This post is mistitled. It should read The Privilege of Being a Middle Class (American-Mormon) Married Woman. I admit that up front.

We marry. We have a baby. We breastfeed them and change diapers. We potty train them and squish play dough. Then we walk them to school, and drive them to lessons. We usually have more than one baby. And the routine is more or less the same. Soon the last baby is no longer potty training or squishing play dough. And we walk him or her to school. And then we have, time.  It’s like air at the top of an hourglass, gradually increasing, letting us breath deeper and deeper as time runs out with our children. The time creeping up on us, the time that is ours.

 It’s not that I feel entitled, exactly. I have grand goals. I want to pay for college educations, support my aging parents, take care of myself in old age, assist those around me, and serve missions with my husband. I want to pick up my kids at the close of their missions. I want to be the grandma always available to help my daughter and daughter-in-laws when they have babies.  When my husband goes somewhere, I want to go with him. I want to go to conferences that interest me on a whim.  I want to go see my sisters, and my children and their children. I want to traipse around the English countryside and explore parrish records where my ancestors were christened, married and buried. And I don’t want the hour glass overturned again, sand taking up my air.

We live a privileged life. We have a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, food on our table. Our tanks are full of gas. I pay for things like swim lessons in the summer and piano lessons in the fall.  My family goes skiing every winter. But while I don’t need to work, given my goals I do feel the need to eventually add to our income. However, I’ve come to the realization that I don’t want to work full time, to have to be on a clock constantly, always building a schedule around my job. I realize this is selfish, that my goals too, ultimately are selfish.

 “Motherhood is being the queen bee! The Queen! You get to sit home and run the show, shielded and protected by the worker bee,” are the words my young women leader engraved into the moral judgment center of my brain. So that’s what I expected. It’s what I planned for. It’s what I got. I felt entitled as a woman to not have to work, at least not for money. Women have claim on their husbands for their maintenance, after all.  

Ultimately it’s up to my husband and me to find the balance in our lives.  Crossroads are like that, finding the road that is best for you be it paved highway or country road, or blazing a new one.

The time creeps up on you. As a mother, how do you plan to spend your time when the children are older? Do you have any plans? Is it fair to plan to not work? Even if your own pursuits won’t incur additional expenses, should you feel obligated to supplement the family income?

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In the early summer of 1991 we thought we had the world by the tail.  My husband had just finished his first year of law school and had been accepted to study international law for the summer in London.  Hooray! I’m no fool; I quit my job to spend the summer as his “kept woman” in a top-story room in a long-term hotel in Pimlico.  We pushed the twin beds together, made simple dinners on the room’s hot plate, and shared the bathroom down the hall with the other two rooms on our floor.   We had enough to spend about $10 a day but we were in London, in love, and in luck.

Greg had studied hard all year, treating his law school gig as a full-time job and then some.  Everything hinged on the high stakes, end-of-the-year exams—all of that work boiled down to one set of tests, which would in turn determine internships, Law Review placements, and (it felt like) the future.

In July my mom phoned with the results. We huddled with the public pay phone on the stair landing as she read off the grades.  Torts, good.  Criminal, good. “What about contracts?” He was particularly fond of that course and had worked especially hard.

“Umm….plus”

“What? A+?!!”

No. When she repeated the grade, he was silent, stunned.  A grade in the basement of grades was what he got.This may seem like a small blip but Greg was bewildered and devastated.  He spent the remaining weeks in London going over what might have gone wrong.  Apologizing. Regretting. As soon as we arrived back home he headed to the law school.  The professor showed him his exam, where he had aced the answers in the first two blue books but the last few were missing completely.  Greg was sure he had done them (and pointed out his titles “1 out of 5,” etc., on the blue books) but, at that point, it was done.

. . .

Our culture places a lot of emphasis on achievement: grades, rankings, titles, money.   Lately, though, I’ve been much more interested in stories of failure. What do individuals do in the aftermath of failure?  Give up? Laugh? Charge forward? Avoid trying entirely? Recently I read about a Stanford professor who assigns students to create a failure resume, a description of every personal, professional, and academic failure and what was learned.  What an intriguing (and painful) idea!  She says that our failures are just as important as our successes and are indications that we are growing, challenging ourselves, taking risks, and expanding our skills.   Since there is a fairly predictable ratio of successes and failures, if you want to have successes, you’re going to have failures, too.

