Delivered by Nancy Harward in a sacrament meeting of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Montgomery Ward, Cincinnati Ohio East Stake, on 13 May 2007: Mother’s Day
When our son Soren was in high school, he worked for one of Cincinnati’s earliest Internet service providers, Cinternet, which was established by Rob Lesan when he, too, was in high school. One night while Soren was at work, someone from one of the local TV stations called and asked if Cinternet would send a representative to its morning news program to talk about how to protect a home computer system from invasion. Since Soren had answered the phone, Soren volunteered to be the representative—probably without even consulting Rob. When he told me that he was going to appear on TV the next day, I wondered how prepared he would be to discuss the topic.
“Do they know you’re still in high school? Did they give you a list of questions they plan to ask?”
“No.”
“Soren, they think you’re an expert on computer security,” I said. “How do you know you’ll be able to answer their questions without making a fool of yourself?”
He replied, “It’s only for ten minutes. For ten minutes, I can be an expert on anything.”
Some time later, I took comfort from that idea when I was asked to give a ten-minute presentation in homemaking meeting on apples: which varieties were best for different uses. I didn’t know a lot about apples, but I figured that I knew enough to be an expert for ten minutes.
Today I have the opposite problem. Bro. Revillo has asked me to speak for ten minutes about the role of a mother. With twenty-six years of experience in the field, I think I can claim to be something of an expert on motherhood, so my challenge will be to distill all that expert knowledge into only ten minutes.
If someone were to ask me to describe my modus operandi as a mother, I suppose I would reply in the same way that Joseph Smith did when he was asked how he managed the Latter-day Saints: “I teach them correct principles, and they govern themselves.”[1] It’s a simple strategy, but not so simple to put into practice: What principles do you begin with? What is the most effective way of teaching them? And at what point do you let your children begin governing themselves?
Joseph Smith began teaching his people with what he described in the Articles of Faith as “the first principles and ordinances of the gospel”: faith, repentance, baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. In D&C 68, the Lord not only endorses this curriculum, but commands us to adopt it: “Inasmuch as parents have children in Zion,” he says, “. . . that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents.”[2] He goes on to say that “they shall also teach their children to pray and to walk uprightly before the Lord.”[3]
Notice that this verse doesn’t say that parents should simply “teach their children the doctrine”; it says that they should teach their children “to understand the doctrine.” In order to make good decisions on their own, children need to know why the principle is sound.
Some of our friends were surprised to hear that the Harward children did not have an official curfew when they were teenagers. (Stella may be surprised to hear that, too.) But Michael and I felt that it would be more effective to teach our kids why we hoped they would be home by midnight than it would be to just lay down a law. So we taught them that it is unwise, unhealthy and often unsafe to stay out late; that it is courteous to let your family know how late you expect to be out and to provide an update if your plans change; that it is important to respect the Sabbath, and to follow the promptings of the spirit. By allowing them to decide what time they should come home, we demonstrated that we trusted our kids to act responsibly. Did they abuse that trust? Occasionally—but usually they were home at a reasonable hour. The strategy helped us avoid much of the frustration, anger and resentment that can arise when parents set rules that their children consider arbitrary. In addition, our willingness to trust them made them more willing to trust us.
A few years ago, when Michael was in Boston on business, he spent an evening visiting some friends whose youngest daughter, Abi, is a year older than Stella. At that time, Abi was about to become a senior in high school and was the only child living at home; Stella was about to become a junior and the only child living in our household. Over dinner, Michael asked Abi, “What advice would you give the father of a teenager who is the only child left at home?”
With absolutely no hesitation, Abi replied, “Back off.”
Backing off is not easy for a parent, but it’s an essential skill to learn if we want our children to reach their full potential. Our Father in Heaven, who also seems to operate by Joseph Smith’s model, knew it was time to back off when his spirit children had progressed as far as we could while living in his presence. During that time he cared for us and taught us correct principles, then he sent us to Earth where we could learn to govern ourselves. Because the plan required us to forget everything we’d been taught in our premortal life, Heavenly Father provided tutors and a lot of good books to remind us of the correct principles we would need to govern ourselves successfully. He also gave us each a kind of mobile phone, promising that its power would never die and that he would never be out of range or too busy to take our calls.
One of the greatest joys we have experienced as parents over the last few years is that even though our kids no longer live with us, they continue to call and ask for advice. I’m not sure they would do this as readily had we not done our best to lovingly teach them correct principles, and then back off.
