The 3 Reasons My Wife Decides to Work
My wife has a Master’s degree in marriage and family therapy and works outside the home performing those services.
Many people treat her decision as an aberration, as though to get to this point something must have gone wrong in her life.
But her decision to work is the result of a conscious effort to create a life that follows the counsel of the prophets and meets the needs of the current and future members of our family.
This isn’t the answer for every family, but it is the answer for ours. Here’s why:
1. The Proclamation on the Family
In deciding how to form our family, we rely on the scriptures and the words of the modern prophets. And there is no more definitive statement than The Proclamation on the Family.
the family is central to the Creator’s plan for
HUSBAND AND WIFE have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children.
Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another, observe the commandments of God, and be law-abiding citizens wherever they live
Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.
By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners.
-Requires me to protect my children. I can’t work 90 hours a week and effectively do that.
-Susan’s dad always being gone.
-This supercedes past statements
-We are equal in raising our children
2. Changing Generations
-Spencer Kimball talked about how women working outside the home could make it so that women would need to work outside the home. His advice was clearly conditional.
-The last time anyone said anything was 30 years ago.
-BYU:I professor telling her that she should.
-You’d think if it was urgent necessary advice someone would say something, but instead, the last definitive statement on it have all been superseded by the proclamation.
-Principle vs. Practice
-Industrial Revolution change
3. To Do Good
-Because she’s been commanded to let her light shine.
-She has a special talent
-She was told dozens of times that she needed to get an education, and she thrived. Multiple grad schools accepted her.
-Today she works at LDS Family Services