I use Greg’s experience here (with his permission) because it felt big and changed our path.  I have a long failure resume of my own that includes things great and small:  failing in a calling and learning how to ask for help and look beyond my own discomfort, flopping in giving a lecture and learning to have a back-up plan and ask better questions, and failing spectacularly in the stake musical by forgetting to wear bloomers for a kick line and learning to laugh at myself, be more organized and, well, wear bloomers in a kick line.

As for my husband, he got back on his feet, worked hard for the next two years, and graduated at the peak of a recession.  With no job in sight, he joined the Air Force JAG Corps and eventually landed great jobs in the private sector–in contract law, no less. We have been able to live in interesting places and meet some wonderful people.  The “failure” ended up opening up many more possibilities & blessings than we had dreamed for ourselves.   We’re left with a deep feeling of gratitude for that grade.

. . .

What failures have helped inform your life?

Is it easier to learn from certain kinds of failures than others?

What lessons would be on your failure resume?

*Have you read Hugh B. Brown’s The Currant Bush lately?  I love its message of the potential blessings of failure and setbacks.

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This Up Close: LIVING SINGLE post comes from the energetic and entertaining, Sheryl. She grew up in Virginia and currently teaches school outside Washington, DC.

So when I was first asked to write this post, I thought to myself, “Seriously? I’m being asked to write a post about being single? I’m only 26! I guess I’m the next Sheri Dew. Better yet, since my name is Sheryl, I’d be the next Sheryl Dew.” But in reality, I do have an opinion about being a single, black female as a Latter-day Saint Christian, and I don’t mind sharing it.

Living just outside of the Nation’s capital where everyone is so concentrated on verbalizing their resume and playing the asking game of, “Who do you know?” and “What are you doing here in DC?” before asking your name, it can be a challenge to remember the more important principles of God’s eternal plan for His children. However, I do think about one of those principles often and that one is, eternal marriage. I openly tell people I want to be married. Sometimes I get the response of, “Don’t think about it and continue on with your life.” I sometimes want to scream back and say, “It’s not like I’ve been waiting around and not doing anything with my life! If you’d like my resume, I am a BYU graduate and a former collegiate athlete. I served a mission. I returned honorably and worked at the MTC. I’ve worked three years for the Especially For Youth program both as a counselor and a building counselor. I currently teach just outside of DC through the Teach for America program where I’m doing my best to alleviate the achievement gap. and I’m almost finished getting my masters!” (Out of breath) Instead, I usually respond, “Well, I really want to be married.”

So when I sit down and think about it, I wonder why I’m not married? It could be my race. I belong to a predominantly white church (well in America at least) and I’ve heard the most outlandish comments from people I’ve dated like, “My dad thinks it would be a bad business idea if I ever married a black girl.” However, I’ve also dated boys outside of my race whose parents embraced me with open arms. Is it the fact that I come from a single parent home? In our culture, that is taboo whether anyone wants to openly admit it or not. In response to that I grew up in a very stable home centered around strong gospel principles and values that I could carry into marriage and although it isn’t the typical family set up, it’s how I was raised. Please don’t judge. Sometimes I think, “Could it be me? Am I too picky?” However how can someone be too picky when there aren’t that many dateable options?

At the end of the day, I’m left feeling frustrated and confused. I’m left thinking, it’s a miracle that two people can find each other in this huge world, be single at the same time, like each other the same amount to commit to dating each other and then commit to eternal marriage. As I look at all of my married friends’ blogs, I think, “Wow they are so happy. There is something missing in my life. I’m so behind!” Even though marriage doesn’t equate to internal happiness, I know I yearn for it. I want to be married. I want to be starting a family in THIS life not just in the next to come! I love Sheri Dew, but I don’t want to be her.

Even though this topic can be a frustrating topic for me and many of my single friends, when all is said and done it only takes one. We are frustrated by the men in our wards who aren’t dating or asking us out. We are equally frustrated from the choices of guys we have to date. They are often focused on their careers and having fun. As one guy told me once on a date, “I like being single. I finally have money in my life and I can do what I want when I want.” To that I think, “Marriage isn’t some lock where the key gets thrown away buddy. You can have fun when you’re married too!”

