Sexual "Orientation" Is Too Simple

 I've been slogging my way through Herbert Blumer's classical treatise on Symbolic Interactionism. Important - not exactly a page turner. He explains the assumptions of symbolic interactionism (basically, that we create society from moment to moment through our interactions with each other, and that we act based on a shared sense of meaning of objects and situations and perceptions). He also dives into research methodology, and condemns his contemporary peers for scientific studies that fail to incorporate real observations and experiences and analyses of "the empirical world" as he calls it. In other words, we can't start hypothesizing or designing surveys or drawing conclusions about an aspect of society if we have not established the validity of our mental images or theoretical frameworks about that topic. "The predominant procedure," he asserts, "is to take for granted one's premises about the nature of the empirical world and not to examine those premises; to take one's problems as valid because they sound good, to regard as empirically valid the data one chooses because such data fit one's conception of the problem; to be satisfied with the empirical relevance of one's concepts because they have a nice connotative ring or because they are current intellectual coins of the realm" (pg. 33). We are far more likely to allow our theories and concepts to "coerce the research" to suit one's form. "In this sense, much current scientific inquiry in the social sciences is actually social philosophizing" (p. 34).

Whenever we study an area of society, we come to it with unconscious stereotypes and biases, assumptions that we make, a picture we have created based on our previous experiences. Blumer argues that we cannot solve that problem by diving into a scientific study - in fact, that will likely worsen the problem because then we feel SURE that we KNOW something, when in fact we have only found ways to validate our preexisting notions.

There are so many good examples. Blumer points out the popularity of intelligence tests, and how merely operationalizing the concept of intelligence (so we can measure it!) doesn't actually mean we're measuring what we claim to measure. Anyone who knows a good military strategist, or a slum survivor, or a brilliant poet, or an ingenious business developer recognizes that the type of competence measured by intelligence tests captures only a small fragment of what may be characterized as intelligence.

Another example: Good research in the 1930's hypothesized that the facial or cranial features of an individual were related to their criminal conduct. "Negroid" features in particular were characteristic of all kinds of negative social behaviors. This research was usually done correctly - they asked the research question, they may have had a good sample size, their statistical analysis was probably spot on, and the resulting data proved that black people were more likely to be socially inferior, as demonstrated by their clearly inferior physical makeup. The research validated all of the racist dogmas and policies of the time. Just because a hypothesis was tested, however, does not mean truth was discovered. At no point was there a practical exploration of the premises of the study, or whether the concepts made sense, or whether the methodology truly captured what was going on, or whether the conclusions were actually borne out. Truth can only come from a "direct examination of the empirical world."

In modern terms, Blumer emphasizes the critical first component of the scientific method, which is observation. A theoretical framework can't "talk back" to us the way empirical reality can. Empirical reality comes from firsthand acquaintance with the sphere of life - "free exploration in the area, getting close to the people involved in it, seeing it in a variety of situations they meet, noting their problems and observing how they handle them, being party to their conversations, and watching their life as it flows along."

Furthermore, "the scholar who lacks that firsthand familiarity is highly unlikely to recognize that he is missing anything" (p. 37). Our focus on correct scientific protocol "becomes the unwitting substitute for a direct examination of the empirical social world."

This direct examination requires flexibility, doing whatever is ethically allowable to get a clearer picture of what is going on. he should "cultivate assiduously a readiness to view his area of study in new ways...to ask all kinds of questions, even seemingly ludicrous questions...to sensitize the observer to different and new perspectives...to record all observations that challenge one's working conceptions as well as any observation that is odd and interesting even though its relevance is not immediately clear." Darwin was the master of this strategy of exploration, asking new and different questions, writing down observations that later became "the pivots for a fruitful redirection of (his) perspective." Better description alone often answers questions without having to evoke a fancy, complicated theoretical scheme.

I hope no one has fallen asleep yet. This is what I read for fun.

Now let's talk about LESBIANS...

A friend commented on the statistic that most lesbians first sexual experiences were rape or some other kind of sexual assault. How do we interpret this? Well, there are many ways - some would say that rape causes one's orientation to change, some might claim that orientation can't change and therefore lesbian girls are more likely to find themselves in precarious situations, some would say it doesn't matter, orientation is as important as yogurt preference...there are many ways to interpret this fact. Normally, I would jump to theorizing as well. But in the spirit of Herbert Blumer, maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves...

How many of us who are jumping to conclusions about this topic have significant personal experience with the world of middle and high school girls and their sexual feelings, attitudes and experiences? (Having been a teenage girl at one point doesn't count) If we don't, we may not realize that we are missing something...we may not realize that the very picture from which we are arguing is flawed. The concepts themselves may be misleading. Our premises may be totally missing the mark. Without a doubt, our conceptualization of the issue is far less complete and complex than the reality we claim to be discussing. We may actually be debating a cartoon version of empirical reality.

Without claiming to have conducted significant ethnographic research in this particular area, let me throw out a guess. I would guess, that if we were to interview hundreds of teenage girls about their sexual feelings, attitudes and experiences, we would find that they are rarely simple, linear, or naturally prone to be categorized. I would guess that what girls and women find arousing is more than just about sex but also body types and parts, external vs. internal characteristics, experiences, time, moods, and social climate. 