More inspired information on the role of parents is found in the Family Proclamation. It states: “Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, to teach them to love and serve one another, to observe the commandments of God and to be law-abiding citizens wherever they live.”[4] Notice that these responsibilities are laid upon parents, who “are obligated to help one another as equal partners.”[5] I know that I’m supposed to be focusing on the role of mothers today, but only one duty specified in the Family Proclamation applies solely to them: “Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.”[6] The word nurture comes from the same root as nurse and nourish—both references to one of the two child-related tasks that can be physically accomplished only by a woman. It makes sense, then, that the mother would be primarily responsible for this type of nurturing during a child’s early years, but the Lord did not intend for her to be solely responsible for the type of nurturing that involves caring for children and training them to become functional adults. Fathers share in that sacred obligation.
As we’ve seen, God provides us with a divine example of a father; but because we have been told virtually nothing about our Heavenly Mother—indeed, only reason and Eliza R. Snow tell us that she even exists—we have no example of divine motherhood. Or do we?
I find it interesting that many times in the scriptures, Jesus Christ compares his feelings toward us to those of a mother hen. Introducing himself to the grieving Nephites who had just witnessed the destruction of their cities and many of their people, Christ reminded them: “How oft have I gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and have nourished you.”[7] He invokes similarly maternal images when addressing Joseph Smith and the early Saints, as recorded at the beginning of D&C 29: “Listen to the voice of Jesus Christ, your Redeemer, the Great I Am, whose arm of mercy hath atoned for your sins; who will gather his people even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings. . . . Lift up your hearts and be glad, for I am in your midst, and am your advocate with the Father.” Isn’t that what all children hope their mothers will be: always there for them, willing to cheer them up, and ready to be their advocate with a stern father when they’ve been disobedient?
Consider also some of the words that are used to describe the role of the Holy Ghost: comforter, guide, teacher, reminder, conscience. Like the Holy Ghost, the memory of my mother, who died fifteen years ago, continues to function as a part of my conscience—even offering the occasional baptism by fire when I realize that I have just said the same thing to my children that my mother used to say to me, in the same tone I used to hate hearing when I was young.
As we consider the role of a mother, or of any parent, let us look to the members of the Godhead who have taught us correct principles by their examples. As we do, we will not only better fulfill our roles as mothers and fathers, but also better govern ourselves so we can fulfill our potential as God’s children.
BONUS FEATURE: OUTTAKES
When our children were babies, they of course needed help getting dressed. By the time they were about eighteen months old, they had figured out how to get undressed without any help at all, and by the time they were about three, they were changing their own clothes—some, several times a day. Knowing that the way children are dressed inevitably reflects upon their mothers, I wanted my kids to look decent, so I tried to make sure that their clothes were clean and didn’t have any noticeable holes, and that the outfits they wore in public were aesthetically inoffensive. But I also wanted them to learn to make their own choices. Soren didn’t have much trouble choosing outfits that went together, mostly because just about anything looks OK with a pair of jeans; but since he spent a lot of time scooting around on his knees, operating little trucks and bulldozers, he constantly challenged my “clean with no holes” standard. Hillary, on the other hand, regularly threw her clothes into the hamper and brought tears to be mended, but I got really frustrated by her continual defiance of the principles of color coordination that I had tried to teach her. Despite the fact that her dresser contained at least three shirts that matched each bottom, she would often come downstairs wearing a red-and-white striped shirt with pants that were the wrong shade of pink. A few years ago, when Hillary had just begun student teaching, her Christmas list included a request for “clothes that will make me look like a grownup.” So I spent several days searching for appropriate outfits, going from store to store to find a couple of shirts that would coordinate with the blue-gray skirt and a sweater that would match the brown one. I should have known that on the Sunday after Christmas, Hillary would go to church wearing the blue-gray skirt with the brown-and-orange sweater. By this time, however, I had accepted the fact that her sense of color is different from mine, and I could feel good knowing that she had accepted the more important principles I had taught her about clothing: how to keep it clean, how to repair the holes, and how to choose styles that would coordinate with the temple garments she would eventually wear.
[1] Quoted by John Taylor in MillennialStar, Nov. 15 1851, p.339.
[2] D&C 68:25.
[3] D&C 68:28.
[4] “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” paragraph 6.
[5] Ibid., paragraph 7.
[6] Ibid.
[7] 3 Nephi 10:4.
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