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RedHeadGal · 05-12-2009, 02:59 PM

I see no on took this bait. What does that last sentence mean, btw? I can't make sense of it.

I'm not convinced that more education makes a better parent. Good parenting involves a unique skill set that is probably not enhanced by most traditional education. Very smart, very educated people could be poor parents, and vice versa.

As to the question about what we teach our LDS YW, that's a quite separate. IMO, much of this question turns on ambition. I would define that as a desire to pursue a more worldly set of goals: professional goals, monetary goals, status goals, maybe service in a larger, more organized sense. I don't think ambition is necessarily bad (it can be, but that's another topic), and LDS to some extent expect YM to have it because we expect that their role will be to provide for families. That's harder to do when you are not pursuing goals with ambition. I imagine that natural ambition varies quite a bit from person to person anyway, but I bet we try to cultivate it among YM who don't seem to have much.

For YW, however, we sort of set them up to have goals: education and family. Worthy goals, yes. But we seem to seek either to gut their ambition or not to instill it. Yes, go ahead and get that electical engineering degree, but that's okay if you never use it and stay home with your kids--that's your best roll anyway. And maybe it is. But it puts some women in a tough position. Some actually have to work for various reasons, and I think some have ambition that can't be gutted.

Who would argue that we should seek to instill more ambition in our YW? It will come as no surprise that I would, I'm sure. I taught YW several years ago, and these were my main themes at that time. First, I wanted them to understand that it was time to make up their minds for themselves as to the gospel because they were about to be on their own. Second, I wanted them to understand that regardless of family-oriented goals, their main role in life was to be an agent for themselves, to make their own choices and to take care of themselves. To be self-reliant. To me, that requires some ambition because even if you are a SAHM, you have to know that you can provide for yourself.

05-12-2009, 02:59 PM	#2
RedHeadGal Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: DC Posts: 995	I see no on took this bait. What does that last sentence mean, btw? I can't make sense of it. I'm not convinced that more education makes a better parent. Good parenting involves a unique skill set that is probably not enhanced by most traditional education. Very smart, very educated people could be poor parents, and vice versa. As to the question about what we teach our LDS YW, that's a quite separate. IMO, much of this question turns on ambition. I would define that as a desire to pursue a more worldly set of goals: professional goals, monetary goals, status goals, maybe service in a larger, more organized sense. I don't think ambition is necessarily bad (it can be, but that's another topic), and LDS to some extent expect YM to have it because we expect that their role will be to provide for families. That's harder to do when you are not pursuing goals with ambition. I imagine that natural ambition varies quite a bit from person to person anyway, but I bet we try to cultivate it among YM who don't seem to have much. For YW, however, we sort of set them up to have goals: education and family. Worthy goals, yes. But we seem to seek either to gut their ambition or not to instill it. Yes, go ahead and get that electical engineering degree, but that's okay if you never use it and stay home with your kids--that's your best roll anyway. And maybe it is. But it puts some women in a tough position. Some actually have to work for various reasons, and I think some have ambition that can't be gutted. Who would argue that we should seek to instill more ambition in our YW? It will come as no surprise that I would, I'm sure. I taught YW several years ago, and these were my main themes at that time. First, I wanted them to understand that it was time to make up their minds for themselves as to the gospel because they were about to be on their own. Second, I wanted them to understand that regardless of family-oriented goals, their main role in life was to be an agent for themselves, to make their own choices and to take care of themselves. To be self-reliant. To me, that requires some ambition because even if you are a SAHM, you have to know that you can provide for yourself.