Maybe trying to decide whether someone is "lesbian" or "gay" or even softening the line with "bisexual" assumes a picture of sexuality that is far too simplistic. If we followed Blumer's cue and acquainted ourselves with this area of research WITHOUT prematurely attaching labels to our findings and concepts, without theorizing what we will find in advance and then devising methods to validate it, our experience with reality - the "reality of the empirical world" - might actually lead us to some interesting discoveries. My guess is, those discoveries would encourage us to shy away from any kind of sexual labels and instead teach us something really remarkable about ourselves. 

My Experience As a Woman in the Church

I had a friend recently share a post from an ex-Mormon about the things she didn't like about the church. Among other things, she claimed that the church is inherently sexist.

I was hurt, of course. And I’m always surprised to see comments like that. To contrast her claim, my 36 years of experience in the church has been virtually the opposite of sexism. For most of my life, the church has been the only entity that empowered me as a young woman to study my "Individual Worth" and "Divine Nature", to develop my talents, to be a force for good in the world, to recognize the sacredness of womanhood and to see motherhood as a divine gift and responsibility instead of a nuisance. My experience in the church has always featured male and female leaders with enormous respect for each other. Sheri Dew, Linda K. Burton, Elaine Dalton, Eliza R. Snow, Emma Smith – these are my role models and some of the best women I know: women with integrity, grace, beauty and strength that they have developed because of, not in spite of, the teachings of the church. 

Certainly enough has been written about the topic of women in the church that my voice may not delineate anything new. But as someone who has personally experienced the power that comes from the church’s teachings and practices around gender and womanhood, I feel the need to add my small teaspoon of testimony into the ocean of evidence that this church is truly being led by God.

In the 1800s, at a time when American women were denied the right to vote, enter most universities, or manage property, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was paying for women to go to schools in the East and obtain medical degrees. In fact, the church covered the cost of their books and tuition and travel and their wards took care of their families while they were gone. The church helped women start their own businesses. Utah was the second state to allow women to right to vote. While most of the country still believed that women served little purpose other than to bear children, Joseph Smith told the women in 1842, “The Church was never perfectly organized until the women were thus organized." In fact, when the idea of a women’s organization was initially proposed - to fundraise and gather clothing for the temple builders – Joseph Smith rejected the tiny scope of their mission and instead declared that the Lord "has something better for them than a written Constitution." He expressed his love and appreciation for the women of the church and gave them great promises. "If this Society listen to the counsel of the Almighty, they shall have power to command queens in their midst.” And “If you live up to your privileges, the angels cannot be restrained from being your associates." Emma Smith affirmed in that first meeting that "We are going to do something extraordinary," and we certainly have, from then on. Because of the organization of the Relief Society, the Lord affirmed a special role for women, rejecting the socially accepted premise that women were the “weaker sex”, and that the characteristics of women were actually divine gifts to help them fulfill a critical role in God’s work.

Since the ERA movement of the 1970s, the pendulum of Western thought has swung from denigrating womanhood to valuing the masculine attributes within women. This has led to more opportunities for women, which is wonderful, but also created social expectations that a woman’s value is measured by the extent to which she embodies characteristics typical of men: physical strength, assertiveness, power and position, sexual liberation. And yet the majority of women still fail to see how physical vulnerability, weakness, beauty, and sensitivity are in fact sources of power that enable us to influence others and promote social change.

Both swings of the gender pendulum have missed the mark. Both continue to undermine the importance of womanhood. The reason we haven’t seen similar great shifts in the church is because the teachings of church leaders since the very beginning have laid out a vision for womanhood that is already both defining and empowering. Because of the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Saints, I am able to see how both historic views of women are flawed, and how God's view of women not only liberates us from the host of social expectations that has produced such staggeringly high rates of anxiety and depression among women, but it makes sacred the things I already am, the things I already love. It brings the natural role of motherhood into the realm of divinity. It strengthens and enables my desires to serve, to build my community, to save souls, to develop my talents. Without it, women are pressured to prioritize careers over family, trivialize homemaking, and derive their sense of self-worth from how they measure up to men and the values of men. Even as I write this, I still find in myself a struggle to let go of the need to assess my value by how well I fit these parameters; by how much I’m paid and what kind of worldly recognition I receive. 

If I didn't have the church, I wouldn't know who I was and how special God made me. If we as women don’t think we’re anything special, then there isn’t anything special we have to do. In fact, we have a mission that is so much more important than the size of our salary or the credentials on our resume. I am not just a homo sapiens - I am a daughter of God. And because of that, my life has meaning, purpose, and direction. This is not what I learn in biology, or history, or even sociology. This is what I learned in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

We have a special identity, and therefore a special purpose. I once made this comment in a Relief Society meeting, and had a women approach me afterward. “What do you mean? Like, I know this sounds dumb but what IS so special about being a woman?” I have since heard similar frustrations echoed in other settings. One possible reason we struggle to understand the importance of our identity as women in Western society is because, other than our reproductive capabilities, we don't have a really good idea of what sets us apart. This is not by accident. For the last fifty years, social scientists like me have made consistent, calculated efforts to downplay and undermine studies demonstrating differences between men and women. There’s a good reason for this, in their eyes. In a feminist framework (which is based on conflict theory), acknowledging any differences between two groups creates inequality, and therefore an imbalance of power. If we acknowledge statistical differences between men and women, we promote sexism. “Oh, you need a negotiator? Well we’d better hire a woman because women are statistically better at negotiating.” Nobody wants that.

