The Power of Moms

I would like to welcome any new visitors here today. Perhaps you clicked over from the essay about my dad on The Power of Moms today.

When I was a girl I loved the movie Gidget--the  original with Sandra Dee. It is such a girl-power show. And yet, there was a line at the end of the movie that really bothered my budding teenage sensibility. Gidget's mother asks her to read out from a sampler stitched by her great-grandmother. It says, "To be a real woman is to bring out the best in a man."

What?

Can that be right?

For a long time I would have said, "No way," but a husband and three sons later I'm not so sure anymore. I think that the real power of women does lie in influencing others. Maybe most particularly men.

Today is Father's Day. I'm away from my little men in order to spend the day with my own dad. My dear Plantboy willingly took the boys this weekend without hesitation. I got the real gift this Father's Day: a mom's weekend out! He is such a good man. I'm grateful for the way he has allowed the women in his life--sisters, mother, wife--to mold and shape him. I have truly seen the best of him, and I'm grateful to have been part of his life.

It is a strange thing sometimes being in a houseful of men, but a powerful blessing too. Daily I see the influence that I can have. I understand what Gidget's mother was trying to teach her.

Girl Power

Tomorrow is my 13th anniversary. Yeah, Plantboy!

And though it would be easy to come up with 13 reasons to love Plantboy (Number 7: I have to turn down NPR when I get in to the car because he runs it at full volume.), I'm going to use my time here today to speak for a moment about the movie we saw for our anniversary date on Saturday.

Plantboy chose the restaurant and I chose the movie: Snow White and the Huntsman. I had been pretty gung ho all week until I read some of the stinky reviews on the film. Cool visual effects, no heart. Hemsworth cute but a real meathead. Spotty accents. Can Kristen Stewart actually act? Charlize Theron is better sultry and subtle than screechy. Etc. Etc. Still, we finished our wonderful dinner by 7 pm and the last thing I was going to do was go home and put my own kids to bed on date night, so to the movie we went.

I actually think it was good to read the reviews. My expectations were so low by the time we sat down that there was really no where for my opinion to go but up.

Way up.

I actually agree with a lot of the criticism. Can Kristen Stewart act? Is twitching and a partially opened mouth and a "rescue me NOW" air really acting? The accents were inconsistent. Why don't they just let Hemsworth loose with his Aussie-boy sound? And yes, he is a bit of a meathead. Charlize Theron was just plain terrifying a few times, and the guy who played her brother was just creepy beyond reason.

What the reviews didn't say (and I will, so don't read the next part if you don't want spoilers. Though, honestly, the Snow White story is pretty familiar, no?) but I will is that Snow White is a remarkably strong heroine. Yes, yes, she is pretty. But she is also tough and determined. She faces the queen without any of her admirers--large or small--because she knows the duty is hers alone. She inspires others to follow her. She brings out the best in the men and women she meets. The premise in this movie is not that evil Queen Ravenna wants Snow White's heart as proof of her death, but that she needs it for some kind of ritual that will make her immortal, because it is a heart so strong and pure. The ritual part wasn't too clear . . . I think the implication was that she was going to eat it or something. That part was a bit hazy, although I might have been distracted by the visual effects that fill this movie at every turn.

And now a moment about those visual effects--we've come a long way since Star Wars Episode One, baby. These effects are so seamless and realistic that it is hard to tell when (if ever) you are looking at a screen shot that hasn't been altered in some way. And yet, none of the actors ever appear stiff or wooden. Their interaction with the effects is so honest that you really believe it is happening. It is escape fantasy at its best. The film, even at its darkest, is still lovely.

Three films lately have painted an aging woman's desire for youth and beauty as a thing that is soul-sucking and craze inducing. Tangled; Mirror, Mirror; and Snow White and the Hunstman. Each mother-figure in these movies uses a combination of cruelty, manipulation and magic to achieve their beauty. In the end, the obsession over youth and beauty destroys each one in turn. An interesting commentary on our time, particularly in these last two films where iconically gorgeous women were cast as the queen-leads. There can be little denying that beauty is a kind of power.

By the end of the movie there are two men in love with Snow White. (No, no, one is not a vampire and the other a werewolf, though the humor of this actress chosen for this part was not lost on this viewer.) The Huntsman, made a widower by Ravenna's evil insatiability for young and beautiful victims, and the Duke's son, William, a young man of noble birth who was a friend of Snow White's from childhood. William is clearly the better choice for Snow White as far as her being a future queen and all. He also isn't a wimp singing down wishing wells and looking for a princess to kiss. He is a remarkable archer who has also sacrificed much to save Snow White's life. He has loved her for all his life. The Hunstman, (and no, he has no other name, don't even ask) on the other hand, is surprised to learn that he loves Snow White. We learn that she inspires him to be a better man (ahem: Darcy effect, thank you very much), just as his dead wife did. It is this second, reluctant lover for which we feel much compassion. He knows that it is impossible for a man as rough and hard as he to win the love of a queen, and he is very nearly absent on the most important day of her life. And while she seems anxious that he not be absent, the movie-goer doesn't really know. The movie ends without her choosing. Nor does she know which lover's kiss is the one that wakes her from the poison apple.

Okay, okay, to the moment I loved and has stuck with me.

As Snow White stabs the queen (using a technique taught to her by the Huntsman) she looks into the witch's eyes with such determination and compassion at the same time that you think this Snow White is the real deal and that she deserves to be queen. She tells the usurper, "You can't have my heart," and I was so certain she would follow that line with the expected, "I've already given it away." And then she would choose a beau, etc. etc. No. The line was just the first part. You can't have my heart. The implication is clear. It is MINE. And I'm using it, thank you very much. The queen dies in a dried up slumpy heap in front of the large, bronze mirror at the heart of her magic. Snow stands up straight and looks straight into the heart of the mirror. Her face is just off center, and I really expected one of the men, left practically useless by Ravenna's last glass shard-warrior spell in the other room to come running in and stand in that empty space near her. To complete the picture.

But no one came.

This Snow White stands alone.

Strengthened by the men in her life, but rescuing as often as she is rescued, she doesn't need to choose any one of them to rule her kingdom with compassion and power.

This is a new sort of heroine. Women and girls are gaining strength in unprecedented ways. It is a remarkable and an exciting time to be alive, isn't it?

Little Women

I love how the girls in Little Women patiently submit to their lots in life with zest, enthusiasm and obedience. Trials stemming from rebelliousness are temporary and soon ended with a kind word from "Marmee."

There should be a personality test for women in which you are identified as a Meg (bustling, domestic, motherly, likes nice things but is willing to sacrifice, proper, musical); a Jo (rebellious, rough, tomboy, restless, literary, unconventional); a Beth (charitable to a fault, kind always, still, faithful, also musical) or an Amy (elegant, tactful, artistic, the center of her social circle).

I've always most identified with Jo, though in some ways the above description isn't necessarily self-fitting. On a recent reading, Jo's main character trait that stands out to me is her restlessness. What suspends belief is that when she is married and more or less settled with her old professor and a houseful of boys is that all restlessness ends for her: maybe the houseful of boys was enough movement for her. Or not. Alcott herself was pretty much Jo, though she never married. The last chapter of her novel reads like her own castle in the air that isn't really grounded in reality. I can almost see Alcott in the garrett of smallish home, writing her prose and pining away for a man who would never come. Her father was a great friend to Thoreau: perhaps he was her ideal man in the way the professor was to Jo.

I am very restless this week. As we plan our annual pilgrimage to Utah, during which Plantboy and Jedi Knight are going to take an awesome canoeing trip, I cannot help but think that women spend a lot of time standing still while men get to move. And I am still having trouble learning to be still. I know that some of it is situational--my kids are still quite young--but it doesn't change things a whole lot. And we train them from a very young age to think this way: our girls go to Girl's Camp for long afternoons of crafts, a few water games, lots of cooking lessons and touchy-feely self-esteem boosting type activities. The teenage boys? They left this morning for a 50 mile backpack trip this week. In my mind it should be pretty clear which type of activity is more character-building, and yet we persist in defining kids almost wholly by their sex.

Oh, I am so restless. Graduate school this summer was very easy as I took an introduction class. Maybe as the challenges arise in the fall I won't feel like my spirit is trying to crawl out of my skin.

Thinking Before I Speak. Novel. I Know.

Remember the good old days of journaling? Okay, so some of you are awesome and you STILL journal, but I gave it up for blogging. (Not to be confused with Lent.) My journals are filled with some good stuff, but it is mostly incoherent rambling. I used my journal to sort out thinking that I either couldn't share with others or still wasn't sure of myself. Unfortunately, in that medium, I seldom got back around to clarifying my thoughts when solutions presented themselves. My entries from my teen years, in particular, make it plain that I was the most depressed person who ever lived. I guess I only wrote on the hard days.

Blogging has been different. When I write longer pieces here, I often will take some days to organize my thoughts about something I have seen or experienced, and then attempt to present those thoughts in a cohesive essay. Generally, what you see is the result of something I have spent time puzzling through and on which I have formed an opinion.

