Ahhhhhhhhh! Giving birth in 5 weeks! "Stay in there baby! We're not ready for you yet." I am so anxious to see my dear baby boy and hold him and kiss him and nurse him and take care of him all the time. However, I am very nervous because I will still be in school taking 9 credits for a month and a half after he's born and I will still have to work for the next three months after he's born. It makes me very tired to think of it. Speaking of tired, I have never felt such fatigue in all my life as I do daily now. This last leg of pregnancy is really taking all my juice. I just can't seem to sleep enough! I have mixed feelings at this point because I'm always tired, it's often hard to breath, and there is no comfortable position to sleep in; so I am in some ways ready to have this baby out and have my own body back. But at the same time, I LOVE being pregnant and am not quite ready to give the experience up. I would never trade it for anything in the world. I love to feel him squirm around inside of me and kick his little feet out. Even with all the ugly stretch marks, I love my cute basketball belly that serves as a constant reminder of the precious little human that is growing inside of me. I talk to my son and I rub my belly constantly.
Men get a lot perks by being men: they are privileged in most things just by default, they are stronger and more physically powerful in general, they get to hold the priesthood if worthy, they get to carry on their family names no-questions-asked, etc... But they will NEVER get to feel the joy of growing your own little baby inside of you. And they will never feel the bond that a mother and baby get from breastfeeding. I am so glad that I am a woman and that God has let me participate in this Godly act of creation. I am amazed every day and I thank God everyday that he allows his daughters (worthy or not) to participate in the greatest act of creation that even he has ever done- the creation of man. That blows my mind and I realize how much he must love us.
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View From Red Canyon
There's no place like MY home.
Hmm…I think what you’re considering “privilege” is really actually “responsibility.” Men have no choice but to work the best years of their lives away, as veritable slaves to the material desires of their family. Is that privilege, or is that servitude? Women can contribute to the man’s providing role in the household, but at any given time if she gets bored with it, or feels the desire to stop and have a baby, then she can. Now that’s privilege – the privilege of choice that men do not have. (And raising children is a tough job, to be sure, but I can guarantee that it is more fulfilling and emotionally rewarding than the conventional job in the workplace, where demands are intense and stress is high but the fulfillment is miniscule.) Men are expected to open doors for women, to pay for their meals, etc. Who is the privileged one in those circumstances? Men are conscripted into the military to fight and die – is that a privilege or are the women who get to stay safe at home privileged? If a ship at sea is sinking and there aren’t enough lifeboats, who are the ones by default chosen to be spared and those chosen to perish? The women (and children) would certainly be favored. Does that not make the women privileged and the men disposable? Women can’t hold the priesthood, but this also spares them from the obligation of the most consuming responsibilities in the Church - obligatory missionary service, Bishopric service, etc. Women are privileged to be free from those burdensome duties. Those who have positions of leadership in the Church and in the home also bear the greatest responsibilities: “And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant” (Matt. 20:27). The very fact that the man is the head of the household makes him the servant of all. Again, I wouldn’t consider men “privileged.” I certainly don’t feel privileged by being a man. But I do feel the weight of awful responsibility inherent in the servitude of manhood.
ReplyDeleteAs for the role of women, if men are any kind of man then they are perfectly willing make these great sacrifices their whole lives to see that their wives live comfortably and are able to perform their invaluable service in the home as nurturers. After all, “Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind” (Heber J. Grant, J. Reuben Clark, David O. McKay, Messages of the First Presidency, 6:178). And President Benson told women, “No more sacred word exists in secular or holy writ than that of mother. There is no more noble work than that of a good and God-fearing mother” (Ezra Taft Benson, To the Mothers in Zion). Those are beautiful words, and they are true, but implicit in them is that men are less considered, less recognized – they are the workhorses to make the sacred nurturing environment possible. To me it’s a small concession to call a man’s family after his name, after all his sacrifices for it.
Just food for thought.