I am a working mother who is also a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The reason I mention that I am a working mother and a member of this church, is because sometimes those two things don’t seem cohesive, at least they didn’t always to me.

I believed a mother should be home to teach and care for her children, unless the family didn’t have enough money to eat or pay the important bills. Now that I am a working mother and have seen the struggles of my own children and the struggles of other children, I believe this teaching even more.

I wanted to follow the teachings found in The Proclamation to the World on the Family, that a mother was to be the main nurturer in the family. My husband worked very hard to provide, so that I could stay home to raise our children. He supported me in my role as nurturer and I was very grateful.

When our children were old enough to go to school, the Lord showed me a different teaching that is also found in the Proclamation to The Family. That husband and wife are to work together to meet the needs of the family. I was inspired to gain an education, which I did through a Church program (Self-Reliance Services), which in turn, inspired me to apply for a job.

I mention this, because the Lord knew that after my husband had supported me in my role as nurturer, it was time for me to support my husband in his role as provider. At the same time as I received work (which was terrifying for me to take), everything in our house started to break and would continue to break for the next 4 years. I am talking fixes to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, not including our family vehicle which needed to be replaced.

Heavenly Father knew this would happen, so He prepared a way for my husband and me to work together, as partners, in providing for all the needs of our family. Through this experience, we have become a stronger, more united couple. The reason we are stronger is because the struggles were very rough, but we held firm in the teaching of the Church of Jesus Christ. We didn’t allow doubt to overtake us (mainly me) about following personal revelation, supported by the teachings of the prophets.

I have struggled greatly these last 4 years with weight gain, high anxiety, exhaustion, health concerns, family time, and more. But, I have also found medicine that calms my anxiety. I realized I can do more than I ever thought possible (with God’s help). I gained valuable skills in the work field, in my family, and church. I have also put a focus on my formal education, which has been huge for me.

The most important thing I have gained, (strange as this might sound, considering I just stated it became a struggle) is time with my family. It isn’t perfect, but I make more time to do things with my kids and my spouse, because I see the need more than ever and I desire that time with them even more.

How I have grown in my thinking on where the Lord wants women. He wants them where He needs them and he will let them know as long as they are being diligent in striving to follow his teachings and are listening for his voice guiding them. I am very grateful for the lessons I have learned.

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Last month my husband and I celebrated our 10th anniversary. My parents watched our kids so we could have a weekend away. What a treat! We drove up the “lost coast” of California and spent two luxurious nights in a Bed and Breakfast near the sea. We went hiking on the surf-beaten bluffs of Mendocino, felt the sun beat down through the sky-scraping canopy of the redwood forest and ordered dessert after fancy meals. I was in heaven.

But it wasn’t the time we spent taking long walks on the beach that made me think, “I’m one lucky girl.” Nope, it was a singular conversation my husband and I had over soup, salad and bread sticks at the Olive Garden on the way to our destination that made our tenth anniversary trip one to remember.

Our travel conversation had been light, flirtatious and fun. We tried to talk about news and our interests instead of the kids and work. But even before our first basket of warm Olive Garden bread sticks appeared, I could tell my husband had an agenda for our dinner conversation.

“Do you remember when we went to tithing settlement and the Bishop asked us if we were having family prayer regularly?”

“Yes! Why couldn’t he have asked us about Family Home Evening or our callings or something else we’ve been doing really well?”

“Well, it’s not often that a Bishop has the chance to give a family advice on how best to improve their spirituality. We need to try harder to have morning and evening family prayer. I think that following his advice will make a big difference in our family in the long run.”

After making plans on how we could better implement family prayer my husband went through an inventory of the social, emotional and physical needs of each of our daughters and we made decisions together about how to meet the needs of each of our children. We also assessed my current health conditions and found ways to lighten my load.

We talked about how to save more money at home, and at the business, to assure that we were living within our means, paying our tithing and if possible, saving for our future.

My husband was particularly concerned for the safety of the girls and me. We talked about putting better Internet safeguards on our computers and decided that living without TV hadn’t been so tough. We discussed drop-off and pick-up procedures at school and how a tire on my van needed to be fixed.

This was one of many a great conversations we’ve had over the last ten years. But, I would have never known my husband to be such a leadership dynamo if I had continued on the initial path I took as a young newlywed. During the first year of our marriage we had power struggles over money, fights over decision making autonomy and gender role discrepancies. We were both working, I was making more money, and I looked to have a greater income potential. My husband resented the fact that I held money decisions over his head and forced an unbalance of power in our relationship. It took a lot of late night “discussions” and prayer for my heart to soften toward the principles taught in The Family: A Proclamation to the World. Here is a paragraph from that inspired document that is particularly poignant to me now.

“Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities. By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to providethe necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.”

Because I believe in modern day prophets and apostles, I was willing to try to implement these principles in my marriage before fully understanding them. At first glance, it felt counter-intuitive to let my husband preside when I was the natural leader in our family. But giving my husband the space to lead our family has improved my character, given him a huge boost of confidence, and has given me the space to focus on motherhood and my other talents. Through his loving example, my husband has shown me that leadership is more than just being organized and vocal. Service, patience and love are just as effective as check lists and budgeting spreadsheets when rearing a family. Together, we make a really balanced partnership.

I want to note that I feel that the final line of the paragraph I quoted above is of great import, “Disability, death or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation.” There are many situations where women share or are solely responsible for the roles of provider, presider or protector in their homes because their husbands are unable or unwilling to do so, or are absent for one reason or another. In my own family’s narrative my grandfather died in his 40’s leaving my grandma and her daughter (my mother) to fend for themselves. My grandmother felt overwhelmed and terrified in her new role as provider, presider and protector. But did she ever overcome! Financial dynamo, budgeting wizard, hard working, and computer savvy are just a few of the descriptions that come to mind when I think of Grandma.

In my own life, the opposite happened when I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis and my husband had to take on the roles of mother and father as I battled immobility and pain until we found a medication that helped ease my symptoms. From my own life and the life experiences of those around me, I have learned that ideals and reality sometimes have a large gap between them and can “necessitate individual adaptation.”  Prayers, friends and family helped make that gap more navigable for me.

I found that by following the prophetic counsel found in the Proclamation on the Family, even before gaining a testimony of it, yielded surprisingly pleasant results. My husband was willing and prepared to preside, provide and protect in our home. I liked not feeling responsible for EVERYTHING. Making the decision to change my ways prepared my heart for the time when my health would fail and I would need help from my husband more than ever. I hope that by continuing to strive to live by the precepts taught in the Proclamation, my husband and I will to grow together in love and respect and our union will continue to yield surprisingly pleasant results.

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Pieces

Pieces of a pen, including the spring

Parts of a flashlight, a phone that won’t ring

Bits of a bagel you ate yesterday,

A toy’s in the cd drive and now it won’t play.

All around me are pieces of things I once knew

Including my sanity; I’m missing that too.

I guess that’s just life when you have a two-year-old

It never is boring– these times are like gold!

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