Some Conclusions on Controversy

Okay, so I know I started an interesting conversation oh...3 weeks ago, and haven't seemed to get around to wrapping it up. I appreciate all of your thoughts and your comments! A lot of what was said really helped me think about some things so I thought that I would address some of the issues (for clarifications matters) and what my final two (or more...) thoughts are on the women in the church:

When I discussed feeling as though I needed to "submit" to my husband, please note that this is not a BASH again MY husband. My husband is amazing! He encourages me to go for my dreams, to set and reach my goals! He loves me thru the hard times, and has always made me feel a part of our TEAM in marriage, and not his "puppet" or someone he controls. I love my husband so dearly and am so blessed to have found the man that I did to spend eternity with! He is amazing with our children and NEVER gives me a hard time or gets upset with me when I say I need a break or adult time, and is always excited to see me and spend time with me. I love being married and while we have had our share of "hills" in our lives together (and separate) we have always walked up them hand-in-hand together.

Based on the 14 comments I received from this blog topic and from countless conversations I have had with women in (and out of) the church I have come to realize that these feelings of the "perfection expectation" are all too common. However, I have also realized that this in NOT solely a feeling women have within the church. We are the women post "the Women's Movement!" American women are (for the most part) given the cultural expectation that we can and should have it and do it ALL! I just think that for some reason we (the women of the church) sometimes feel a weird pressure to maintain not only TRADITIONAL female values and roles but ALSO the pressure to fulfill the current female roles. After much thought, prayer, scripture reading, conversations, thinking and pondering I have come to this conclusion:

Satan wants us to believe we are inferior. That we can never be good enough because really, we as the American (and LDS) women have the potential to be greater than any other women that have come before us. We have the opportunities to truly have and do it ALL and be successful not matter what life roads we choose to walk! We can have a career, a husband, good kids and a nice home and be happy with it! We can be single and financially successful without ever "relying" on a man and be happy with it! We can have 18 children and stay home with each of them and love each of them and cook and clean for our husbands and never require more than sex and money from him and be happy with it! We can be fat and still be pretty inside AND out and be happy with it! We can be an athletic mom that runs with 3 kids in a jogging stroller and wears the most amazing cloths and has an immaculate home and well-behaved kids and be happy with it! My point: life is ours for the taking. Success is ours for the taking. All we need to do: figure out who we are, what we want, and what makes us happy. Now that is easier said than done, I know! But I find it so disturbing we judge others based on such trivial things (such as how clean they really are by looking at the inside of their microwaves!), we stick our noses where they don't belong and then we judge ourselves and are just so critical of all women in general. Yes, there are many things I still don't understand "why". But I do know, that I am okay! That I am good and have amazing potential, as do all women! I hope that as we battle the hills we've been given that we stop being so critical of ourselves and those women around us and start linking arms and walking together. So my challenge to all of us is this:
As we raise another generation of women in the church, let us get rid of the "perfection expectation" and "if you aren't perfect you will NOT be blessed" lessons and start instilling in our girls that they have the potential to have, do, and be it ALL, what ever that "ALL" is for them. And that it is their choice! Time for the feminist MORMON movement ladies! Time to show the world that we can take care of the hungry and needy of the world, but we can also take care of ourselves and the women around us too.