Tell me what's wrong with these stories.
Example #1. A young mother (battling morning-but-really-all-day sickness) is asked to "make a cake" for an annual Young Women activity. After agreeing, she is handed the recipe for this incredibly complicated thing that will take her all day to assemble because she has to bake and freeze four different layers at four different times using her one cake pan. This while dealing with sick toddlers, battling nausea, and trying to do some of the things she might have been meaning to do that day.
Example #2. A different young mother is put on the Home, Family & Personal Enrichment committee in her ward. For their quarterly big activities, the decree is that they must always have a full, sit-down dinner, and that the entire committee must show up at the church, tiny children in tow, and spend all day decorating the gym with millions of white twinkle lights. Then they have to go home, make food items to bring to the dinner (and no, soup and salad is not nice enough), leave their cranky, resentful babies at home, and go spend the evening at church even though they just spent all day there.
Anyone else think that's jacked up? Also, these are not isolated instances. I'm sure you could give me more examples (oooooh, and I hope you do!).
Turns out that we as women have a tendency to spend a lot of time on what can only be called CRAP THAT DOES NOT MATTER. I have tried to keep the details of these two situations vague. So if you read this and see yourself in it, please assume that I am not talking about you personally. But also, you should really stop it.
We fall into the trap of forgetting that the real ultimate purpose of church, and activities, and all of it, is to bring people closer to Christ.
We forget that and then we get wrapped up in things like The Perfect Cake. Because I'm so sure those girls went home that night thinking, "You know? The talks and songs were fine and all, but that cake . . . That's how I know Jesus loves me." Also the Enrichment dinner. Sure, the twinkle lights probably look really pretty, but they don't create a nicer atmosphere or foster togetherness any more than something, I don't know, about 12 times easier couldn't have done. And once we're wrapped up in non-essentials, we sometimes force those around us to get wrapped up in them too. We also, when given the counsel, urging, and downright pleading to simplify, refuse to do it. We feel that if we back down from what has always been done, we will somehow be failing the people we're serving. When really, it may be that we're taking the easy way out by clinging to tradition or precedent rather than stopping to prayerfully consider what would actually benefit those around us. It may be that everyone needs a break. It may be that our sisters need to hear inspiring and encouraging words more than they need a three-course dinner--or that maybe they only need one three-course twinkle lights dinner per year instead of four. It may be that our teenage girls need "feasting on the words of Christ" and the attention of loving leaders more than they need to feast on 9-hour layer cakes.
Why is this such a problem for us? I think most of us have been there in one way or another, either as we plan activities or as we teach or serve or however it creeps in. Maybe we feel that the outward things like the decorations or handouts or food let people know how much work we put into something, and therefore how special they are to us, which will then make them feel really good (and also more lovingful of Jesus, somehow). "But look how hard I worked! You HAVE to love it if I worked this hard!"
Or perhaps we are anxious about our ability to invite the Spirit or a sense of togetherness, so we instead overemphasize the things we can definitely control, like the centerpieces that we spent hours laboriously creating out of toothpicks (or worse, that we made someone else put together for us after we dropped the project in their laps at the last minute, which means that we maybe deserve to die). We get caught up in the frosting--in the frilly details that might enhance something that is already meaningful and worthwhile and enriching, but will never actually make something meaningful and worthwhile and enriching on its own. Because hi, it's frosting.
Elder M. Russell Ballard agrees with me on this one. He gave a talk in 2006 called "O Be Wise," and said this (the whole talk is great, though, you should check it out):
Occasionally we find some who become so energetic in their Church service that their lives become unbalanced. They start believing that the programs they administer are more important than the people they serve. They complicate their service with needless frills and embellishments that occupy too much time, cost too much money, and sap too much energy. They refuse to delegate or to allow others to grow in their respective responsibilities. . . .
The instruction to magnify our callings is not a command to embellish and complicate them. To innovate does not necessarily mean to expand; very often it means to simplify.
I mean, look at my examples. Those two young moms were dumped with quite a lot of work--work that didn't actually make the activity better but just resulted in them feeling even more frazzled and put-upon and neglectful of their families and other responsibilities. With the SAHMs, I think the assumption is that "they're home all day" so of course they have time. But really, these are women who are adjusting to motherhood, adjusting to marriage, adjusting to being home all day with little kids, some are even working from home, and they kind of already have plenty on their plates. So while it's really not okay to make unfair demands on anyone's time, or to make people spend hours working on Frosting That Just Doesn't Matter, I think it's especially unfair to do it to people who are likely already overwhelmed and exhausted and maybe throwing up every 2 hours.
And while we're on the subject of the young mommies, take a look at who does most of the work in many of your nursery, Primary, and Young Women organizations. This may not be true for every ward, but when I look around my Relief Society class, do you know who I see? I see newlyweds, women with one baby, middle-aged ladies, and elderly ladies. I'm not jumping up demanding a crack at teaching Nursery, but it does seem as though the kid-wrangling jobs are given to those who could most use the break from kid-wrangling and a chance to spend some time with other adults.
Elder Ballard in last April's general conference (since we still aren't getting any better about this) gave a great talk about young motherhood, and how it's this exhuasting time that passes quickly, so it's important to not be so overtaxed that you miss the good little moments.
. . . may I suggest that the bishopric and the ward council members be especially watchful and considerate of the time and resource demands on young mothers and their families. Know them and be wise in what you ask them to do at this time in their lives.
(Translation: They are already working hard, people. Don't make them your go-to when you need something done.) And in reality, everyone is already working hard. Everyone is overtaxed, with a million different commitments and concerns, and we're having to choose where and how our time can be best used. So when we are choosing how much work to put into church assignments (and how much work to ask others to put into church assignments) we need to be thinking really hard about what we're doing, what the purpose is, how much time we can commit, if the time we're spending is actually being spent in the right way, and if we're making people's lives better or if we're just making them busier.
Easy, right?
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