And then I write a piece like 'Cause I'm a Woman, filled with opinions that were probably not very well-considered before just throwing them up there. Thirteen articulate opinions were elucidated in a blog post that became a very important conversation. Your perspective-laden comments, in conjunction with a letter-only friend sending me a copy of an editorial response to a Republican Senator's complaint about "degrees to nowhere," has given me much to think about in the last couple of weeks. My thinking is now clarified, and unlike my journaling of old, I am going to take the time to complete my thoughts. (And in an unrelated note: I hyphenated three phrases in this last paragraph. It is probably because my vocabulary isn't large enough to supply better words!)

I do stand by some opinions, but others have been softened. Caitlin made an excellent point about motherhood being "life-altering." And in the case of (at least) Caitlin and Karin, motherhood has come with unexpected challenges that have erased the possibility of ever having an "empty nest." For them, motherhood is not a detour from another life (the way I too often view it), it is the only path. Each of these women are brilliant and might have done anything with their years on earth . . . indeed each might have had a very different dreams once upon a time. Instead, each has been blessed with a sweet little daughter who will never come to a place she doesn't need her mother. The conversation I attempted to initiate with my talk of paychecks and giving back to society is practically an insult to the remarkable work these two lovely women and countless others like them do every day.

A woman embarking on the medical school trajectory doesn't know how she will react to motherhood until it happens. I have three close friends from my growing up years who became doctors. An optometrist, dentist and dermatologist. They have four, three and two kids respectively. They have found ways to balance work and family through a variety of methods. They have made sacrifices that I wasn't/wouldn't be willing to make. The point, however, is that those sacrifices are THEIRS. It doesn't matter what I think of it, nor is it my business to sit in judgment of their choices. It is funny how I keep forgetting that.

As for the public college thing . . . it seems I'm not the only one having this debate. As the school accountability movement continues to gain momentum, many eager politicians have suggested that higher universities seeking accreditation and/or public funding should have to prove that their graduates are working. After all, many go to college with the expectation that there will be employment opportunities on the other side. While I think my statements in the earlier post (basically amounting to the idea that without the intent to work then there was no point in attending college) were off-base, I don't think it is unreasonable to ask yourself or your children what the purposes are for attending college (their might be many, not all of which are academic), which college or university is the best value for meeting those purposes, and how that education is to be paid for in the short and long term. Women especially need to be candid with themselves about "plan A" and "plan B" insofar as those terms are at all descriptive.

There was quote in my planner yesterday that read, "A liberal arts education is supposed to provide you with a value system, a standard, a set of ideas, not a job." I really like that quote, and I think I agree. Some things are inherently valuable, even if they don't turn into some arbitrary definition of "net-worth." The problem is that the liberal arts education still comes with a price tag, even if you can't easily measure its value or gain a return on it. If your dreams aren't tempered with a degree of practicality, then they are unachievable wishes or can eventually turn into nightmares.

As to the idea of shared public resources--my own mode of expression may have been over the top, but I think there are legitimate concerns to be spoken of here. In an era of fiscally (and morally) bankrupt government, it is necessary to ask hard questions about what exactly the government's responsibilities are. And what is the cost of that responsibility? To what degree is education an investment? A public service? How do we measure success in public education at every level?

I've also come to a deep realization the last few weeks that much of our self-reliance is an illusion. Oh, we might pay our own bills and have our food saved up for a year and store hundreds of gallons of water under the bunkbeds . . . . but our ability to truly live on our own is very limited. I listened to an interview with man named Russel Fox. He is a professor of political science at a university somewhere in Midwest. He is also LDS. He subscribes to a political philosophy called Communitarianism, which I find totally fascinating. The philosophy is that classic liberalism (i.e. individual freedom supersedes everything) is mostly impossible to achieve and ultimately leads to a broken and uncivil society. If individuals don't agree to give up some freedoms in return for the broader success of the group as a whole, then everything eventually collapses, or reverts to a state of oligarchy in which the privileged few are the only ones who actually have any freedom or power. He cites the Declaration of Independence as an example. While it begins with the words about individual have a right to "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness," the grievances in the document are all collective and perhaps the most powerful route to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for everyone is only through a recognition that we are all in this together.

He talked about the idea of "owning your home." Such a thing is only possible because a bank is willing to back you, because the public as a whole puts money into that bank that can in turn be lent, because the government backs the bank so that people will trust it enough to put their money in it. Your insurance on the home is possible because so many people pay into the system. Unless you are one of those rare folks off the grid, living in that house is comfortable because of a public sewer and utility system. The water coming into the house is clean because there are laws about that sort of thing. The road going to your house is paid for with public resources. You don't have a porn store open next door because there are laws for that too. In short, hundreds, maybe thousands, of people are responsible for the simple step of self-reliance that is called home ownership.

It isn't hard to see the same jump to education. I went to a public college and didn't pay tuition in five years of higher education. A scholarship endowment--backed by a LOT of generous people and taxpayers--did that for me. And while my obligation may not be to work at a traditional nine to five job, I still have to assert that I have a deep obligation to society. Where I overstepped the mark in my previous post was that in implying my own approach to paying it forward (or back or whatever you call it) is the only approach. If the first generation of feminists taught us anything, it's that women should get to choose whatever life they wish; I hope that the second generation of feminists has the wisdom to realize that choosing means leaving behind the things we don't value and rejecting false ideas of what it means to be a woman.

Cause I'm a WOMAN!

Let's see how well you remember this old commercial:

I can bring home the bacon . . . .
Fry it up in a pan . . . .

And now the last part?

And never let you forget you're a man
'Cause I'm a WO-man!

I wanted to start with this retrospective today because of a provocative article my brother sent me late last week. With my return to school this month, the article, a New York Times OpEd titled, "Don't Quit This Day Job" has caused me to stop and think about a lot of things.

But let's analyze the commercial first. If you are somewhere near my age, even if you had very limited access to television like we did, then you probably knew not only the lyrics, but the brassy, bluesy music that goes with it. These simple lyrics are the ultimate woman-message of the 80's. Our moms, the first generation of mainstream feminists, were home (often part-time) with young kids.

"I can bring home the bacon . . . " Implies that women, now working, could do just as good a job at providing for their families as their husbands.

"And fry it up in a pan . . ." Woman can also still be good at all those domestic tasks that are traditionally hers. Our mothers, who largely bought into feminism without even realizing it, (and were beneficiaries in many ways whether they supported it or not) really had a raw deal. They believed in equality a generation ahead of the men. My mother, who worked anywhere from 8 to 40 hours throughout all my growing up years, also worked full-time at home. I've never seen my dad iron or vacuum or change a diaper or dust or mend or start a load of laundry. The extent of his domestic ability is to grill and make pancakes on Saturday morning.

Now, before going to the next part, who remembers what this commercial was actually about? That's right. PERFUME. A now-defunct brand called "Enjoli."

The last couplet implies that not only can woman be the breadwinner and run the household, but she can be ready for an intense sexual experience at any given time. The question she puts to her man is, "Are YOU ready?" (Stupid question, really.) I also think it is funny how she must remind him that he is a man: I guess because modern woman does everything the emasculated modern man needs more reassurance.

My brother, the doctor, forwarded the above-referenced OpEd to me from another doctor--male--who was quick to point out that "he was not in agreement with the article." I suppose that a sensitive, new-age guy (SNAG) must say such a thing. But I am under no such constraints and may say whatever I like to the three or four of you still following Science Teacher Mommy. I am LARGELY in agreement with the sentiments expressed by Dr. Sibert in her OpEd.

For those of you that didn't link to the article I will summarize. Dr. Sibert expresses deep frustration at the vast numbers of women who go into medicine without the intention of practicing full time. She sees a disturbing trend as more and more medical schools are giving spots to individuals who intend to pursue medicine as a part-time career, citing that 48% of all medical school diplomas last year were given to women. She is frustrated by current attitudes that view doctor-ing as a great part-time option for women.

Wait . . . wait. . . haven't I been a part time worker for many years? Putting my teaching on hold for a family?

In a word, yes.

But we aren't talking about teaching, we are talking about medicine. And the good doctor points out that there are other considerations here. Medical school tuition is astronomical, but it still doesn't cover the costs of operating a medical school. The federal government subsidizes them. (In other words, you and I do. Sort of--45% of Americans don't actually pay federal taxes, but that is another discussion for another time.) Even more heavily subsidized are residency programs, with resident salaries coming almost entirely from the Medicaid budget. Dr. Sibert is angry with young doctors who don't recognize the investment poured into them, and maintains that doctors who don't practice full time are not as effective (they don't have as much practice) for their patients. Patients who are the very public who subsidized their education, and now hold all the promissory notes on their student loans too.

She is taking a bold stand by saying, "Newsflash: women CANNOT have it all!" And I agree. The notion that we can be all things to every person and still gain broad personal satisfaction is the biggest fallacy to come out of the Women's Movement of the 1960's and 1970's. I know, I've said it before, but we are at something like 425 posts here, and some things bear repeating.

When it comes to medicine, Dr. Sibert maintains, personal decisions (like the fact that 40% of female doctors in their childbearing years only work part time) have huge consequences for the public. Within just 15 years, this country will be short 150,000 doctors, especially General Practice doctors (the area where more of the residents are women). The Health Care legislation insures more people, and our population is aging. There is a terrible bottleneck in doctor training, with many times more people turned away then actually get into school. And when it comes to women in these professions, they are increasingly choosing them because of the options for part time work.