Once again, the paradigm of competition makes it impossible to view differences as anything other than quantitative. In Leonard Hayes book The Importance of Gender, he highlights some of the following scientific findings:

- Men and women's eyes are constructed differently at every layer. Our rods and cones are connected to nerve cells in such a way that men are more likely to notice movement, spatial orientation, and women's eyes focus more on color, texture and detail.

- Men and women react differently to different dosages of medication - as well as drugs and alcohol

- Men process more information longitudinally through the hemispheres of the brain, women process more information laterally across the hemispheres

- Men and women experience different hormonal reactions to emotions like fear and anger. 

- Men and women experience the desire for sex in completely different parts of the brain, one that controls appetite and one that focuses on decision-making and judgment

- Male and female day-old infants spend different amounts of time gazing at a smiling face (girls more) verses a spinning mobile (boys more)

This is just a small sampling. Dr. Leonard’s goal is to push back against the idea that differences in gender are all socially determined, and to help us identify more effective approaches in parenting and teaching boys and girls. How can we prevent sexism if we acknowledge these things? We promote opportunities, without forcing expectations. Boys can play with trucks and dinosaurs if they want to, and we make other toys available if they change their mind. Girls can take piano and dance lessons, but there is also a girls' soccer team available. Boys are free to become nurses and elementary school teachers, but we don't shame them if they choose to pursue MBAs or politics instead. The natural result of these relaxed expectations is that men and women, boys and girls, will often make decisions that are influenced by their gender. And that’s okay. Pretending the differences don’t exist is not the answer, and it actually creates many more problems.

The point is this, these are studies that have been conceived of and carried out by scientists – and even these are barely understood or acknowledged by women today. How many other things does our Heavenly Father see in the identity of manhood and womanhood that we are still unaware of? What other sources of strength and power are we completely unaware of?

On a side note: One thing I have been curious about is the claim of trans-gendered individuals that they feel stuck in the wrong body, or that they "feel" like they are the other gender. With just a cursory look at the list above, I would ask, how could they possibly know? They may feel different, sure, and they may see characteristics in themselves that are more typical of one gender than the other, but if we sort through all of these thousands of studies, the differences between men and women are often subtle but incredibly profound, and so fundamentally related to our perception and processing of the world around us, I would counter there is literally no way a man could truly understand what it means to be a woman, and vice versa. Being allowed to simply decide one's gender completely ignores the multitude of differences that make people so uniquely, and so entirely, male or female. Changing one's clothing or even genitals to be accepted into that category is just as superfluous as me putting on black face and claiming to be African American.

Gender is not an accident, and it's not superfluous - it is an eternal part of our identity. It's not a limiting identity - There are all kinds of men, and all kinds of women, just as there are all kinds of twenty year-olds and sixty year-olds, and all kinds of Mexicans and Koreans. Our identity is important, and wonderful, and I learned this from being in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Important issues can rarely be captured in a single Tweet or meme, and the same thing is true with gender. For those who look at the church from the perspective of conflict theory or feminism, they will see inequality and oppression, no doubt. In this church, we hold different positions; we play different roles; we interact and are sometimes even treated differently (in General Conference, men are more often chastised, and women more often are reassured). If your definition of inequality is simply acknowledging differences, then you’ll find ample evidence. But who is more important in creating life, a mother or father? Neither - for every child is an equal combination of the two. I believe this particular example is God's way of letting us see how two very different creatures, with very different roles in the creation and protection of life, are still equal in God's eyes.

If we can begin to see ourselves as men and women the way God does, and let go of our philosophical need to view the world in terms of competition and oppression and fairness, I believe gender will simultaneously become more meaningful and also less of a big deal. Understanding and appreciating this one aspect of our identity will give us greater peace, greater joy, greater freedom, greater appreciation for the gifts and talents of ourselves and others, and greater direction for the mission that He has for each of us. It will allow us to focus on becoming great women and men without comparing ourselves to each other. I know this is true. I’m so grateful to be a woman, and have the sacred privilege of being a wife and mother. I’m so happy to know who I am, and that God loves me just the way I am. Most of all, I’m grateful for the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints - the prophets, bishops, Relief Society presidents and Young Women teachers that have brought me closer to Christ, who is the source of all wisdom.

Which Theory is TRUE??: A New Proposal

Conflict theory, functionalism, feminism, exchange theory, social learning theory...with all of the frameworks that govern people's view of society, one might wonder in a Joseph Smith sort of way which of all of these frameworks is true?

First of all, theory does not need to be "true" to be "useful" - there is not, for example, an actual giant invisible hand that governs and balances the forces in a free market economy - it's just a shortcut, a framework to explain how things work and to predict what will happen to the economy. It's a useful metaphor.

