It was a Thinker

I don't love Dr. Laura. She is not my favorite, nor do I worship her and take everything she says as scripture. However...

I really liked this book just because it made me think. It made me think differently about certain issues, about the trends in our society, and about the trends in my household. I liked that she is a traditionalist and that the book gave some secular back-up to what we learn in our religion. Women are the nurturers. End of story. Women are in charge of the household for the most part. And that includes cooking and cleaning and other wifely duties. Even if we do live in an age where women have to work outside the home. And I love that Julie Beck says that we, as LDS women, should do this better than anyone else on the earth because of what we know. But do we?

Having known most of you for awhile, I can safely say that you all are very good examples of this to me. In reading this book, I gave myself a long hard look to see whether I was doing what I was ought to. Yes, I was... but not very consistently. So consistency is the name of the game in our household anymore.

All the talk about the negative impact the feminist movement has had in our society, and how women have been made to believe that people are unisex, having no specific responsibilities or functions in society associated with gender really struck home for me. I see it so much around me, and, in fact, had stopped hanging around a group of women a few months previously because every time we met it turned into a husband bagging party. Since when did that become entertainment? How did we get this way as a society?

The way a husband and wife ought to interact with each other reminded me of something I read in The Shack by Wm. Paul Young. (Which, by the way, was a very good book in that it gets you to think about the godhead in a little bit different way, although it's not necessarily doctrinally founded. I would recommend it though) It is talking about how hierarchy is a human invention. The author (who is speaking to God in the book) challenges that and says, what about how The Father is first, and then next is The Son, and then next comes The Holy Ghost? The answer was that if each individual in the relationship submits their wills to the other person fully and completely, always caring more for the others than for themselves, this takes the hierarchy away and turns it into a cycle of selflessness. The author challenged how this could possibly work, and "God" says that it only works fully when all people in the relationship are really committed to it. Then no one feels like they have to "watch out for their own selves" because the other person is already doing that and that leaves them emotionally free to look out for their interests in return. I'm not explaining it very well, but I thought that related to marriage. It builds strong bonds of love to serve your husband so fully that he has time to serve you and others.

So this was quite lengthy, but the book just gave me a lot of food for thought. What did you guys think?