In addition, funding is becoming increasingly tight for residencies as the government cuts more and more from those areas in an attempt to balance the budget. What a kick in the pants to get through medical school only to learn there is no way for you to actually get the hands-on training needed to become a full doctor . . . perhaps it is a bigger kick in the pants to realize that you didn't get a spot ahead of a woman with excellent test scores whose ambition is to primarily be a stay at home mom.

Now, obviously, my brother's area of concern is the best medical care to the most patients, and his interest in this article is of that nature. I think there are things that could be done: states with a terrible mortality rate (relative) and a lack of doctors where they need to be, could subsidize tuition or even forgive student loans in exchange for a certain number of full-time years as a GP in rural and minority communities or in clinics that service areas with terrible poverty. I think you'd see a lot of people take advantage of that. Dr. Sibert offers few suggestions, though her tone implies that she would not like to see spots given at all without firm commitments about the work people will put back into the system that demands a lot but also gives a lot. She is right on the money in trying to address this difficult issue, and suggests that young female doctor-candidates need to be spoken to more candidly about the detriments of part time work.

For me, however, the article raises broader questions that can be applied to women everywhere, and maybe most particularly to LDS women who feel intense pressure to stay home (and whose husbands feel intense pressure to keep them there), but also near-constant encouragement to get all the education they can and excel at all they do. The feminist movement has finally produced the generation of young women it intended to--women with liberal ideas toward sex, who don't necessarily associate childbearing with sexual experience; women who believe that any career is open to them; women who see having children and/or marriage as one path in many toward self-actualization; women who are ambitious and driven and don't give a fig if they out-compete the men.

But I feel deeply conflicted about it. When Plantboy graduated from his master's program, nearly HALF of the graduates at the campus-wide commencement that day were in the college of education. As secondary teachers actually graduate from the college that was their major focus, this means that all of those COE graduates were either elementary teachers or psychology majors. Most of them were women. The rest of that half was rounded out by those in the college of Family Life--including interior design, social work and family human development. Again, nearly all women. I would have been fascinated, on that campus of mostly LDS people, to learn how many of those women ever worked. Ever intended to work.

Granted, their college experience was still valuable to them and their families, but it was a public college, heavily subsidized by taxpayers. In addition, most students attend college on some mixture of scholarships, grants and loans--all backed by common funds. Governments INVEST in education in the hopes of getting some kind of broad return on society.

Please don't misunderstand. I primarily identify myself as a stay at home mom, and I have done so for the last ten years. I believe that in most circumstances, kids get a better start in life if they have their mothers home with them during the first few years. I think if people are going to have children then they should also make the commitment to raise them.

But I also think that the Women's Movement not only deluded us into thinking that we could have it all, but that we were somehow lesser women if we didn't. So we are a generation of guilt-ridden women, unsure where we belong. We sacrifice career for family, but when the career calls we sacrifice family for that. Years of self-sacrifice can leave us worn down and bitter if we aren't careful.

I feel like every year in my life I have had to re-negotiate the balance between my own wishes and the wishes of the four men who depend on me for nearly everything. I try to be prayerful. I try to listen to the Holy Ghost. And then I act and try not to look back. I try not to feel deeply sad as the novel is shelved for who knows how long because I ran out of time to reach my own deadline. I try to get enthusiastic about another game of Apples to Apples Junior. I try to remember that doing the laundry is my version of clothing the naked, that making dinner is how I feed the hungry. I try to be cheerful about the three a.m. daily alarm knowing that the paper route is a means to an end. I try not to think about how I will possibly balance school, and eventually a full time job with a busy, needy family. I try not to be envious when my husband receives accolades at work. I try to desire motherhood above everything else even when it feels foreign to my nature. I try not to resent that I put my husband through school twice, but that this time around I must largely put myself through.

That last paragraph is pretty raw and honest . . . maybe nobody made it quite this far. But if you did, then maybe you or someone you love feels as conflicted as I do sometimes. People will often remark on how confident I am, and I feel like kind of a poser. Sometimes that outward display of confidence is the way I blow smoke over all the conflicting forces inside of me. Maybe this is the true essence of modern woman. Bottle that, Enjoli.

Looking Forward to the Next Parenting Crisis

Alternately Titled: What I Would Do With the $100 Million Jackpot

Jedi Knight has been taking karate since September. I chose this particular dojo, out of several choices, because its flexibility is awesome. He can go any day of the week because the general beginners' class is offered at the same time each day. He can go four times monthly, and if I up my monthly payment, he could go as often as he wanted. It has been good for him. He has learned some discipline and focus. He is getting better all the time. Some of the instructors I like better than others, though admittedly I don't get to stay and watch him as often as I like, so I'm not always sure how his classes go down.

What I had not counted on was the karate being quite as . . . well. . . self-important as the folks running the dojo make it seem. I appreciate that it is serious to them. That it is not a game or a costume party. But what I'm not crazy about is the secretary who makes me feel like a pariah when I ask questions about the way things work regarding advancement, etc. I sometimes feel like every other parent in the place kind of gets what is going on and I don't. My questions are often met with a combination of incredulity-condescension-and "well, duh!" I'm still trying to get a read on the place because JK likes it. Quite a lot.

A bit more background and then we'll address my current situation at karate. I am a hyper-modest girl. I'm not sure how this happened. My mom didn't necessarily really push this, although there was a pretty strong level of embarrassment regarding anything related to body stuff. For whatever reason, I entered puberty very reluctantly and slowly. I was angry when my friends threw over books, Barbies and school for boys, clothes and hair. By age 10 I was practically barricading myself in the bathroom when it came time for bathing or showering. If I took too long, somebody would always bang on the door threatening to use the butter knife to break in if I didn't hurry. Bra-shopping (at least six months too late) and menarche (at least a year too early) were nightmares of mortification, in which I never wanted to look my mother in the eye again.

Enter seventh grade gym class.

Until we toured the school, it had never occurred to me that we might be required to shower in a group. I was shocked and horrified. My public pool experience was pretty limited and the before pool showering we did was always in the little outside showers. Which word is stronger than mortification? Like you probably did, I learned to change my clothes without ever actually taking my other clothes off. I learned to shower wearing underwear and just wrapping myself in a towel. My feet were always very clean. . . .

I observed a couple of things. First of all, the only girls comfortable wandering the locker room in bra and panties were the cute/popular/boyfriended girls. I was not one of these. Unfortunately, most of my friends were, and it is safe to say that the girls in my locker aisle (which we could choose) were probably the most with-it group of our class start to finish. It is a group I somehow always managed to be on the fringe of and would end up rooming with at college some years later. Some of these women are still my close friends and I love them dearly, though I'm never really quite sure how they were my group to begin with. (Oh, man, this is a whole new set of hang-ups today. I need a new label called "Living in 1987.")

Ah hem. Back to the topic. My second observation from my locker room days is that the only girls comfortable showering uninhibited in front of everyone were the girls who already carried very bad reputations before we turned 13. I still remember this one girl . . . .

Okay, let's not go there.

Our gym teacher complained that somebody stunk. I thought it was a stupid accusation: I didn't smell anyone, and none of us were working hard enough to actually sweat. Still, she stood with the clipboard to watch each of us shower. For a grade. She later uncloseted as a lesbian.

Really.

College was awkward with the same pretty friends and their low inhibitions. Why is it easier to put on makeup in just a bra then it is just to put on a shirt, for crying out loud?? Now I live with four men, but my modesty principles have not loosened up much. Even when my kids were babies I didn't let them in the shower, or even the bathroom with me. I would lock them into the bouncy seat just outside the door and jealously guard my private time. My modesty. When my midwife and I went over the birth plan for my first baby, I mentioned my modesty hang ups and, bless dear Happy Barnes (my midwife's actual name), she was so careful while I labored. At the public pool we regularly attend now I always use the family restroom, even when I only have my three year-old with me. The sight of women changing in front of one another and their daughters and their young sons is really pretty horrible to me. Nursing was perpetually awkward for me and I was never really comfortable doing so in front of other people.

Out in public we cover, cover, cover. Why is it that the moment we step into a changing room it is okay to . . . . and I don't think I'll ever quite get over going to early morning water aerobics with my 70ish grandmother and her friends. I wish I had gone out into the 20 degree morning in my damp hair and clothes rather than be haunted by the elephantine memories of that public dressing room experience.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying this is necessarily right or normal and certainly not any kind of an LDS requirement for virtuous living. It is just me.

And because parents do, I have transmitted some of this to my kids. Jedi Knight showers with the door shut and often locked. He is bothered when people enter his room while he is changing. I have urged bathroom privacy for each child. We have decided to be a non-sleepover family and have spoken with all the kids at length about when and for whom it is appropriate to change your clothing.

Back to karate. When we started karate in the summer, they were meeting in a small and temporary dojo while construction was completed on another. Each child wore their "gi" (the white outfit) to karate. We were careful with it--ONLY to and from karate and kept clean and folded. In mid-October, the new dojo opened and we began going there. I noticed that a lot of kids in the class after JK changed at karate. Maybe even a majority. There is some kind of a group changing area with lockers in one area. Because the next class is comprised of teenagers and adults, I assumed they changed at the dojo because they came from school or work and it was convenient.

