I'd be interested in the overall attitude now in TSCC regarding women working outside the home. Has the stigma attached to it faded now that most households really need two incomes to make it in today's economy?

Back in the 70's and early 80's, I always felt guilty when I worked. I had young children and tried to work part time jobs that allowed me to be home during the time my kids were home from school. It was impossible for us to make it on DH's salary alone.

It's still frowned upon in Utah. That's what makes them so susceptible to MLM scams. Stay at home while making easy money in your spare time! Just sign up and hand over a check. Let's get started!

At my company in UT, there are many mormon women working...even in higher level (supervisor/manager) jobs.

I have no clue if they feel guilty about this, but their paychecks should help fend off some of that guilt.

That has not been my experience.

The question I often get asked is, "So, are you still working?"

Its treated as a temporary stop-gap measure until hubby fixes his lack of income.

meanwhile I make more money than my husband and have done so for several years.

Not an issue in my house, but seems to be foreign to a lot of women in the neighborhood. Not to mention many of my inlaws.

These same women happen to live in rundown smelly hovels and they are all entering into their elderly years, things aren't going to get better.

I think the church has grown quieter about the need for women to stay home. As we are aware, the church is worried about running off those that continue to attend with their "No working on Sundays" that they were hammering away 30 years ago.

My Mom had a career and was I truly believed that she was envied because she had interesting work days and experiences. However, she paid for it when it came to church callings. About 5 years ago, she lamented that she had never served in any church leadership positions. I guess it finally bothered her that she was never good enough to be a church leader because she worked during the week.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think a lot of ultra TBM's that are having large families (5-10) children are heavily subsidized by their TBM parents. I don't think that they are making ends meet without the financial support of their parents and grand parents.

messygoop Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Maybe I'm wrong, but I think a lot of ultra TBM's
> that are having large families (5-10) children are
> heavily subsidized by their TBM parents. I don't
> think that they are making ends meet without the
> financial support of their parents and grand
> parents.

I agree with this. My TBM neighbors have 7 kids...the mom's parents are very wealthy TBM royalty (rolling my eyes), and I know they heavily subsidize their lifestyle. She, herself, does MULTIPLE MLMs. It's bad enough she has so many kids to take care of, why does she need 3 MLM jobs on top of that? But at least she's a 'stay at home mom', right?

My ultra TBM sister and her family live with my parents...basically for FREE. My parents are complete enablers. But hey, my sister also does not work outside the home.

I know many scenarios like the 2 I mentioned. I'm in CA and I've had multiple comments from TBMs like, 'why would you want to work?' So I think it's frowned upon where I live also.

I must live in the wrong part of Utah. Big families fend for themselves from my experience.

Based on my observations, it is "accepted" in the church that some women need to work outside the home. But there is still a lot of judgment and suspicion thrown at them. I gues this comes, in large part, from the lingering belief that righteousness will be rewarded with material blessings. In other words, if a family can't survive on one income, they must lack faith and/or be somehow unrighteous. It seems like "women who know" would never choose to work outside the home.

outside the home, the ones who have children still at home and not in school. Many don't who have children grown and gone.

I tried that SAHM business and it didn't work for me. I always thought I'd love it, but I quit a long-time job when I had twins and I about lost my mind. I got an evening job at the hospital (where my husband worked) doing medical transcription. I worked 2 evenings a week and every other weekend. It was GREAT for my husband's relationship with the twins, especially my daughter as she only liked mom to hold her and my niece, who was 7. She would scream when her dad held her. Now she and her dad get along great and she finds me highly suspicious. ha ha ha ha

The neighbors saw it as a problem when I got a job back then. Well, it helped me be able to support my twins when my husband left us and didn't give us any money. I had and still have medical transcription jobs some 33 years later. I worked 2 to support my kids. AND I WORK AT HOME.

By the way, I do have another transcription job that I'm hopeful about. It doesn't pay as much as the one I lost in October after 20 years, but it should pay more than the $11 an hour I earn at Sam's Club. Boy, that is a thankless job. I like most of the people, but there are a few who make it difficult. As usual.

When you get right down to it, extra income means more tithing. The brethren are probably happy about it.

We were, and still are good friends with a couple in our former ward. Back in the 80's, after a sacrament meeting that was centered on this subject, my friend was talking to me and said that they are not going to "make me feel guilty for working outside the home". Even though I was TBM, I thought "good for you; that's the spirit!" This was during the "Domestic Goddess" years.

Maybe it's just me, but it does seem to be okay or somewhat accepted if the TBM woman working outside of the home is either a nurse or a teacher.

I was thinking the same thing while reading this thread! My TBM friends who work are all nurses and two work as aides at a school!

That's also what I've noticed, the only culturally acceptable ways Mormon women can work outside the home is as a nurse or as a teacher or other school staff. Otherwise, Mormons would rather have the woman stay home and raise the children.

