A Righteous woman

I am going to rant and vent for a minute.....
In church recently both my lesson in RS and my daughters lesson in YW focused on or had several comments about how a women was more righteous if they chose to stay home with their children.
I have to say that I am in AWE of women that choose to stay home and that can stay home with their children. I think it is truly noble and wonderful. BUT there are also women like me that either have chosen to work or that have to work.
For most of my adult life I have HAD to work..I have not had a choice in it. I got married the first time at 19 WAY TOO YOUNG and my husband was going to school and frankly didn't make hardly any money. I was pregnant within the first year of marriage and was very grateful for a mom and sister that were able and willing to watch Cassidy because I had to work. I didn't have any less righteous desires to raise my daughter. I was not less righteous because I had to go to work to be able to pay my mortgage and put food on the table.
2 years later my second daughter was born and again I was VERY grateful that I had family and a wonderful neighbor Kim to help with the girls. within 2 months of Kailee's birth my husband left me and I found myself a single mother with 2 girls under 2. AGAIN, I had no choice but to work my guts out to provide for these beautiful girls.
When Kailee had her accident a year and a half later, I had to quit my job to care for her and to be able to get her on medicare because I didn't have insurance and I couldn't afford the medical bills, plus she was a full time job and there is no way that I could have worked outside of her care. I sold my home, moved in with my parents.
Joey and I got married about 8 months later and I still continued to stay home with the girls. I was pregnant quickly with Savana and was very fortunate to be able to stay home while I was pregnant with her and then with her for the first few months of her life. BUT Kailee's medical bills got overwhelming and I once again was faced with HAVING to work.

I have to admit though that I LOVE working. I LOVE my job and the people that I work with, that work for me and that I work for. I have worked hard to get to where I am in my career and I am proud of it. I hope that my daughters see a strong women that puts her family first, LOVES them with all of her heart and is still able to go to work and do well at both of them.

I also serve in my callings as best as I can and think I mostly do a good job at them. Again, I don't think because I work I am less righteous or that my children are any worse off for me having worked most of their lives.

My mom worked off and on during my childhood and I honestly don't remember a difference in the times that she worked or the times that she was home with us. She was a wonderful mother that is a righteous mother and woman. She taught me the value of hard work and of a job well done. She taught me how to fiercely love your children and be an incredible example for her daughter's.
The other thing is I was not only raised by my mother! I have an incredible Dad, 4 Grandparents that were very involved in my life, cousins, aunts and uncles that I saw at least 4 times a week. They all contributed to who I am and my incredible childhood.
My mom raised 4 daughters and now 2 of us work full time, 1 works part time and 1 sister VERY happily stays home. I can't imagine any of us raising our families any differently because it works for each of us and our families.
I hope and believe that I have done this for my girls. I believe that what is truly best for each family is different and that we should all pray about it and do what is right for our family.

Again, I admire women that can and do stay home. I think it is harder than working.....It is incredibly hard work, tiring, overwhelming and lonely!

I have thought about how different the world would be if no women worked, I think about my children's teachers and how different my kids would be without those wonderful women. I think about my doctor who is also my children's doctor and how different our lives would be if she didn't work.
I have thought about Kailee and the amazing doctors, nurses, aides, therapists that worked with her and us. THERE IS NO WAY we could have made that journey without those amazing women.

I found an article from the Ensign that clearly states from different prophets how they feel about women working and how we as women should care for each other instead of adding to the guilt that us working mothers feel.


Working Double-Time: The Working Mother’s Dilemma                            By Jan Underwood Pinborough

“Do you work, or are you a full-time mother?” Any woman who has children recognizes the irony in this question. All mothers work, full-time. And motherhood can never be a part-time job. But the messages behind this question can undermine women’s peace of mind and polarize them.

The first message—one that our society often promulgates—is that only women with careers outside the home do work that really “matters.” Women who take care of children and run households full-time punch no time cards. Accordingly, modern society does not credit them with doing valuable work and grants them only minimal status. As a result, many of these women feel undervalued. Although they may know that raising children is eternally important, they receive many subtle cues from the world that they really ought to be doing something more with their lives.

The second message troubles many who work outside the home to help support their families. That message is that women are mothers only when they are at home. Of course, a woman no more stops being a mother when she is at the office than she ceases to be a Latter-day Saint when she is not at church. But some who work outside the home may feel unnecessary guilt, which hinders their ability to enjoy a sense of well-being and convey that feeling to their children. With guilt and apprehension on both sides of the issue, women sometimes become defensive about their choices, perhaps also questioning the wisdom of others’ choices.