Not necessarily so, as I was firmly told on Monday. You see, everyone at the dojo is required to wear street clothes, and change there. Everyone. I was told that there are some lingering kids still making the mistake of changing at home because they allowed it over the summer. Not only is JK my modesty-boy, but he is also very resistant to change. I could see him shutting down as strict-secretary-girl was laying down the law. She explained her reasoning--the Gi is not a costume, they stay cleaner, the kids take greater responsibility, etc. etc. She confirmed that even the four and five year olds at his class are changing their clothes, in the group room, prior to class.

I explained to her that he and I had spoken a lot about modesty and that he had been instructed never to change clothes in front of other people. That it was a thing our family valued. She emphasized that she monitored the room carefully while kids were in there and listened for any talk that wasn't related to changing, and that it was a RULE for crying out loud. Seeing my discomfort, the dojo owner remarked that it would be appropriate for him to change in one of the stalls in the men's bathroom. I conceded that this would work.

Now if I can just convince Jedi "I'm-not-really-comfortable-with-this" Knight that he can go for the compromise.

On my way home from the encounter, all of my horrible junior high PE emotions came back to me. I went to college the year of the huge Skyview High scandal that brought hazing in high school sports into the national spotlight and began a discussion about where does "boys will be boys" cross the line into brutalizing sexual harassment. In a classic case of blame the victim, the young man was told that unless he apologized to the team for having sought police involvement in the case, then he was off the team. The perpetrators didn't even get a slap on the wrist.

Recent studies and practices at some high performing middle schools demonstrate that doing PE in the morning (actual PE, not avoid-the-dodge-ball-and-gossip-for-25-minutes) increases academic performance. I'm a believer in this. The dream school I design in my head all of the time is a 6-12. PE and Health would be a major part of the required curriculum. Every year. Equipment. Classes. Martial Arts. Nutrition. Disease. etc. . . . but if something couldn't be done about completely re-envisioning locker rooms, I could never really get behind it. Individual showers. Stalled changing rooms. Gym teachers with more important tasks to fill their time than watching young kids shower to earn points.

We may have averted the karate crisis. I think by the time our next lesson rolls around I will have him talked into a compromise that works for the dojo and for our family.

But what will I do in middle school? When my quirky, smart, small boys who haven't been weaned onto a diet of team sports are confronted with a locker room dilemma which I find pretty offensive? A place that, almost by design, strives to separate the kids into a social stratification that persists for years and erodes self-esteem. Kids can be so cruel, and I've been around teenage kids more than a little bit. I know the kind on which some of them prey. They are the little men I love more than I love my own life. The system, as it stands, forces kids to be at their most vulnerable around one another just when they are getting smart enough to learn exactly whom they should never "strip" in front of.

Oh! I know we can't take away their hurts, but I don't want to throw them to the lions' den either!

Sex and Power and the LDS Woman

I find myself singing to my kids often--snippets of songs, really. I think I do this because my mother did. And just like her I sing in snippets because I can't remember all the words and when I am on my own with no music I'm usually off key. One of my earliest mom-song-memories is Helen Reddy singing the great feminist anthem:

I am woman hear me roar
In numbers too big too ignore
And I know too much to go back and pretend
'Cause I've heard it all before
And I've been down there on the floor
No one's ever gonna' keep me down again.

It is funny, really, that this song, a huge hit the year I was born, should have so permeated my childhood. My mom did not, and definitely does not now, consider herself a feminist. And yet, she represented all that the movement wanted--she rose up from a difficult family life to attend college, told her boyfriend she wouldn't be married until she finished college (marrying in 1969), insisted on going back to work part time after her children were born, managed her own money and bank account for her whole adult life, had four children spaced exactly as she chose them to be. Growing up, it never occurred to me that there might be places in America where men and women weren't treated as equals. In my family, the women always had equal say with the men. Always.

And yet I don't consider myself a feminist either. It is ironic really, because I also completely recognize that my lifestyle, choices and self-actualization are a direct outgrowth from that time. I am not a feminist because for all the good the movement did for women in my generation, there were also heavy costs. A huge part of the movement, and the 1960's in general, was an exploration of sexual "freedom." Instead of helping to create a world where men were held to the same high standard that women had always been judged against, they advocated the freedom for women to act to the lowest common denominator. Empowering women became so wrapped up in sex that all the good work the feminists did ended up resulting in some pretty terrible unintended consequences. Women may now exhibit all kinds of lewd behavior without the consequences of a generation or two ago, but in the process these same women cause men to further objectify them. So much for the sexual revolution being anything more than huge step in the wrong direction.

A few months ago, Kathryn Soper, one of the lovely and talented women behind Segullah, posted an incredible article at a website called "Patheos." The article is about the ways in which we miss the mark when it comes to teaching teen aged women about chastity. Her insights are fascinating, the writing engaging, and her personal experiences deeply poignant. If you haven't had a friend send you the piece yet, you really should take a few minutes to go and read it. Ever since reading it a few weeks ago, I haven't been able to quite put it out of my head, and though I won't be as eloquent, I would like to add some of my own thoughts here.

The article begins by pointing out that most teenage girls do not engage in sexual activity because of an overwhelming desire to have sex. In fact, a New Yorker article from a couple of years ago, when reviewing the Twilight books, believed the popularity of the books was due to the fact that young women want love without sex. Soper asserts the same, and quotes President Ezra Taft Benson to back her up. The teen sex itself is a symptom of a deeper problem. Or problems.

Going further, Soper focuses the rest of her piece on just one of these problems: power.

Too many young girls, maybe particularly LDS girls, feel a lack of power. In this case, power is defined as a person feeling like they have a large measure of control over what happens to them. When we talk about power at church, we most often talk about Priesthood power--exclusive to men; or the power of procreation--inaccessible without a man. It isn't that there aren't plenty of examples of female power within the Church, it is just that our terminology doesn't acknowledge it.

When a powerless feeling is coupled with a strong need for love and/or attention, sexuality is the most obvious default for a teenager. Because, let's face it, ladies, men are wired to be deeply driven by sex. Women who learn from an early age to manipulate that desire can gain a lot of power. Of course, Soper reminds us, the power is just an illusion because it isn't based on something inside the young person, it is based on others' perceptions of her. Like the other power mentioned above, such burgeoning sexual power is based on something a man gives or does or notices.

I'd like to add that the power usually only lasts as long as the object of young man's desire is unattainable. Studies show that the vast majority of teen relationships end within a month or two of a couple's first sexual encounter. Girls, of course, have the most to lose in such a break-up, because it ensures that the temporary substitute for love is now absent, and to make matters worse, she has given up the only source of power that she had. In the self-image crash that inevitably follows, needs deepen further and our powerless young teenager finds herself repeating her mistakes because this time it will be "different."

The remainder of Soper's article is in the form of a personal essay, where she bravely talks about her first encounter with the realization that sexual power was within her grasp. In my own life, I was lucky not to have such an experience when I was in my mid-teens, though I knew that many of my friends understood that power. At the time, it didn't feel lucky. Other than a brief stint during my junior year, I could count on one hand the number of dates I had until I was twenty years old.

I was so jealous of the way my many friends could flirt and tease and even manipulate to find any number of boys with which to spend a Friday night. Or to take out the garbage. Or to lift something heavy. Or to hang on their every word. Or ultimately, to spend three months salary on a diamond ring.

Yet, even as my bitterness and mild disdain for what I perceived as the weakness of men grew (along with frustration over my sisters' cruelty toward them), I was busy cultivating other sources of power: intellectual, emotional and spiritual.

Then, when I was twenty years old, something remarkable happened. After a very unusual set of circumstances that landed me in Sacramento California and hanging out with a guy I didn't really like all that well, I looked into his eyes (too) late one night and I recognized exactly what Kathryn Soper is talking about in her article: sudden approval where before there had only been indifference. Bald desire that frightened me.

I kept my power and walked away from the situation, terrified at what I was capable of, and more than a little embarrassed. Because of this person's previous role in my life, for me to suddenly have such a hold was complete reversal, and more than a little exhilarating. What I learned that night, however, without really realizing it, was that "no," was more powerful than desire. My choice, my decision, was a product of every part of my power, not just my sexuality.

In Disneyland last month I was terribly disappointed not to see more evidence of Mulan: my favorite Disney-heroine and the consummate non-Princess. At the first of that movie, right after a disastrous trip to the matchmaker, she goes to the temple of her ancestors, made up and lovely. She is the classic picture of Chinese beauty. Yet, she knows as she catches her image in the highly polished stones that the gorgeous woman she sees is not a reflection of herself. As she wipes the make-up off just one half of her face, she sings,

Who is that girl I see?
Staring straight back at me?
When will my reflection show
Who I am, inside?

I saw this movie the summer I met Plantboy. I was quite self-actualized for 23, but I understood Mulan's sentiment exactly. How many times had I asked myself the same question, though perhaps without the moving vocals. Mulan is not just a love story between a man and woman, it is also a love story of a girl and her father, a girl and her country, a girl and herself.

