Women in Mormonism: Deification and Entrapment

Today is Mother's Day. This is an important day for the Mormon church, for better and for worse. Admirably, in Mormonism, families are sacred. Motherhood is sacred. The Church is right on that last point. That said, my beef with the Church is that Mormonism deifies women to the point that if they choose careers over kids, (or some complicated combination of the two), their motherhood--and thus womanhood--is defiled. This happens because, in the Church, motherhood and womenhood are intimately entwined. Meanwhile, there exists a tacit understanding that good mothers express their devotion by foregoing the world and staying at home with their kids. Nowadays, this isn't said explicitly, but it exists as a tacit understanding. It's a pressure I've felt ever since we analyzed the "Proclamation to the Family" in Young Womens, dwelling especially on paragraphs explicitly affirming the woman's sacred, divine-appointed role as mother. Well, what faithful woman in her right mind is going to read that and think that the juggling of a career and kids will be as impressive to Heavenly Father as a single-minded devotion to parenthood? Trust me. If you go to Young Womens' year after year and hear that lesson enough, you think twice--or long and hard--before you feel comfortable with putting a career on par with kids. Or choosing not to have kids.

Well, I suppose that the emphasis on mom as a stay at home mom isn't so bad considering that kids do need to be raised. However, the dominant imagery of the woman as supermom devoted entirely--I mean entirely (physically, emotionally, mentally)--to her children is simply imbalanced. No one can be happy when they are ENTIRELY devoted to anything, be it school, work, play. This devotion was summarized in a line I heard today in church, where a woman praised her mom because she knew her mother's single joy in life was parenthood. The brethren just make things worse when they flatter women into the role by praising their virtue: "Women are so good, they're better than us. Those sisters. They're so great. They make the best, most compassionate moms."

HONESTY. I just want honesty. Instead of wrapping motherhood up in sparkly, celestial packaging, why can't they just say that a parent--mom or dad--needs to be home because kids need attention? Now that's the real story. It isn't so much that one sex is inherently more compassionate, more gentle, better suited for tending to children...and therefore the recipient of a God-given mandate to parent.

That kind of gender definition is dangerous and unfair because it necessarily distances men from the parenting process. It dicates that men are rougher around the edges, and therefore better suited for bringing home the bacon and schooling their children in the ways of the world, instead of communicating with them on a deeper level and sharing more intimate experiences with them. It divides parenting up into roles; these roles are justified because men are women are "different," and therefore have different things to contribute to the family. For example, I have often heard my parents say with pride that they make a great "team," meaning: Dad brings home a great paycheck while Mom is supermom with the kids. Sounds good on paper, but I blame this Mormon paradigm for the lop-sided relationship I have with my parents: it basically guaranteed that I spent more time with mom, talked more with mom, etc. and I think it deprived my Dad of the chance to get to know me on a deeper level.

Ironically, the Mormon paradigm can be hard on families. It can result from the emotional estrangement of the father from the home; as the father identifies himself more and more with work, he becomes less and less emotionally attached to the goings on at home. Meanwhile, this sole identification with work results in increased self-pressure to perform well at work and increased stress as life gets more one-dimensional. Ultimately, it can cause the father to unconsciously (or consciously!) resent the family as the expensive appendage, the financial cancer. And that's when families fall apart. Moms feel their spouse's emotional estrangement and feel bitter about their own one-dimensional lives while Dads feel broken from financial stress and resentment.

Roles are terrible! Roles are wrong! Gender essentialization is wrong. Men can be at home; they aren't wimpy men. Women can be career women--or choose not to have children-- without being soulless.

Increased freedom makes sense even if you maintain that men and women are inherently different. Won't kids be better off if they spend more time with their savvy Dads? Wouldn't the government and corporate world be more compassionate if women were involved in top decision making? There would be fewer wars...