It's really why I think the age for female missionaries was lowered, too many Mormons were waiting until their mid 20's to get married, and were having fewer children. Better to have them get married at 20, and have kids at 21 so they don't educate themselves out of the cult. That's my opinion as to why more women don't leave the cult, by the time they realize what they're in, they're stuck with several children and no job skills.

While nursing and teaching are dominant, I haven't seen other professions looked down on.

But, we don't need more nurses!?

https://www.lds.org/study/manual/eternal-marriage-student-manual/mothers-employment-outside-the-home?lang=eng


“Numerous divorces can be traced directly to the day when the wife left the home and went out into the world into employment. Two incomes raise the standard of living beyond its norm. Two spouses working prevent the complete and proper home life, break into the family prayers, create an independence which is not cooperative, causes distortion, limits the family and frustrates the children already born. …

“… I beg of you, you who could and should be bearing and rearing a family: Wives, come home from the typewriter, the laundry, the nursing, come home from the factory, the café.

Everything in Morland is inter-connected;

women wearing pants

birth control

on & on, it never stops. That's the way the GAs (especially Hoax, Bednar,et al) would prefer it, but 'you can't go back'!

Interestingly enough, my nice TBM neighbor has commented to me before that her mother-in-law has criticized her for being a stay-at-home mom. Her husband's family are all TBM as well, going back to Mormon pioneer times, and are quite conservative, so I found this pretty surprising the first time she mentioned it.

When I asked why her MIL would criticize her for NOT working outside the home, she said that when her husband was a child, the father had an extended period of unemployment, so his mother had to work full-time for several years. The MIL had 10 (!) kids, and my nice neighbor "only" has 4, so her MIL thinks she is being lazy by not also taking on a job outside the home. Give me a break--I have had periods of being both a full-time SAHM as well as a "working" mom, and I found staying at home with no job MUCH harder and more stressful. Anyway, I feel for all mothers--it seems there is always someone ready to criticize a mother whether she chooses to be a full-time, stay-at-home mom or to work outside the home. Moms just can't win, Mormon or not.

Since I was a divorced mom with no other source of support when I joined the church, I never got any flak about working outside the home. There was no other way to survive. I was about halfway through a 30-year career and wasn't going to give up what I had earned thus far.

Maybe a third of the other women in RS had worked outside the home at some time during their marriages (one gallant lady supported her family of 7 or 8 children while her husband finished up a Ph.D. in something.) Bless her heart, she got visibly angry, with tears in her eyes, at the sneery tone of the RS manual's lesson plan for that week.

"Who else," she wanted to know, "was going to support my family while my husband was in school?" She felt that all of her husband's time and energy should be focused on his studies (something awful like astrophysics or something) and not be diverted by having to work as well. She has passed away since then, but she will always remain in my personal collection of heroes. She was an extraordinary woman.

Just from observation I don't know how women can raise kids and work outside the home, or why they would want to. I see this all the time. The girl heads off to her employment making 12 an hour and receives $4 in child care from the government. The kid spends the whole day being raised by the TV, and then when the kid comes home the mother can't control him because he has adhd. And the Step dad is at his wits ends. They can't wait to send the kid off to school (where he learns nothing) and then pass him off to daycare. The child doesn't learn to read, or behave.

Why should society raise this kid? The parents could do such a better job if they would just get involved. There is a place women belong and it's not in the workplace. Just my opinion.

Women can raise kids and work outside the home when they earn more than $12 an hour. Get an education and a good job - THEN have children. My child was enrolled in high quality day care for the time he was 3 months old. I made sure he went to the best schools that I could. He is now a teenager and he is a smart, kind, well behaved kid. The problem isn’t mother’s working outside the home it is uneducated adults, having kids too young that they can’t support.

But what about the prophets’ advice to just “let the babies come”?

It is dumb advice!

If this is satire, it's really clever satire.

I live in Utah and it is no longer a big deal. I know more Mormon women that work than do not work outside the home.

If a woman needs to work for the financial help then the church

should pay them to stay home, otherwise they should shut the

f### up about it.

The church could be more charitable with their members. They could give about 500 million dollars a year to the congregations throughout the world to help out.

Imagine if they gave back to their congregations. Mormons give so much to their church and it mostly is held back in Salt Lake or poured into building a new temple somewhere.

It would be nice if the church actually helped the community or was actually charitable.

Big white building concerned about dead people is nice, I guess, but there are people suffering and in need of help now on this side of the veil. ;)

At least in their Institute they don't mince words.

https://www.lds.org/study/manual/eternal-marriage-student-manual/mothers-employment-outside-the-home?lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/study/manual/eternal-marriage-student-manual/womens-divine-roles-and-responsibilities?lang=eng

But who knows if Rusty will make these words of men instead of his god?