Some time in my early thirties, I finally looked into the mirror one day and loved the woman I saw staring straight back at me. I found the place where I ceased to see myself through others eyes, even Plantboy's, and I felt deeply empowered. Intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and sexually. A balance that had taken me half my life to finally achieve.

The question I have today is, "why did it take so long?" What can be done to speed this process for the wondering and wandering young women we know and love so that they can be the heroines in their own lives?

Just a few weeks ago, a man in our ward gave a wonderful fireside about dating, but during his remarks he noted that if you believed yourself to be "in love" in high school, then you were just being ridiculous. (Ironically, his own wife, to whom he is very close, is his high school sweetheart.) I felt impressed to drive one of my young women home and speak to her a little more closely: she is dealing with some serious empowerment issues right now, and a serious boyfriend issue. I told her that loving another person wasn't ridiculous, and that part of the nature of women was to be loving. I reiterated that it is never okay to break the commandments, but that there are plenty of appropriate ways to give and express all kinds of love, even that feeling of romantic love. I pray that she will feel the power that comes into her life by choosing to be chaste. By choosing to love. By choosing her own path and asserting what she really wants. Mostly I pray that she will find her power before she finds herself on a road where she actually is helpless.

It is a hard thing we ask of our youth and young adults; it is a hard standard the Lord holds us to while simultaneously blessing us with such powerful needs, but we weren't sent here to fail, either. Empowerment is about realizing that we can do hard things. Because I am God's daughter.

A woman.

Strong. Feminine. Empowered.

Hear me roar!

Three Cups of Tea

My thoughts have been much focused the last several weeks on Greg Mortensen's memoir with the same title as this post. It is the book I have recommended to other people the most this year, and I feel like the work he is doing deserves every bit of publicity it can get.

For those of you who aren't (yet) acquainted with this remarkable man and his work, the quick summary is that he was just a regular guy trying to have bigger and better experiences: after climbing for several years in California throughout the late 80's, he get an opportunity to try K2. Though not as tall as Everest, K2 is heralded as the most technically difficult of the world's tallest mountains and climbed by many fewer people. During the expedition, which ended rather disastrously, Mortensen became lost. A Balti porter (Baltis are the indigenous people who live at the base of the Karkoram mountains which are the part of the Himilayas in Pakistan. Think Muslim Sherpas) saved his life first, and then when he became lost again--4 months at that altitude makes you a little bit loopy--a group of people in a village called Korphe saved his life a second time.

And maybe his soul.

He was so touched by all they had given him in their poverty that he vowed to return one day and build them a school. He even did the research before he left and realized that for just 12,000 US dollars, he could build a beautiful school and supply a teacher for a year on land the villagers donated.

Back on the plane, finally leaving Pakistan, he realized just how difficult the promise would be to keep. He himself had nothing, and spent quite some time living out of his car and writing letters to famous, wealthy people on an old typewriter hoping to to get money for his idea.

Yada . . . yada. . . . yada. . . .

There are now 100 of Mortensen's schools operating in Northern Pakistan and Afghanistan. Want to know about the ellipses? You'll just have to read the book.

Just as when I read Madeline Albright's book last year, I was struck in these pages by how uniquely prepared Mortensen has been for his place in the world. There was hardly a chapter that went by in which I wasn't moved to tears by the enormity of what he has undertaken, and the guiding hand that has sustained him throughout. My attitude and understanding of Islam has changed and broadened. My appreciation for the life I have has deepened. My commitment to helping others has been strengthened.

I cannot think of a better book for your family or your book group to read this year. There is a version of his (first) memoir written for young adults, and there is also children's book for younger children that has some amazing illustrations. This "story" is accessible to anyone.

Mortensen's work in the Middle East says not only a lot about peace, but it also speaks to the things that work best in any school. Our broken American system might take some lessons from our Pakistani brothers and sisters, for all of their simple circumstances. His American board of directors is made up primarily of current and former educators. Though he speaks to politicians to gain support for his broader mission and to shed light on the problems in the region (which breed terrorism if not unchecked), politicians don't make decisions for him. Each of his schools takes a certain level of commitment from the community in land, materials and bodies. Though there is no standard curriculum, there are guidelines, which include no teaching of propagandized religious material. Girls have to receive every opportunity the boys do, and a small scholarship fund has been attached to his institute for the very best performing students.

Hearing the experiences of the girls, particularly, finishing up at one of these beautiful schools is so touching. These women will not raise sons to become terrorists. These women will not hate the United States.

Throughout the book this mantra kept running through my head, like a prayer, "Please let people understand this man and learn about his mission." Greg Mortensen has proven that a single man can change people's lives, can change people's perceptions, can break down stereotypes. So if a million, ten million, a hundred million Americans begin to see people in all parts of the world as brothers and sisters in need of our support and love, isn't it possible to change the world? If we see that poverty and ignorance are two branches of the same tree? If we can learn that alleviating the second will alleviate the first?

The American military spends tens of millions each MONTH for us to fight ideology in the Middle East. Greg Mortensen can build a school for $12,000 that will build new ideology which lasts for generations.

Those lovely children of the Indus Valley aren't the only ones in need of education. Oh, God, let us understand . . . .

Who Are You? But Keep it Short

When I was in the 9th grade, I saw the movie Love Story. By that time I was already a generation late for it, but for about a year I was slightly obsessed with the film. The lead in it was named "Jenny" and I am convinced that movie is responsible for the fact I went to high school with 20 Jennifers--all of us born in the mid-seventies by mothers who had seen that movie. (I was almost a Jennifer myself.) She wore black tights and turtlenecks with adorable tartan minis: a look you can nearly always get away with in any year.

After a big fight between the two main characters, she storms out and he spends half the day hunting the city for her. When he returns home, she is sitting on the front porch. He becomes very apologetic (as he acted like a big, fat jerk) and she interrupts him saying, "Being in love means never having to say you are sorry."

I loved this phrase and believed it. My mom (what did SHE know, anyway?) vehemently disagreed, for all that she had nearly named me Jenny. "No, being in love means always having to say you are sorry."

The thing is, I think both Jenny and my mom are right, with qualifiers. If two people are in love--and not just that infatuation/attraction love, but the kind of love that is a daily decision of working together and working it out--then they should not have to apologize to one another for who they are. For example, Plantboy knows I'm a bit (read: insanely) neurotic about certain things. But he knew how Type A I was when he married me, and he loves me anyway. On the other hand, I think when you are in a loving relationship (any type of love, really) then you need to constantly be on your guard against hurting one another's feelings and ready to apologize and make amends when you mess up. You should never have to apologize for who you are, but you should be quick to apologize for what you do.

But none of this is the reason I brought up "Love Story." The opening line of the movie, just so you know you are headed for absolute disaster, is "What can you say about a twenty-five year old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant? That she loved Mozart and Bach, the Beatles, and me?"

In less than 20 words, her husband gives a succinct summation of who his wife was. I'm working on a piece as a guest blogger right now, and the blog's author asked me for a biographical blurb to put in front of it. She gave me 50 words.

This is a hard thing. Is there anyway to get to the heart of your self in so few words? Each of the following is a biographical statement in less than 50 words, and each is the absolute truth. Taken singly, each might give you a very different idea about my character.

* I loved Barbies as a child because Barbie could always be a grown up and go to college or have a career or a boyfriend or her own house. I preferred to design my own clothing for Barbie.

* I love to hike and submerge myself in nature. My parents are talking about taking their whole family to Disneyland later this year and the very thought of it makes me cringe, for all that I am keeping on a brave face for my excited kidlets.

* I once bungee jumped from a 170-foot crane with no mat underneath. Three weeks later I had the opportunity to go up in a hot air balloon and had the terrible desire to jump out of the basket when we reached the zenith, just for the rush.

* I have fallen in love three times. Once for friendship. Once for attraction. And once for good.

* As a missionary I was cursed off the doorstep by a woman who spat at my feet and told me I was headed straight to Hell. I walked away. And I cried.

* In retrospect, I realized I had severe post-partum depression with my oldest child. I was 800 miles from my mother, new to the area, and without a single close friend (yet). I thought asking for help was tantamount to admitting failure. And I felt like a failure.

* I long for a daughter, but I'm not entirely convinced I'm a great mother to the kids I've already got. I sometimes pray that my sister, who also has three sons, will get the girl.

* I lived in the same house and ward from age 3 to 18. In the last fifteen years, I have had 25 different addresses and about that many wards in 2 different countries and 4 different states. To say that my perspective has changed is putting it mildly.

* I've always had a slight distaste for people who wasted any amount of time playing video games. We got a Wii for Christmas and I have since become a Jedi Master in the Lego Star Wars gaming universe. May the force be with you.

* In high school a family friend told me not to worry about my looks, because "everyone goes nature in college." As I've gotten older, I've become more interested in clothes, hair and make-up. I think it is to assert my femininity in a house filled with male energy.

I sometimes feel like a bundle of contradictions. I keep thinking I will get to a place where I understand myself and my reactions, where I behave with some modicum of predictability. If such a place exists, I have not yet found it. But I do know this: I used to think I had to choose between strength and femininity, between being tough and being tender. I don't think that anymore. I am both, and the women I admire are both. Maybe it is enough to know this about myself.

