The Multi-Faceted Woman

Today, I read the February Visiting Teaching message. The focus was on strengthening family and home. Again. Yes, I know this one inside out and upside down. I’m told I must “guard my hearth” against the evils of the big bad world. Sigh. Yes. I know. Sister Barbara Thompson speaks again of how my role is in the home and how I have a responsibility to strengthen families, regardless of how mine looks.  It feels like a one note tune.

Deep breaths. I read on.

Bathsheba Smith, back row, second from the left. Deseret Hospital Board.

I appreciate the nod to history and hearing what Bathsheba W. Smith had to say 110 years ago about family, but it doesn’t escape my notice there is no mention of Sister Smith’s opinions outside of what I should be doing around my hearth. The quotes included in the bland message neglect something important- something that might be missing and leaving Visiting Teaching such a dry, dusty husk of what it could be…

There is no mention whatsoever that Bathsheba W. Smith was a leading suffragette in the west, fighting vocally for women to have the vote. She was on the board of directors for a major hospital and she was the matron of the Salt Lake Temple. Bathsheba Smith, in addition to being the General Relief Society president, was a diarist and an artist, and she drew the quite famous pencil portrait of Joseph Smith Jr. in profile. I daresay she was busy doing things besides simply watching her hearth. I like to think she might encourage me to do so as well.  How INFINITELY more compelling and interesting it would be to hear more things like this about the early women in the church!  That’s the kind of Visiting Teaching message I want to hear, and message in general when I am listening to conference.

I found this thought on the blog "Feminist Mormon Housewives":  "Maybe if women were encouraged to do something besides watch the babies, watch the hearth, watch the bad world out our window, maybe visiting each other would become less of a chore, and more of a way to connect and work with each other. Maybe not. But reading the messages would sure be a lot more interesting, and it would help me feel my church sees me as something besides and one-dimensional pot-watcher and baby-maker. My foremothers certainly did."

This totally could have been me who wrote said this, which is maybe why I liked it so much.  I feel such a huge disconnect when I read or listen to women in the Relief Society General Presidency because I don't see myself in them; both as I am now or the person I am aiming to be.  I almost feel like I am watching women speak that are from a completely different culture, and because of that, I don't know what to do with the advice I hear from them.  I perceive that they feel there is a need to present a persona to us that they are always happy, always fulfilled, and all of the same mind and opinions, and therefore we should be too.  While I appreciate them bending over backwards to let us know how wonderful women of the church are at each conference session, sometimes I feel placated; like I am being treated like a little child who is being patted on my precious head.  I have confidence in who I am and am striving to be in my own home, and it us usually only when I attend these meetings that I feel frustrated with my "role" as a mother.  I am  so tired of being told what my "job" is!  I look around at the women in the church that I know, both in Utah and out of Utah and they are all striving to be great mothers and already realize how important their job is. When I was younger and fought feelings of inadequacy as a mother, I was ultimately freed when I finally realized that the only time I felt this way was when I was attempting to live someone else's ideal for me, and not my own. The thing is, I truly believe that they want us as women to be multi-faceted, they just sometimes forget how important representing the whole picture of a woman is.  Perhaps women in the church wouldn't struggle so much with depression, with comparing themselves to an imagined perfect woman, and feelings of inadequacy if this were the case.  I myself, live a very "traditional" mormon life, and I love it.  I love it because at every turn, I CHOSE it without feeling obligation or force.  However, I fully acknowledge and respect the fact that my lifestyle is not for everyone.  There are mothers who want (or need) to work.  There are mothers who only desire to have 1 or 2 children.  There are mothers who are extremely involved in community outreach programs or going to school or broadening their talents.  There is a woman in my ward who loves the mechanics of fixing things, so she has her own mobile lawnmower repair business.  I for one, could not imagine my life without photography, writing, learning, exercise, and time alone.  However, when I read the monthly Ensign VT message, I feel like instead of a choice, the one-dimensional woman is being forced upon me as the one and only way to be.  Is there room for differences?  How is it even possible with all of the billions of women on the Earth with diverse needs and personalities, that we are all supposed to fit into a particular mold in order to be righteous mother's in Zion?  Indeed like Bathsheba Smith (an unfortunate name), we are all different, having many interests, desires for good outside of our homes, and talents we would like to pursue.  What an opportunity was missed in leaving out the things in her life that make her interesting, relatable, and admirable, at least in my eyes.  THIS is why women feel shame about themselves--not because the evil world questions our worth as mothers, but because when women find they can't sustain someone else's idea of how they are supposed to be, they feel like they have failed at the one thing they hold as most important.