Similarly, there is no actual Maslow pyramid of needs inside of every person, there is no male-led war against women, there is no giant functional organism into which every member of society fits together, and Piaget did not build any actual concrete stages that children grow into or from. These are different theoretical paradigms that help us make sense of the world and answer questions and figure out what to do. All of these theories, like metaphors used to illustrate a point, have strengths and weaknesses, making some more helpful than others. More importantly, the implications for those who use these lenses are real and measurable.

For example: Functionalism - believing that everything has a purpose and that everyone has a place can discourage change and justify horrible inequality and social conditions. Exchange theory supports self-centeredness through the acceptance that everyone is entirely motivated by self interest. Conflict theory assumes oppression and discrimination in every social interaction and leads to war and demonization of other groups. Eugenics was about seeing all behavior as a product of one's genes and led directly to the Holocaust. So how you interpret the world leads to certain actions, and it also dictates what behavior you see as good, bad, necessary or foolish.

Bad theoretical frameworks may be to blame for much of the evil in the world. In fact, as my husband has coined "White Hat syndrome" or what I call "Darth Vaderism", we sometimes forget that real life "bad guys" usually don't realize they're bad! They act out of a mental framework that makes their behavior seem righteous or at least justifiable (Hitler: wiping out members of "inferior races" might seem like the right thing to do if you believe "racial impurity" is causing all of society's ills). When frameworks affect groups, they are called culture. This probably explains why missionaries have more success in Peru than in Greece: every culture includes assumptions and values about God, individual privacy, Christianity, America, etc that make the individuals in that society more or less receptive to the Gospel.

So paradigms are clearly important! And until we know all things, God recognizes that we will make mistaken assumptions (like the Brother of Jared, assuming that God did not have a body, or Mary, assuming that she couldn't have a baby). But while we struggle through our inevitable mortal misunderstandings, is there a BEST paradigm? One that is CLOSEST to God's? I've been railing against conflict theory and encouraging symbolic interactionism for a long time, because of the pros and cons I perceive in those - but is symbolic interactionism the best way to view society? Which theories are the MOST useful, in God's eyes? Or should we be looking for something different altogether?

If our goal is to organize truth in a way that is similar to God's, the first glaring error we should acknowledge is that none of these social theories acknowledge a higher power, eternal existence, or any kind of overarching plan. They merely seek to describe and explain what is going on the visible world, right now, between individuals and in the world around us. But without the overarching truth of God's plan, we are easily "tossed to and fro" and "carried about by every wind of doctrine", or whichever philosophy of men "seems right". This week I even had my diet app describe different theories around eating - vegan, keto, intermittent fasting - list the pros and cons of each, and suggest that we pick whichever one worked best for us. Works best? Seems right? Is that the strongest argument we can hang our mental hats on?

You see, the problem with the philosophies of men is that because they do not include God in their framework, they are all flawed. There will always be elements of the human experience that they can't explain, or that they get wrong, and therefore they include implications and recommendations that are also wrong (wrong as in, untrue, and wrong as in, wicked).

How do we build a more relevant, useful, true framework that helps more accurately answer questions about individuals and society by also including the role of God and His plan? Or in other words, what is the pair of lenses that God wants us to be looking through? What glasses should we wear in order to see things how God sees them? Here are some experiences that led to my epiphany this morning:

As a new mom, I worked part time as a research consultant for the American Families of Faith project at BYU. We were studying interfaith couples - couples that come from different religious backgrounds - and how they form strong families. We interviewed lots of couples and I read lots of books about how these couples raise their children. They are generally introduce their children to both religions, often encourage them to try both and see which one works for them (again with the "seems right" approach). But the overarching unspoken assumption of these families which is never mentioned is this: In order to be satisfied with this approach, you must assume that there is no way to come to know actual truth; that once again, God is not part of the equation; that religion, for the most part, is a lifestyle choice, like a diet, that we choose because it makes sense to us and therefore works for us - to give us guidance about how to behave, to provide explanations and answer about life's tough questions.

The minute you decide (consciously or not) that religion is something created and executed by men, you've written God out of the universe. When your church is something that needs your criticism, or even your critical analysis, your insights - when you feel the need to correct church leaders or contextualize and downplay their direction, you have decided that you are the grownup in the room, and not God. In other words, you view yourself in the role of an adult, not as a child.

Story number two: My sister-in-law, who teaches first grade, once had a student raise her hand in the middle of an unrelated class activity and say "I have an important question for the whole class!" - when allowed to speak, she said with sincere, tender anxiety, "What if Chewy eats BB8??!!" 

The question was irrelevant and funny, but the intention behind it was not. No amount of grownup comforting could help. She was genuinely concerned for BB8's welfare (I can't believe I just used a possessive apostrophe for a number). My brother, on retelling the story, commented that sometimes our very heartfelt questions to the Lord may sound like this little kid's question did to her teacher. When we see the big picture, some of our concerns we will see were simply irrelevant!

This story provided a helpful metaphor to explain our relationship to God, and to truth. Both of these stories use a framework to illustrate the importance of viewing ourselves as children, rather than adults, when understanding the workings of God. Metaphor, paradigm, framework...hmm...