Mansfield Park Lite, Or Is It Heavy?

I reread Mansfield Park this week. It got me to thinking about movie versions of this story, and how much I disliked Masterpiece Theatre's recent interpretation of it. It isn't fair, really. MT did a very credible job of telling the story, preserving much of Austen's original intention for the story, complete with a Fanny Price so bland as to be entirely forgettable.

Because she is. As much as like Austen's book for its tone, satire, wittiness and plot, I am not crazy about Fanny. I don't know why. She is friendly and kind. She is loyal to a fault. Her principles are impeccable and her judgment sound. Her patience is infinite. In short, she has exactly those attributes I find myself striving for.

Yet, isn't it possible to have all of these lovely traits while, at the same time, standing up for herself? Explaining herself fully? Acting like a woman instead of a mouse? Her fearful shyness is sometimes so annoying I found myself gritting my teeth with her. Austen herself was so Mary Crawford; where does this Fanny Price heroine fit with the Emmas and Elizabeths?

No doubt, someone here is going to write back that they did one of those Austen Facebook quizzes and were declared to be most like Fanny Price. I'm not concerned; if you are most like Fanny Price than nothing I can say will offend you. I can criticize your social standing, your parents, your financial situation and even your looks without so much as a quiet nod as you return to your needlework.

So, imagine my delight when I re-discovered the 1999 version of Mansfield Park on YouTube the other day. While most Austen adaptations that veer too much from the original are extremely distasteful to me, this one left me feeling just the opposite. The screenwriter dissected the original Austen, read between the lines for plot development, enhanced character motivation, and gave Fanny a backbone.

The result is a piece that is both dramatic and funny, romantic and satirical, literary and entertaining. It is a story that, with the benefit of a more modern sensibility, helps put Fanny's entire experience at Mansfield Park in the context of her time. Here follow some brief comparisons.

The actress who plays Fanny is quite wonderful and pretty too. She contains all of Fanny's better attributes without being as sickly and retiring as Austen's heroine. The 1999 Fanny is vivacious, strong and natural. She hears each cruel thing from her Aunt Norris and others of her ilk without ever really believing it. To keep household peace, she will hang her head and acquiesce without complaint, but she never sees herself as second to anyone. Even the sassy and sensual Miss Mary Crawford. She may not know how to compete with her, but she doesn't ever defer to her either.

The characterization all around in the 1999 version is remarkable. The feckless older brother, Tom, is not merely a drunken lout; instead he is deeply depressed over his father's involvement in the West Indian slave trade. Austen's book uses his father's "business in Antigua" as a major part of the story, but she is less than forthcoming about what, specifically, he did there. The movie gives Tom depth of character from the first few minutes he is introduced. His extreme guilt over a lifestyle paid for almost entirely from the buying and selling of slaves leads him to self-medicate with extreme alcoholism. Nor is he the only one. Austen tells us that Lady Bertram is constantly lethargic and uninterested in almost everything to the point of almost being a non-entity. This film helps us to see why this is the case: she is an opium addict. Something not at all uncommon in that day and age. True to Austen's original story which paints Fanny's mother and her Aunt Bertram as so much alike, this version casts the same actress in both parts. A brilliant juxtaposition. The slave trade is also used to help explain Lord Bertram's alternating bouts of indifference, interference, cruelty and interest in Fanny's concerns. This theme of slavery is a major point in the way he basically auctions off his daughters to the highest bidders, regardless of their feelings. Fanny's defiance to his orders matches her revulsion for his money-making schemes.

All is not entirely well with the screenplay: the deletion of Fanny's brother was a mistake, even if Fanny's character picks up a lot of his best attributes. The help and advancement Mr. Crawford lends him is Fanny's primary motivation for even considering his overtures toward her, though the 1999 Mr. Crawford is a good enough actor that I almost began to wonder what Fanny's scruples against him are exactly. Which takes us to the only major flaw, in my eyes, in this particular interpretation. Fanny, desperate in the life she has been punished back into and eager to help her family, tells the charming Henry that yes, indeed, she will marry him. It is true that her acceptance of him only lasts for a day, but Fanny's chief virtue is her unwavering constancy toward her best principles and her beloved Edmund. I think this screenplay could have taken us down the road of Fanny's serious consideration of Mr. Crawford's advances without her actually saying yes.

So now we must talk about the beloved Edmund, played perfectly by Johnny Lee Miller. (Who I loved in Eli Stone--a short-lived dramedy on television for about 18 months.) Imagine my surprise when I found out he was in the MT series as Emma's Mr. Knightly as well. I missed it because I was so disappointed in both Mansfield Park and A Room With a View that I couldn't even attempt another adaptation. Anyway, there is a moment near the end of the film where Fanny has just learned a series of shocking things about her adopted family. She is sitting near Tom's sickbed in her nightgown, her face a mask of shock and horror when Edmund comes to her to ask her if she is okay. He is comforting her and in the intense emotion of the moment he (ALMOST!) kisses her. This almost kiss is more beautiful than any movie kiss I've ever seen. I won't link it here because this same clip has a few pretty shocking moments in it; this version of Mansfield Park is daring thematically and is for grownups only.

I do love Austen. I think if you have only seen film adaptations or read books about Austen's work, then you have seriously missed out on the actual Austen experience. Her gifts are legion and her legacy much deserved. But I will say, in this case, there is actually some improvement on the original.

The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands

I haven't done a book review for a long time. I've been reading; there is a list of this year's selections about halfway down my sidebar. This post will be partially a book review, but also some of my own opinions (shocker) on the proper care and feeding of husbands.

It is probably good to begin by disclosing my own bias against self-help books. When I do find them useful, it is only because the basic philosophy of the author is consistent with gospel teachings. (For a brief discussion of this, check out Elder Uchtdorf's talk from the last conference.) Laura Schlessigner's book, "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands," is no exception to this--where her philosophy is consistent with gospel teachings I think she has a lot of helpful advice; but, to me, her basic theme in the book is completely incompatible with our understanding of the divine nature of man and woman. I'll complete this thought later.

The first thing that bothers me about the book is the shoddy scholarship. She explains that her ideas for the book come from her experience as a therapist, her radio show and her web site. As for the first, Dr. Laura (I use the term "doctor" very loosely here; this is Ms. Shlessigner's preferred title), currently holds no license from any state as a family therapist, and has not for many, many years. Her PhD is in physiology, not psychology. None of her educational background is in psychology. As for the radio show and the website, these can hardly be called unbiased sources as her often volatile program likely attracts a certain type of demographic. The addendum on her website says that any email or call becomes her sole property once it is made public. In other words, she has full discretion to abuse you soundly on the air and then use the interaction in a book, taking whichever excerpt proves her point and paints her in the light of having saved your marriage by way of a 20 second lecture.

There are no facts or statistics to back up the more specific claims she makes. There isn't a single footnote in the entire book. No expert, other than Dr. Laura herself, is quoted. Her evidence all seems to be anecdotal, though she has plenty of anecdotes.

As I read, I became curious about Dr. Laura's personal life and was quite shocked by what I learned. Her current incarnation/persona is of a highly conservative, God-fearing woman who is critical of anything that might break down the family. She thinks women should delay sex, if not until marriage, at least until relationships are serious. She is highly critical of feminism and thinks mothers should raise the children they have, and that those children should never be born out of wedlock. While this is generally positive, Dr. Laura, now in her 60's, only came by her current philosophy much later in life. It seems apparent that her first radio job was a result of sleeping with the boss, and the nude photos emerged 20 years later to prove it. She divorced her first husband after just a few years. She lived with her second husband for eight years before marrying him, and for the first of those years he was still married to another woman. She was pregnant their only son before they were married and had a very demanding career while he was a small child. Dr. Laura was a self-proclaimed feminist well into the 1980's. To defend herself against the many who have called her hypocrite she says, "A hypocrite says 'do as I say, not as I do.' I am saying, 'do as I say, not as I did.'"

None of the previous paragraph is, of course, in the book. I just wanted to know what I was dealing with. This makes it sound as though I don't think she could have anything worthwhile to say because of the life she has lived. In fact, just the reverse is true: I think her many negative experiences probably give her unique perspective on the mistakes that many women make. It does, however, make her holier-than-thou tone throughout the book a bit disgusting. It also makes me halfway think that her scathing critique of women is her own way of justifying her husband's prior infidelity--as though his first wife drove him to Dr. Laura's caring and feeding arms and she deserved it. (It seems, to the good doctor anyway, that most cheated on women DO deserve it.)

Anyway, I think her advice needs to be taken in context of who she is and where she is coming from, recognizing that her source material is certainly biased in favor of her own methods. Her motivation for writing the book is that women are undermining their marriages right and left by their own actions, and that most other "help" sources--books, talk shows, therapists and girl friends are contributing to the problem by validating and therefore reinforcing women's most negative behaviors to their husbands. In "researching" her topic, she set up a spot on her website where men could email comments to her about what should go into this book. She quotes from these extensively, but there is one such email that gets to the heart of her thesis very quickly.

"Men are simple. If I'm not horny then I probably want a sandwich."