Mothers feel the weight of our society’s varied, and often contradictory, expectations. We can never hope to meet them all, nor would we want to. But we can know what the Lord expects of us as women, wives, and mothers. While the precise answer for each of us is an individual one, we do know some general principles.

As mothers, perhaps our most important responsibility toward our children is to love them, to teach them, and to nurture their spiritual and emotional growth. Fortunately, we do not usually bear that responsibility alone, for the Lord gave that privilege to men and women alike. (See D&C 68:25, 28; Moses 5:12.) This, then, is a first priority.

The temporal welfare of the family is another responsibility that men and women share. From the beginning, women have worked to help support their families. After Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden, “Adam began to till the earth, and to have dominion over all the beasts of the field, and to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow, as … the Lord had commanded him. And Eve, also, his wife, did labor with him.” (Moses 5:1; italics added.)

The image of Eve helping her husband provide for the temporal needs of the family has been carried down in some form through all cultures. An instance from Church history shows how this helping worked in an earlier, more agrarian culture.

After the Joseph Smith, Sr., family moved to Palmyra in 1816, they all worked together to buy a piece of land. Father Smith, Alvin, and Hyrum worked as day laborers—digging and rocking wells, building masonry walls and fireplaces, harvesting crops, hunting and trapping wildlife, chopping and selling cordwood. Joseph, Jr., worked as a cooper.

As mother of the family, Lucy Mack Smith also played an important role in her family’s economic structure. She designed and painted oilcloth coverings for tables and chests. Her income provided most of the family’s provisions and personal needs, while that of her husband and sons went toward the down payment on the land. (See Don Enders, “A Snug Log House,” Ensign, Aug. 1985, p. 14.)

The counsel of Church leaders regarding this choice has always given the well-being of children and families clear priority. The work of the home is the central work of this world. Those who are in tune with the Lord’s plan will never pursue material goods for their own sake, at the expense of family welfare. But what do we do when the family’s temporal needs require that both parents be in the work place?

According to Relief Society general president Barbara Winder, more and more women are finding it necessary to work, some because they are widowed or divorced. “We are finding that women are not just working for ‘extras,’ but for necessities,” says Sister Winder.

President Gordon B. Hinckley addressed those who, through widowhood or divorce, bear sole responsibility as breadwinner and homemaker: “I pray that the Lord will bless you with a special wisdom and the remarkable talent needed to provide your children with time and companionship and love and with that special direction which only a mother can give. I pray also that he will bless you with help, unstintingly given, from family, friends, and the Church, which will lift some of the burden from your shoulders.” (Ensign, Nov. 1983, p. 83.)

For mothers who wonder whether or not they would be justified in working outside the home, the Church has provided no pat answers. Rather, each couple must consider the family’s temporal, emotional, and spiritual needs and decide how they can best meet them.

President Spencer W. Kimball has given this assurance: “The Lord knows … that through circumstances beyond their control, some mothers are faced with the added responsibility of earning a living. These women have God’s blessing, for he knows of their anguish and their struggle.” (Ensign, Nov. 1978, p. 103.)

The question of working outside the home is an emotional one for almost all mothers. We feel so deeply the challenge, as well as the blessing of motherhood. Perhaps in no other area of our lives do we want so much to succeed. But only when we feel comfortable with our own choices can we offer wholehearted support to other women.

One of the best things we can do for our children is help them gain positive attitudes about themselves and their environment. More often than not, the attitudes our children possess are mirror-reflections of our own. Looking for positives can be difficult at times. Every job—whether it is homemaking or business management—has negative aspects. To be happy, women need to recognize the positives in their work situations. “I decided that if it was necessary to work,” said one mother, “I was going to make the best contribution I could. What a waste it would be to spend all these hours away from home making a half-hearted effort.”

“When I tell someone I am working,” comments one mother, “the most common response is sympathy. I appreciate their sincerity, but I need encouragement and expressions of faith in me even more.”

Perhaps the best way to counter the false messages we receive from the world is by giving each other loving and understanding support. We can believe in each other—applauding each others’ contributions, refraining from judging, and giving empathy and help in our difficulties. This feeling of having a community of support—both from those who work outside the home as well as from those who do not—can be one of the greatest blessings of our sisterhood in the gospel.

SO Please don't tell my daughter or me that women that stay home are more righteous than those of us who have to work or want to work.