What if we created a "Child of God" theory?

What if we used a lens through which we viewed individuals and society was not about consumers, or power players, or communicators, but as children? Children of God, specifically?

While this may not answer every question about society or how to solve many of the pressing social problems we have, choosing a theoretical framework that frames people in terms of children of God includes a number of helpful assumptions:

First of all, it assumes our need to take an appropriately subservient role to the One who is all-knowing and all-powerful - He gets it, and He's got this. This aligns with Jesus' and King Benjamin's counsel to "become as little children." We acknowledge that there are many things that we don't know, and that answers will eventually be given and all injustices will be righted. Our subservient role allows us to take prophetic direction without needing to see "where it leads", and without stressing about why it was given. We assume that all direction is given because we are children of God - and that a God who loves us always acts in a way that will promote our happiness and eternal progression.

Secondly, the lens of children of God assume individual divine nature and worth, focuses on our eternal identity and our important responsibilities in this life. This identity encourages loving and responsible action.

Finally, this perspective reminds us that the people around us are similarly divine, and therefore deserving of our respect and support. We don't need the framework of feminism (which establishes equality as a balance of power) in order to establish equality - if we are all children of God then we are equal by nature. If we are children of God, then everyone has something important to contribute, a voice to be heard, and needs that we need to address - as James Farrell puts it in the Anatomy of Peace, needs that are not above or below our own but equal in reality and validity. 

By adopting this framework, we are given a measuring stick against which to compare other theories and frameworks. We could ask ourselves: do the assumptions of _____ theory align with the truth that I am a child of God? That we are children of God? For every theory - the problems it focuses on, the solutions it points to - does it align with God's laws and the truth He has revealed? We may have to reject some theories in order to prioritize this truth. Europeans who chose to hide Jews from the Nazis may have also been raised to seen the world through the lens of eugenics and racial superiority, but they chose to put FIRST their framework of others as children of God, and consequently put first their first responsibility to love and protect everyone. Similarly, whatever justifications were used for slavery may have been very persuasive, but Quakers and other abolitionists rejected whatever arguments may have kept them from viewing and treating others as children of God. 

I hope that promoting "Children of God" theory as a social framework as well as a spiritual one will provide important perspective for Christian social scientists as well as consumers of science. How we view society impacts our thoughts and actions - and if we begin with this framework (or, as Elder Hafen called it, the "eternal perspective" or Elder Anderson the "eye of faith"), the issues we care about will have new meaning, problems will have new context, and solutions will be clearer. We will be able to throw away things that are of no use to us and imagine new ways of addressing society's ills. Furthermore, as I said earlier, social scientists who are not of our faith can test and adopt this framework as helpful without necessarily worrying about whether or not it is true. I encourage everyone to do so, knowing personally that someday the assumptions of this theory will be known as truth.

Thoughts on the "Preside" Problem

In a recent lesson in church, we read the words of past church president Gordon B. Hinckley declare that, "In His grand design, when God first created man, He created a duality of the sexes. The ennobling expression of that duality is found in marriage. One individual in complementary to the other. In the marriage companionship there is neither inferiority nor superiority. The woman does not walk ahead of the man; neither does the man walk ahead of the woman. They walk side by side as a son and daughter of God on an eternal journey. Marriage, in its truest sense, is a partnership of equals."

This sounds pretty good, right?

But how do we sync this with the idea expressed in the 1995 Proclamation on the Family read by President Hinckley that "By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families"? Moreover, how can we bear to swallow the similar but even more difficult passages by Paul in the New Testament, such as "the head of the woman is the man" and "wives, submit to your husbands"? It's difficult to see how both sentiments could possibly be true.

An initial disclaimer, before I get into this: This is not a comprehensive treatise on Christianity and gender. I am not an expert on the subject, I acknowledge that this brief examination may be flawed, and it is only intended for those who already accept the validity of scripture. However, for those who are looking for answers, I feel compelled to share some hopefully useful personal insights.

Let's stick with the concept of "preside" for the moment, although this may help with Paul's comments too. To preside means to chair, officiate, conduct, or lead. The concept of fathers presiding over their families is only difficult because we're required to view it in a different context than we're used to. Simply put, how can a husband and wife then both be equals if the husband presides (and note the implications of the preposition) OVER her?

Perhaps the solution is to see the family like an onion, instead of like a ladder. There are layers, yes, but they don't have the linear implications that we usually associate with organizational hierarchy. Linear understanding sees anything that is higher as better, more important. This mode of thought works to some extent - clearly the head is at the TOP of the body, and the head is the most important. But what about the parts of the head? Ears and eyes are both at the same level…and does anyone other than Eric Matthews want to claim that hair is the greatest of all?

Husbands and wives have different divinely-appointed roles, just like an eye and an ear, and I think most people are comfortable with that concept in theory. But when we move past generalities and start listing off specifics, we get uncomfortable - we can’t seem to let go of the notion that somehow, with separate roles, someone is going to come out on top. Why are we so convinced that there has to be a hierarchy?