This is funny. Maybe REALLY funny. And, as with many tacky jokes, it requires a broad generalization of men in order to work. Jumping from this platform, Dr. Laura's book deals in broad stereotypes, reiterating time and time again that MEN ARE SIMPLE. They want to be shown physical affection (reader Steve left this charming comment, "[Men] need more sex. Once a day is fine"), given praise, fed a good dinner and be shown "awe" by "their woman" for all they do for her. If a woman will perform these simple tricks then, voila! "Your man" will reciprocate by "slaying dragons" and "walking through fire for you."

Hm . . . . to some of this verbiage I want to say that we are fresh out of dragons and that in most normal circumstances, walking through fire would be rather useless. Yes, I get that this is figurative, but isn't it easy to say that you would do something very dramatic for the one you love, when all she might really want is for you NOT to regard the toilet as a general sort of a goal instead of a target?

If this seems like a gross simplification of a book that is nearly 200 pages, well, I'm not so sure. I think what I've said here really gets to the heart of what she is advocating. True, she treats topics such as respect, busy-ness, feelings, communication, nagging and sex in seperate chapters, but her conclusions are all the same.

I didn't hate this book, though I found her tone so supercilious at times that I wished for a dart board so that I could paste a picture of her face right on the bullseye. The book was actually recommended to me many years ago, and I've put off reading it as I had heard clips from Dr. Laura's radio show, and expected the tone to be very combative.

To say the least.

But in the interest of not throwing out the baby with the bathwater, I will tell you what I liked about it. I can hardly call these things "spoilers." I would actually think that for LDS women, these points shouldn't be anything we haven't already learned in Church or from our own mothers.

1--Dr. Laura goes on at some length about treating your spouse with kindness and love first without waiting for him to make the first move. She is basically saying that we should serve our families cheerfully, even when we aren't quite feeling it, because this basic service-attitude will make us feel much happier.

2--"Your feelings are not facts and should not be used as weapons." I quite like the way she worded this. It is true that some women use tears and verbal abuse to bend men to their will all the time. I'm grateful to have been raised by a mother who saw herself as a partner with my dad and she didn't resort to passive-aggressive methods in an attempt to make him into something else. My mother loved us all very much and never hesitated to express such in a hundred tiny ways, but she never turned on the waterworks or used the silent treatment to get her way with my dad.

3--The feminist movement tricked women: First into thinking they could have it all and do it well, and that if they DIDN'T then they were somehow less than a woman. The second fallacy is that women don't need men. And lastly is the popularized notion that women who find fulfillment in home and family are deluding themselves. I agree that these are all negative attitudes that were a result of that movement.

4--Love is more than just a feeling--it is both a choice and an action. Dr. Laura explains that she writes FOR women because so much ineffective advice, counsel and teaching is aimed at changing men. But it is women that want to change men. Since it really is only possible to change yourself, then it stands to reason that if your marriage is in trouble and worth saving, then you can really only influence your own behavior, and not your partner's. I like her proactive, practical approach to making your life better. We must choose every day to love our spouses, and then we must show that love by our actions.

5-Men and women ARE different. And that is okay, these differences can be a wonderful compliment to each other if we allow them to be.

As for what disturbed me about this book, it was partly her combative tone and Dr. Laura's advice doled out like she is spouting eternal truth in every consonant. She advocates control and manipulation just as powerfully as the feminists, but encourages women to do this in a uniquely feminine way. So here are a few of my gripes.
1--She seems to advocate serving in order to manipulate: love is practically an afterthought in the reasoning. By manipulate I mean that she encourages women to use all of their kindest "tricks" so that men will be putty in their hands and do whatever they want them to do. In other words, the purpose of serving "your man" is to get served in return. While I admit that such reciprocation of affection, help and love is often the result of properly caring and feeding your husband, I think the motivation here is everything. I remember once, some years ago, Dr. Phil had a woman on his show who was using sex as a way to get her husband to buy her expensive gifts. If this sounds like prostitution, well, you aren't alone in your thinking there. That, obviously, is an over-the-top example of a woman going to the extreme to get what she wants, but again, if our motivation is not pure love for our partner, giving without expectation of getting in return, then we haven't learned squat about charity.
2--She says that women ARE in control in their homes, but that men want to BELIEVE that they are. To this end, she instructs women on how to give men the illusion of wearing the pants. Yet, other times, she berates women soundly for emasculating their men by expecting them to be good listeners. There were whole passages in this book I found very contradictory to itself, besides being at odds with a patriarchal model of the family set forth by the Lord.

3--The feminist movement wasn't ALL bad. Heck, even "Dr. Laura" herself wouldn't exist without some kind of sexual revolution. Women have choices now that they never had 100 years ago. Absolutely, some of it has been taken too far (see #3 above), but it is pretty disingenuous to soundly criticize something you have been a huge beneficiary of.

4--Men's emotional needs are met, not just primarily, but pretty much entirely through sex: this is the gospel according to Dr. Laura. I won't say much more on this, some topics are better left between husband and wife, but I sincerely hope that if you are married (or become so one day) that it is to a man who has emotional needs beyond sex. Or at least if he views sex as the culmination of all emotional needs, he has made an honest effort to meet your emotional needs before he expects you to welcome his advances with open arms.

5--But the last thing, and probably most disturbing thing, about this book is the oversimplification of who man is. Yes, to a large degree, a man's needs might be rather simple. However, he, himself is not. Men are sons of God. Men who are priesthood holders and have made covenants are gods in embryo. To use sex and food to trick them into behaving as we want is regarding them as trained monkeys.

We reiterate to our young women week in and week out this princess part of their nature. Each week they recognize "divine nature" as one of their values. We play on their sense of romance by encouraging them to find a prince who will take them to the palace/temple and commit to them forever. What could be more romantic than that? Yet, when we make analogies with our young men, we talk so much in terms of warriors and armies and battles. Men are so trained to slay the dragon that I wonder if they sometimes forget that they will be kings as surely as their wives will be queens. Dr. Laura encourages each woman to set her standards much lower and then "stand by your man, because, after all, he's just a man."

I once heard a general authority give a talk about Christlike attributes, and the teaching of such to our young men. He said that too often, the qualities of Christ are attributes men only assign to women--love, compassion, mercy, tenderness, etc.--but that in reality, these are attributes we all must strive to have. Dr. Laura berates women for trying in so many negative ways to change the nature of men, and she certainly has a point about all of the mean and ineffectual ways women attempt to do this; but what she doesn't understand is that part of the nature of the covenant marriage is that a man and a woman will work as a team to go beyond just accepting and loving each other as they are, and instead bring out the very best in each other's natures in order to progress together toward something greater.

One of my favorite scriptures from the new testament is, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave his life for it." The counsel could apply equally to women, and I don't think Paul was talking about dying for the Church here, though Christ certainly did that too. I think he is talking about living for the things we love and have covenanted to. We shouldn't love our spouses to get dinner or sex or help around the house or a night off from changing diapers . . . . we should love our spouses because it makes us more Christlike to do so. Deep, abiding and lasting love has the power to change our very nature.

Maybe my next post will be about why in the world, if most men (as per Dr. Laura) are really looking for wives who are sweet and acquiescing by nature, do they try so hard to date women who manipulate, control, tease and tempt? But that can wait; this post is already twice as long on paper as it was in my head. By all means, share your thoughts on taking care of "your man," or on the book if you have read it.

In the Interest of Furthering the Discussion

You really never know what you're going to get when you post, do you?

My thoughts on the previous post were running more along the lines of humor a la ward librarian, and instead this deeply introspective discussion has mostly revolved around the aside I almost didn't include. I was going to add the following remarks as comment #15 or whatever, but they became too lengthy and I felt like some clarification was in order before I mortally offend any reader who comes this way.

What I think is fascinating in this discussion is the overall theme that many different life paths still fall in the realm of "righteous" and that each is unique to the individual on that path. And yet, for all that we've come to many of the same conclusions, each of you here is so different! There are single women, married women with and without children in various numbers, returned missionaries, women who were married before age 20 . . . . heck, there might even be a ward librarian or two. Oh, and men. There are a few brave enough to wade into the middle of the sea of estrogen from time to time.

With my aside, I didn't mean to imply that women should wait until they are 21 to either get married OR go on a mission. I think what I was trying to share is that we sometimes unwittingly reinforce certain stereotypes among our young women. Even with my head rather firmly on my shoulders when I went away to college (I can say that--there are very few here who knew me then. Brooke, Mike and Rachel, you can all just stay quiet if you disagree.), I still was pretty anxious about the fact that I could count on one hand the number of dates I'd been on. As I saw the girls in my ward snatch up the "few really good guys," I was totally convinced that I would never get married. I WAS ONLY 19. For all my practicality and ambition and even some profound experience with personal revelation, I was nearly certain that I was going to be single always.

This fear of being alone prevented me from taking my guy-relationships for what they were worth--wonderful, life-long friendships. If there had been dating or attraction there, many of those relationships would be lost to me now. Another skewed idea that grew out of this fear was that I started to think that if ANY guy ever wanted to marry me, regardless of his religious situation, it would be better to be married than to be alone. (Again, no offense meant, righteous women marry non-members all the time; I'm just indicating that before I'd even had a chance to taste life I was selling myself short.) In addition, my fear caused me to spend a lot of time and energy on a man who ultimately cost me a lot of self-esteem.