Again, it only takes one. That one can be found. That one has been found for many.

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I was eighteen when what I swore would never happen to me, happened. I was pregnant. You know there is something wrong when you are taking a pregnancy test by yourself in a McDonald’s bathroom, and yet there I was. I should have been a few years older doing this in my own home with a loving husband right there, waiting with me. The test was glaringly positive but I felt disbelief followed quickly by shock, surprise and fear. I had just graduated high school a few months earlier and there was no way I was ready to be a Mom. Not to mention the fact that I had left my boyfriend in Texas two days before.

I don’t know why I was that surprised, I mean, I had been sexually active since I was 15. But I had done the responsible thing and had gone to Planned Parenthood by myself to get the Pill. I guess the surprise was coming in because I was getting ready to turn over a new leaf. While in Texas with my boyfriend, it had finally hit me: I was miserable! I wasn’t active in the church, I was living with a guy I didn’t love, I was in Texas while all of my family that I loved was back in Wyoming. I was so far, literally and figuratively, from what I knew to be right and from what my parents had taught me. So I left him and came home, just in time to move with my family to a different state, and to find out I was pregnant.

I have to be honest; my first thought was that I couldn’t have a baby. I knew a girl that was rumored to have gotten an abortion and I thought – I can just talk to her and find out where/how she did it and no one will ever have to know. That thought lasted about as long as it took to think it. There was no way I could really do that a baby. After all, my teenage friends and I in our great wisdom had had discussions about all of the child less couples who were waiting, desperate to have children. And there was my friend’s older sister who had recently had a baby and placed it for adoption, and seemed to be doing great. So I would just have this baby and place it for adoption. No biggie.

One of the positive things that resulted from my bad behavior, was now that I was back home I had real, honest communication with my parents. And none of my admissions seemed to surprise them all that much. Except for maybe telling my Mom that my period was late. Her reply was that I better pray that I get it. But I didn’t get it and the absolute weariness that I felt and my voracious appetite seemed to reinforce what I finally accepted and knew: I was really pregnant.

With my family’s move, I was now living closer to my older brother and his wife. I really liked my sister in law and looked up to her. She was pretty, educated and funny. And she didn’t judge me. In fact she was the one who helped me set up my appointment with LDS Family Services (LDSFS). I was nervous before meeting my social worker but she swept away any nerves I had within minutes. She was awesome! We had a great visit and I left armed with loads of pamphlets about teenage pregnancy, adoption and single parenting. But I didn’t even read the ones about single parenting. I knew that adoption was what I wanted.

My Dad was extremely patient as he ferried me back and forth to my appointments at LDSFS and to my doctor appointments. He waited outside and listened to me on the ride home as I talked through whatever was on my mind at the moment.

My first doctor’s appointment made it all too real. There was no denying it when I heard that tiny heartbeat. I cried. Once again, I was by myself. I vowed that the next time, I would do it right – my husband would be there with me and we would share this moment. It would be a joyful time. Not one of sadness and loneliness like it was now. My doctor was great. I didn’t feel judged by him and once he knew my plan of adoption, he was supportive.

As my belly grew, my testimony and faith did also. I met with my new bishop and laid everything on the line. He was kind and totally in tune with the Spirit. I was placed on probation and couldn’t take the sacrament. Something that I had taken for granted and never really gave the proper reverence too was now the something that I missed the most! I worked with him and my social worker and slowly put myself back together. I learned that the sexual abuse I had suffered as a child was definitely a big part of my promiscuity and it explained so many things to me.

I was able to work on my relationship with my Mom and we grew extremely close. Together, we chose fabric to make two quilts for the little girl I was carrying. We picked out an outfit to send her home in. I asked her about all of my weird pregnancy aches and pains. Once again my Dad was the chauffer; he took me to get whatever food I was craving, to work and back and also to my many appointments at LDSFS and the doctor’s office.

Having the support of my parent’s, my social worker, my Bishop and my doctor was huge. I felt secure in my decision and I felt strong. I spent many hours on my knees in tears as I poured my heart out to my Heavenly Father. I read my scriptures with real intent. I listened to beautiful music. I went for walks with my Mom and enjoyed the beautiful scenery along the walking path. I read my patriarchal blessing. I felt peace.