I believe it is partially the result of the mammon-ization of mankind (mammon, the extremely fancy Bible word for money). As our society falls more in love with money, we increasingly see the value of people, objects and activities in terms of financial worth. In the lens of roles, we believe that less compensation indicates less value or less importance - and in the eyes of the world, that is increasingly perceived to be the case.

When money is your primary indicator of value, it’s easy to see what is more or less valuable because it’s a uniform, interchangeable, measurable variable: more money=better,  less money=worse. But when used as a single measure of value, money fails to capture the true complexity of value as we intuitively understand it. What is better, saws or hammers? Doctors or farmers? Air or happiness? Economists use the terms like “use value” vs. “exchange value” in order to quantify these variables - (use value meaning an old truck is more valuable on a snowy road than a diamond-studded watch). While money is an ordinal variable, nominal or qualitative variables simply can’t be turned into numbers (you can’t rank colors, or directions, or shapes). 

While we may be able to monetize and therefore rank pretty much anything (go ahead and Google “top ten ____” anything), clearly, our identity as men and women can not be boiled down that simply. While similar in most ways, women’s eyes are wired to recognize more colors and patterns, while men’s eyes are more aware of shape and movement. Men’s brain waves move in more longitudinal patterns, women’s more latitudinally. Men have more strength, women have more flexibility. These are characteristics that are just as meaningless to rank as red vs. blue, or squares vs. circles.

Anyway, back to presiding…First of all, the definition of preside is correct. We don’t need to twist this word to make it fit our worldview. Apparently a significant number of people Google “preside definition lds” as though they’re looking for the secret alternative definition. There isn’t one. We believe it is the husband/father’s role to preside - to conduct, lead, officiate, chair. But, we also believe that being the presider has no implications of superiority. How can that be the case, in practical terms? What’s our new framework? 

Some examples might help.

My husband pointed out that one of the responsibilities of the vice president of the United States is to preside over the Senate. He doesn’t handle every matter of the Senate, he’s just in charge of making sure that the rules and procedures are followed. I think presiding over the family means to be in charge of general oversight - ensuring that the family as a whole is honoring the commandments, is financially solvent, is protected. Like a project manager, I was responsible for making sure project milestones were met, and that we came in under budget. But the people actually doing the work on the project were usually higher ranked and much higher paid than I - they were the ones actually doing the work that led to the success of the project. We worked together to get it done.

Another example is school principals. Principals preside: they handles logistics of the physical facility and finances, ensure that teachers have the equipment and books they need; principals hire personnel and administer student disciplinary action. Principals are the public face of the school if the county or community want to complain. In a way, like a father, the principal takes care of everything outside the classroom, so that the teachers can focus inside the classroom on the work of actually educating the students. Who can say that the principal, in his leadership role, is more important? Again, the issue of hierarchy in this context is simply irrelevant.

Another analogy I’ve used is thinking of men and women as given the roles of providing different levels of protection around a great treasure. The mother actually holds the treasure and personally cares for it, and the father stands guard at the door. The mother is the closest or inner-most element of the home and family - her responsibilities are the most intimate and personal, and the father is the outside layer wrapped around all of them.

 Again, the command for fathers to “preside” should only bother us if we view leadership as an inherently superior status, or worse, an excuse for domination. In the qualitative “onion” of the family, "higher" layers need carry no such status implication (in the case of onions - we actually even throw away the "highest" layers).

We are told that presiders (fathers) and nurturers (mothers) are equally important in God’s eyes, and that we should work together as a team, helping each other in our various responsibilities like we were members of each other’s committees. Mothers are chairs of the nurturing "committee", fathers are chairs of the provide-and-protect "committee" - each are accountable for making sure that aspect of the family is taken care of, even if they do not carry out all the actual tasks involved. 

From my personal experience, being aware of such a sacred personal responsibility gives me purpose and meaning, and gives me greater respect for my husband as I help him fulfill his separate but critical role. Moreover, whatever God's reason for creating these specific assignments, I know that fulfilling them brings us great peace, wisdom, unity, and joy, which I know is the goal of everything God does. 

All You Need is Love?: The Real vs. Ideal Family Debate

In the textbook I use for my class, the book begins by addressing "the great debate" of American families: are they getting worse, or are they simply changing? The issue stems from a common disagreement among social scientists.

The problem is that we all want to promote happy and functional families, but we have virtually opposite views on how to do it. Do we best promote happiness and functionality by promoting specific family structures? Or should we focus on helping people love and see strengths in whatever family they're in? In other words - should our motto be "strive for the ideal", or "love what is real"? Let's look at an example...

"Family is important, but who's in a family? Why, the people who love you the most!" 

-Robert Skutch, Who's in a Family?

Who's in a Family?, a children's book published in 1997 and the subject of a lawsuit in Massachusetts, "shows the various combinations of individuals that can make up a family, emphasizing the positive aspects of different family structures, including grand-parent headed, single-parent, adopted, gay-headed, and mother-father families. Uses examples from the animal kingdom to illustrate how family groupings can differ."

Why is that important? Well, as the traditional family of two-heterosexual-married-parents-plus-their-kids continues to diminish, an increasing number of children find themselves in alternative family arrangements that may be stigmatized and devalued by the rest of society. As such, we should stop worrying about family form and instead focus on helping children be proud of whatever family they're in, stressing that family is just any group of people who love each other. 