In my post-mission, post-first-fiance months, I had a very difficult time just dating for fun. I was just a few months from graduation, and terrified of leaving college as a single. At that time, my grad school ambition was not immediate and the prospect of high school teaching didn't seem all that conducive to finding someone to marry. Most of my friends from my pre-mi days had moved on to lives and marriages of their own. Again, I was convinced that I'd NEVER be married. I was only 23. But again, for all the wonderful lessons I had learned in the alone part of my journey, I was still prey to my upbringing and the stereotypes read in novels and heard in so many young women's lessons.

Now, here is the personal revelation part, voiced so importantly by many of you. Chrisw was teaching school in another city. There was an opening at her jr. high for a science teacher. She told her principal about me and he, trusting Chrisw's judgment implicitly (how could you not?) said that he'd be willing to offer me a teacher internship position. What this meant is that I would bail on my fall student teaching, not have to find a mid-year contract full time job, and instead teach for partial salary the entire year at Chrisw's school. Not a bad proposition. Chrisw and I talked about becoming roommates (which, okay, would have been completely awesome), and she was saving her yen to backpack through China the next year (which, okay, would have been completely awesome).

I prayed and told the Lord this was my intention. I felt like hanging around USU another semester was the equivalence of waiting for the axe to fall on my marriage dream and that by moving in with Chrisw at least I'd be throwing myself whole-heartedly in to my life as a single. (Remember: only 23.) The next morning, I completely forgot everything I had to do in order to make the internship happen. And I kept forgetting. Also, things I remembered to do weren't smooth sailing, and bailing on my renter's contract was going to be expensive. I'd only had such stupor of thought once before--when I was 18 and chose to reject my acceptance to nursing school in spite of no clear alternative. So the next day I prayed again and told the Lord I'd decided to stay.

The peace was palpable.

I met Plantboy the next week at a job I would have left by that point if I had taken the internship.

But I think the Lord knew I might screw it up. By a strange "coincidence" he was also assigned to be my sister's home teacher at his apartment complex several wards away from where I lived. We might have met anyway.

So yes, absolutely, young people, men and women, need to be taught about receiving personal revelation. But maybe we also need to back off the primary use of examples that reinforce stereotypes that, albeit inadvertently, encourage early steady dating and poor choices of companions. I'm sure you all had a friend or roommate for whom getting married was so much more essential than marrying the right person that the result was disastrous. (I think this is what Mike's paraphrasing of the 70 was essentially about.)

If my previous post made anyone feel like I was critical of your life choices either concerning number of children, or marriage, or your spouse of the color of your kitchen, please understand that was not my intention at all. My intention was to encourage us all to create a place where our young people feel comfortable exploring a variety of choices and ambitions, and to remind them that their worth comes from them being children of God and not from their marital or dating status.

When my boys go out into the world to find their wives, I hope they find women who will be true partners to them in every sense of the word--women who have prepared themselves to stand equally yoked as partners in the gospel and truly understand that happily ever after means enduring joyfully long after the novelty of their first romance wears off. The age and life-experience of my daughters-in-law to be matters a whole lot less to me than their commitment to their covenants and to finding the Lord's will in their lives.

And I hope these remarkable young women find the same in my sons.

Unsolicited Advice: My Favorite!

I have enormous respect for anyone who embarks on this parenting thing, particularly if those someones seem to be churning out well-adjusted and happy little persons. My respect increases exponentially depending on how many children they have, or on the difficulties presented with said children. My own lot is probably pretty average, mother-hood wise. "Just" three, fairly well-behaved and moldable kidlets. A lifestyle that, while frugal, is certainly not bare bones. The parts of mothering that seem harder to me is the sheer physicality of my little men, the feelings of loneliness at being the only woman in my house, while simultaneously never getting to just be ALONE. My friends are mostly virtual instead of literal, an apparent inability to decisively put my career life behind me, living far away from my mother and space. Always space. (Insert your own prayer of gratitude here if you have a laundry room.)

Do these not seem like trials to you? That's okay. They are my things to deal with. And as none of them are really things that I can change (except maybe making time to be a little bit friendlier), I guess what I am learning now is patience and cheerful endurance. Scratch that--what I'm supposed to be learning is patience and cheerful endurance.

After getting rid of a lot of my baby clothes a few weeks ago, we rearranged parts of our house and decided that a yard sale was in order. Once I started getting rid of stuff, I just couldn't quit. Out went the crib, mattress changing table and bedding. The double jogging stroller? Gone. The garage sale didn't yield all the desired results so the Goodwill got approximately 57 pounds of boy shoes and clothing size 18 months and smaller. Once I dig out the breast pump it will go on Craig's List too.

And yet, I don't exactly feel like I'm making an announcement. It felt good to clean house. I don't regret sending all of that stuff out into the world to help ease the passage for other little ones and their parents, but I don't necessarily think it means I'm done with children. Plantboy and finally had that really good talk that we have needed to have and just kept putting off. The jury is still out about more children, or at least some things we are keeping just between us, but let's just say we are in a good place right now. A very good place.

Which is why my experience yesterday is especially frustrating.

I walked into the library with Jedi Knight. He will be eight in just a couple of months and he is really starting to look like a big boy. And my youngest, just a babe in arms when we moved here is definitely into the little boy phase. A sister working in the library, whom I've tried with very little success to befriend the last couple of years said, "Your boys are getting so big!"

I smiled and rubbed JK's hair with more energy than I felt; it had been a very long morning. She then exclaimed, "Time to have another!"

I made some kind of strangled, non-committal sound through my clenched and smiling teeth, hoping that no other well-meaning soul standing around us would jump on her bandwagon. She pressed, "Now, none of that! It's just time to not think about whether or not it makes sense and jump in!"

More strangled gurgling, a quick grab of the scriptures I'd come to get, and I was out the door. Here it is, 24 hours later and I'm wondering what I should have said. Or at least what I wanted to say.

"Thank you! For two years I've had this on my mind, and THAT is my answer!!!"

"I must have missed in the last conference talk where the number of children you bear is between you, your spouse, the Lord, and the ward librarian!"

"You are exactly right: faith DOES mean that we are exempt from looking at anything logically."

"I'm already completely neurotic, I'm sure that throwing a baby into the mix will calm me right down."

"What a great idea! When the baby has to sleep in MY bed because there would be no where else for him and my husband divorces me over it, then I'll just come and move in with you. After all, your unmarried daughters and their children seem to really enjoy having you babysit for them five days a week."

Breathing. Just keep breathing.

Maybe this was on my mind when the young women in our ward had (another) lesson on dating this week. Our teacher, thankfully, found a great, recent talk on the subject and focused her remarks on becoming friends.* As I was the only leader in the room who was actually married in the temple or raised with LDS dating standards, the advisor asked me to make some remarks at the end. I told them that I thought it was sometimes confusing to be a young LDS woman. The historical and LDS novels the girls read and love mostly follow the same pattern--girls fall in love at 16 or 17 and are married by 18 or 19 and the book ends right there. Our young women get a romanticized vision of the future in which they meet their RM at BYU by Christmas of their freshman year; a May wedding is followed nine months later by the first in a string of perfect children. There is no thinking about what happens for the sixty or seventy years following the blessed event.

I told the girls that I thought it was so easy to get preoccupied by dating and finding "the one" that we forget to find ourselves. I told them that if they wanted a man who was unselfish, generous, kind and charitable, they would do nothing to prevent the young men they knew from going on missions. I told them that the ultimatum so many girls use on their boyfriends--I won't marry you unless you go on a mission thing--is completely ridiculous, because once they had let their relationship get to that point they were already far too inappropriately serious. I told them that learning to stand on their own was the key to any future happiness whether they were single or married. I told them that I hoped every one of them would someday know the joy of a temple marriage to a righteous companion, but that they needed to remember that their worth was not wrapped up in whether or not they were married, and certainly not dependent on their dating status.

Talk about your unsolicited advice. Please, add your own to the mix--either what YOU would have said to the sister, you know, in your head or what you want to say to my young women as they approach dating. Or not dating.

* I really enjoyed Sister Tanner's talk, but in sharing the experience about her daughter, she seemed to discourage mission and graduate school. While in young Miss Tanner's case, this was obviously the right choice, I get tired of a mission being painted in juxtaposition to marriage. I would love to hear one of these talks about a young woman who decided NOT to marry the guy and went on a mission instead, only to realize that he would have been a disastrous choice, and only her mission could have shown her that. (Do you remember that hokey scene in God's army where that sister is talking to the greenie elder on the beach? Besides the fact that they are breaking about 10 mission rules, that is my favorite scene in a very fine film. She tells him about how the guy "waiting for her" had gotten married a few months before, but that it was okay, because sacrificing him was worth it to know the truth of the Gospel the way he knew it. Exactly.) Marriage and mission are not mutually exclusive. And if a woman doesn't get married, then she will have mission (among other wonderful) experiences to help enrich her life. There is a sister in the RS general presidency right now who is a convert and an RM from South America. Her "atypical" life experience is such a valuable example for women of all ages.