The day that I chose the adoptive parents is a day I will never forget. I was nervous. How would I know which ones where the right ones!? I wasn’t just messing up my own life anymore, I had this babies life to think of now and I wanted to make sure I picked the right parents. I didn’t realize it until later, but I wasn’t the one doing the picking, Heavenly Father was. As soon as I heard their profile and read their letter – I knew that I had found Jessica’s parents. There were absolutely perfect and fit everything on my wish list. I read their letter and got chills, Nancy’s handwriting was almost identical to my mother’s, something that I had always loved. There was no question, they were the ones!

My delivery came sooner that I expected (I was 2 weeks early!) and everything went well. I marveled at this little dark haired girl I held in my arms. I told her all of the reasons why I placing her for adoption. I told her I loved her. I stroked her silky soft head and smelled her hair. I sang to her. The two days I spent in the hospital were over all too quickly. I met with the adoptive parents before they got Jessica and the Spirit was so strong. Once again I knew this was the right thing to do. No matter how much my heart breaking, I would go back on my choice. I spent a few last minutes with Jessica. I changed her diaper, combed her hair and wrapped her carefully in the quilt my Mom and I had made together. I had arrived at LDSFS a girl who had just had a baby at 18 and I left a woman.

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“How many of you had ‘the talk’ with your parents?”
25% of my students in my raised their hands.

“How many had homes where sexuality was discussed openly and on repeated occasions?”
Again 25% of my class raised their hands.

“How many of you never had any discussions with your parents about intimacy and sexuality?” 50% of my class raised their hands.

I was shocked at my students responses.  How and where did parents expect their children to develop appropriate understanding of sexuality if it was never discussed? Did they really want to leave it to curiosity? The heresay talk between adolescents? Surely the 5th grade maturation talk or a one time lecture to an overwhelmed 8 yr old would not be sufficient preparation for marriage?

Our discussion that day came out of their experiences. Many expressed frustration at their parents lack of information and the sometimes sad consequences of it. In a religion where exaltation hinges strongly on the values of chastity and fidelity, how does this happen? Why were discussions about sexuality so absent in many LDS families?

Parents often spend more time going over spelling words with their children, than preparing them to understand and participate in fulfilling, meaningful intimate relationships. Why is something ordained of God, integral to our very existence, and an important component of a healthy self-concept not being given it’s proper place in family teaching?

Homes should be the foundation of teaching sexuality and intimacy. Not only in terms of the nuts and bolts fundamentals but, also the modelling of healthy emotional and physical relationships. In our hypersexualized culture, if we chose not to teach the pervasive innuendo soaked media will, except it will teach it in a moral-less vacuum.

It seems too often sexuality is viewed as a taboo subject before marriage, and then as ‘anything goes’ after. This leads many to seek answers from sources which explore sexuality without an eternal perspective, which may ultimately prove destructive, in and outside of marriage. When intimacy should be viewed as an appropriate, sacred, part of our human experience from the beginning, consistently framed in God’s plan, before and after marriage.

Many friends have expressed to me their discomfort in discussing this with their children. They brush it off saying  their kids don’t need to know yet (at age 10) or they don’t want to take away their innocence. I am puzzled by these responses. I desperately want to communicate to my children the importance of intimacy. I want them to see it in the way God intended it. I want to show them I trust them and that I respect their maturity. I want an honest, open dialogue, that leaves room for continuation.

If parents seem avoidant, embarrassed, obtuse, or hesitant they will doubtfully been seen as a source of information for their children in the future. How will these attitudes rub off? How will they trickle down into a child’s future marital relationships? Our Church clearly states in the introduction to A Parents Guide (a booklet published by the church, designed to guide parents in teaching about intimacy) the role of parents in teaching this to their children.

“One of the most important concepts that the Lord expects you to teach your children is the righteous meaning and use of intimate physical relations between a man and a woman.”

How can do we help keep a subject so important from falling through the cracks?

Share with me your experiences.  How did your parents approach or lack of approach impact you?  What would you have changed if you could? If you have children are you doing things differently? What has helped you successfully address this topic with your children?

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