Right?

Well, on the surface that sounds good, because it is inclusive. But here's the problem: When we stress inclusiveness, the term "family" gradually expands until it loses any specific meaning and eventually comes to embrace everyone we love, even pets and aliens, such as the following clip from Disney's Lilo and Stitch (just the first 40 seconds or so):

When "family" means anything, "family" means nothing. If we want to promote the family, we need to have some agreement on what it is, and "people that we love" is practically speaking not enough to guide discussions of welfare or tax policy or child custody arrangements.

Similarly, while the all-encompassing definition of family may sound good, significant evidence contradicts the idea that family form is irrelevant, and that "All you need is love" . Countless studies have shown that family form itself has a significant impact on outcomes for children and society. Children do better with two parents who are married and love each other. Children do better when they're reared with love and consistency. Children do better when they're born to adults rather than teenagers. And by "do better", I refer to outcomes in academics, mental health, drug use, teen pregnancy, future marriages and overall self esteem. If we agree that these outcomes are important and desirable, then we certainly have empirical evidence that an ideal family form does exist.

As social workers, we already create programs and legislation and policies to promote this kind of family. We encourage couples to stay together for the good of the child. We try to prevent divorce and teen pregnancies and infidelity. But while we push for this kind of behavior, we are still extremely hesitant to openly admit that some forms of families are simply better than others. 

This topic scares social workers because we don't want to make value judgments. We want to be client-centered, and as such we are sometimes quick to chastise others for "forcing their values" on clients. But what we fail to recognize is that the choice to not make people feel bad IS a value judgment. We can respect people who make that choice, but they should recognize that it is a choice, and one with consequences for society. 

For example - one of the most effective AIDS-prevention strategies in Uganda was been the "Zero Grazing" campaign - people were encouraged to "tie" themselves to one partner and only have sex with that person, permanently. There was no mention of abstinence, or condom use, there were no allowances made for culturally-accepted polygamy or divorce; it was a value-laden campaign, proscribing a specific family form, but it was extremely effective at reducing the spread of AIDS. If Ugandans can do that with AIDS, isn't it worth it for us to promote certain family forms in order to prevent so many other types of individual and social sicknesses?

This book wants us to believe that all types of family arrangements are equal in love and happiness and functionality. And we certainly want them to be! But we shouldn't mistake compensating for the ideal as achieving it. Adoption, for example, is a wonderful and needed thing. But there should almost never be a need for adoption in a society where all parents are physically, financially, emotionally, and mentally capable of rearing the children they create. Being raised by a grandparent may be the preferred method in some cultures, but in America it usually occurs when parents are not able to raise their own offspring. Similarly, there are single parents who do amazing things - like raise the future President Barack Obama - but almost no parent would choose to take on such a daunting task alone or wish it on their children. 

Adoption, kinship care and single parents - All three of these family forms result in severing or straining ties between a child and the individuals who gave them life, who are, biologically-speaking, the individuals most likely to love and care about that child. Cutting the bonds of biological parents creates emotional and mental difficulties for children in all three groups that reflect in poorer social, financial, and academic performance as well as physical and mental health outcomes, sometimes for the rest of their lives.

Are there unique strengths that children possess in each of these family forms? Absolutely. Children of adoption can claim to have two sets of parents, sometimes have both present in their life. Children raised by grandparents have the benefit of their maturity and wisdom and experience. Children from single parents learn to be more responsible, grow closer to their parent, and children from all three groups can learn resiliency in the face of difficulty.

So are these strengths meaningful alternatives? Or are we just handing out pity points? As always, let's focus on outcomes. Instead of talking about what feels good, or what sounds good, or what makes us comfortable, let's compare actual results (see the Moneyball example of avoiding biases). If it's true that children of single parents are more resilient but also more likely to do drugs and drop out of school, then we need compare the two outcomes and decide what is more important to us.

Ultimately, the decision is ours - either we openly promote some family forms above others, and as a result some kids may feel stigmatized, or we abandon the ideal and risk having kids face a host of other consequences.

Even more seriously, by abandoning any notion of an ideal, we deprive children of an incredibly useful template when forming their own families some day. The children I knew in Detroit never learned that abstinence before marriage was even a thing people did, or that waiting until marriage to have kids was even possible or desirable. They would come to my house and watch me and my husband interact, some of them seeing a functional marriage for the first time, and they'd always ask questions as though they knew there was something good here that they wanted, but they weren't quite sure how to achieve it. Even if we choose not to teach children the best ways to create and maintain a family, children will still formulating their own ideas. They will simply use their own observations and experiences to create a mental picture of an ideal family. Would we rather those mental pictures be shaped by good examples or bad ones?

Like a copy machine, families tend to reproduce themselves - functional families create children that create more functional families, and dysfunctional families create children that create more dysfunctional families. By not making any attempt to teach these ideals - to wait until marriage to have children, to wait until adulthood to get married, to be permanently and lovingly committed to their spouses, etc. - we virtually condemn children to replicate negative family patterns that they grow up believing are normal and good, which is why children of single parents are far more likely to become single parents themselves one day. Furthermore, those incorrect beliefs may never be challenged, even by those of us who know the data, which may avoid hurt feelings now but fail to prevent tragic decisions later on.

