An Interesting Perspective on the LDS Mother Blogging Phenomenon

http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/01/15/feminist_obsessed_with_mormon_blogs

My friend and coworker, Kelsie, sent me this link and I found it very entertaining and interesting. Isn’t it funny that there are feminist woman, not of the LDS faith, who love reading these LDS mothers’ blogs? It is especially funny to me because I am LDS and I want to be a mother, but I am not really interested at all in any of these popular LDS blogs (except for NieNies) … I’ve read a few entries from some of them but they were never something I kept going back to…that I couldn’t get enough of. Why? I think it is because it is nothing new. They are describing life as I know it. I may not be a mother yet, but I want to be. And my home was and is a happy one. I have always felt loved and appreciated and supported by my family and friends. And I have always, even in the most difficult of times, been supported by my faith. So, though it is nice, from time to time, to visit one of these blogs and learn how to do a craft, etc., reading the day to day account of their life isn’t really something that entertains me (unless it is a blog of someone in my family and then it becomes very interesting to me).

Another thing this article made me think of was a trip Delys and I took to Salt Lake a few years ago. We went to temple square and visited some of the church history museums and had a grand time. In one of the museums, there was an exhibit that displayed accomplishments and stories from the life of each of the latter-day prophets, from Joseph Smith to President Hinckley. It was incredible to read about all that they did—all the good they accomplished. Nearby, was a room with an exhibit dedicated to the women of the Church. And honestly, it left us feeling a little disappointed. I don’t think I am a feminist in the way that the term is used in today’s world, but I do know the value of women and all they have and all they can offer to society and to the world. And this exhibit didn’t really show that for me. I think it showed a pioneer quilt and dresses. Things like that. And those things are fine. But after seeing the accomplishments of the Presidents of the Church, I wanted to see the pictures and hear stories about their mothers, the women that had nurtured these great men. I wanted to see Eliza R. Snow’s powerful poetry and writing displayed. I wanted to see Minerva Teichart’s painting of Esther. I wanted to see Lucy Mack Smith’s autobiography of her son. Not that the quilts and the dresses are not important. They are. But I feel like sometimes as women, that is all we see.

I believe that being a mother and a wife and a daughter is the most beautiful and fulfilling thing a woman can do in this life and the next. More fulfilling than any job that I have now or any job I may have in the future. It is fulfilling because it connects you to people in a way that you cannot connect to them professionally. It is fulfilling because it is permanent. It is fulfilling because you are needed and loved always and you need and love others always. No one needs and loves you like a child does. There is nothing else in the world like it.

And I can see then, how being a mother and wife, is a full-time position. Which makes it more amazing to me when you have women like Lucy Mack and Eliza R. Snow, and my mother and my mother-in-law who are not only raising their families, but who are consistently creating beautiful things and consistently contributing to their communities in the school systems and through community service, and simply by taking care of their neighbors. I am constantly amazed by what is accomplished by the mothers and wives and the daughters and single women that surround me.

Men, I am constantly amazed by you. I may not have children to support, but I do know what it is like to work an 8 to 5 job, sometimes an 8 a.m. – 10 p.m. job, on a day to day basis. But you do it, every day, because you love your wife and your children and you want the best for them. And you do it all, even when it is grueling or dull, and are still able to find fulfillment in it. And you do it for a lifetime. I know that I have gone on and on about what women can contribute, but it has always been clear to me all the good that men can contribute to the world as well. My father and father-in-law, and my brothers and brother-in-laws are living proof of it.