then cry for a couple of hours in the corner.

And I have none of the usual excuses. I’ve had a break. I got enough sleep. I had plenty of excercise. I even had a very nice birthday yesterday with lovely presents, a cake, and off-tune singing. No problems to speak of, except kids who cry all the time and scream a lot and don’t like anything I do or say and are driving me absodulitiy uternidititly in-freaken’-sane.

I started losing it this morning after the shoes came off for the third time and were deposited in the diaper pail, and my lipstick ended up ear to ear on little clown face magoo, and a stubbed toe required a complete undressing and at least forty minutes of dramatic pretenda-sobbing. And the look at me mom I can walk and now I’M NEVER LETTING GO OF YOUR PANTS AGAIN, AND JUST TRY TO GET ANYTHING DONE WITH ME CLINGING TO YOU WHILE WHINNING FOR THE LAST TWO HOURS.

I threw them all in the car, I kick boxed my little hiney off, came home to make lunch thinking I’d gotten my anger problem under control. Then . . . horror of horrors . . . I tried to put some cheese sauce on the brocoli (I do not have the patience for spell check today, so all you little red pen freaks just back off!) and they had a cheese sauce melt down.

Oh the tears, the horrors, the veggies have been defiled!

Did they taste the cheese sauce?
No!
Did I think I was doing something nice and fatty and tasty for my little darlings? Yes I did!

Cheese sauce is something nice moms do, to make their little kiddies happy. What do I get? Pandamonium. Horror. Tears. Real big Crocadile Tears.

I lost it. I sent my kids to bed without lunch. I shook. I yelled. I pointed. Totally lost it. They cowered in the corner with blankets when I went in to tuck them in and give them some milk.

Mommy, why are you angry?

I’m sorry baby, but we all need to take a nap now so we can wake up happy, okay.

I’m happy mommy. See. (wobbly pretend-a smile)

How do I explain to a four-year-old that all of her normal needs, demands and frustrating developmental stages have pushed me over the edge?

Can I ever outgrow this?

The Bloggernacle is ripe with women stuff lately.

Mormon Feminism as a Zero Sum Game?

I Hate Women. All in good fun, but interesting none-the-less.

The Place of Mormon Women. Oh my, where to begin?