The other danger of abandoning ideal family form is that we eliminate any expectations for individuals to make responsible decisions regarding family creation and function. Creating and maintaining the ideal family form is not easy - it requires forethought, sexual control, perseverance, patience, and love - and we cheat people by implying that you can have a happy family and positive outcomes without doing those things. When people can do whatever they want without any negative push back from society, their choices are likely to be focused on their own happiness and well-being, and not that of children or the greater community.

In conclusion, this reminds me of another seemingly unattainable "ideal" preached by Jesus: "Be ye perfect, even as your father in heaven is perfect." Well, that is certainly a nice idea that we are nowhere CLOSE to! How can we continue to function from day to day, striving for something quite unattainable, without wallowing in misery about our continual lack of success?

Maybe, like getting a shot, some children will have to experience some emotional pain in the short term in order to experience greater happiness in the long term. Maybe, when comparing the outcomes of both family types, we decide that it's worth it for children to see the flaws in their own family situation if it results in them creating something better when they grow up. Maybe instead of focusing on being happy with their current situation, we need to show them the data, and teach them how to form and maintain a family in a way that is most likely to help them achieve their goals. We can help children best as we allow them to learn from the good and bad that they experienced in their family and continue to teach the ideal as something to aspire to, knowing that the closer they get to that ideal, the more happiness and success they are likely to experience. Weighing the alternatives - I think it's worth it.

The Secret Weapon of Social Change

In our new home in Detroit, there is an awful lot of work to do. Yesterday, while using Google maps to get to an interview, I found myself driving a solid two and a half miles down a main city road, lined with restaurants and barber shops and boutiques that were all completely deserted, boarded up or surrounded with broken windows and graffiti. A few stoned old men stumbled across alleys. 

People like me drive through places like this and think, what is to be done? I'm sure you have had that thought as well. And the list of answers we come up with is long indeed.

Perhaps you think that we need to boost industry by creating local investment opportunities.

Perhaps you think, Guiliani-style, that we need to focus on reducing crime, by spending money cleaning the graffiti and broken glass and increasing the police presence.

Maybe your answer is drug prevention - improving D.A.R.E. programs, building better rehab centers, and instituting better regulations on alcohol and drugs.

Maybe your inclination is education - let's learn from Teach for America and focus on better teachers, and more money in the schools. Then kids would achieve more and improve their own communities.

Maybe you gravitate toward community building through better public facilities and extra-curricular activities. In this spirit, Detroit boasts an abundance of YMCAs, after-school programs, corporate-sponsored sport facilities and dance camps and jazz festivals.

Maybe your answer is to address the race problem. Maybe it's gun control. Maybe it's healthcare.
Maybe it's better government assistance to the poor. We could probably keep going down this road for quite awhile - many people have. Whatever you see as the root of the problem is likely to be where you put your efforts to solving it. However, like a fire out of control, we won't solve the problem if we end up shooting water at the ominous, billowing smoke. We need to identify the causes within causes - the rootiest of the roots - in order to aim our efforts at the fire destroying society.

There are many examples of well-intentioned, smoke-drenched attempts to solve social problems. A friend from Uganda came to visit us a few weeks ago. He commented that, while half of the world's NGOs are in Africa (by one count there are 1,902 separate NGOs in Uganda alone), it is hard for the Africans to see that things are getting much better. That was discouraging to hear, as a former volunteer with such an organization, but I saw his point. Even while we were there, the problems seemed so overwhelming and so daunting. As happens in Detroit, each charitable organization in Africa picks a specific problem to attack - AIDS prevention, digging wells, teaching business skills, working in orphanages - but after all the money spent and interventions made, there seems to be so little of a dent made in the overall poverty and well-being of the African people. This may be, as the Centre for Basic Research in Kampala argues, because so many NGOs are "fragmented, project‑oriented, donor‑driven, urban‑based and sometimes, poorly managed."

So again...what is to be done? How can we get to the root of social problems, so that our interventions can be effective? The solution surprised me....

In recent years, Mormon women have been encouraged to study the history of the Relief Society (the women's organization in the church), and that led to the publication of a book called Daughters in My Kingdom, a history of the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In it, prophets and former Relief Society presidents teach the sisters of the church that their duty is to relieve the suffering of the poor and strengthen families. All of a sudden, reading that I had a revelation. Our duty is to relieve the suffering of the poor by strengthening families. That is our solution!

Why is that such a revelation? Families are as much a part of our lives as the air we breathe, so we may take it for granted that such a universal institution could be a powerful tool for social change. Church leaders have made it clear that families are not just a nice thing to have. Families are in fact God's secret weapon. What I realized in that moment was that families ARE the solution to social change. It is not only the most best way to raise children, it is the best way to save societies.

Instead of focusing on helping individuals, our focus should be on fixing the machine that creates happy and healthy individuals, which are happy and healthy families. When individual spouses and parents are able to do their job well - in a healthy, loving environment - they teach their children to do the same. They create a rock of support for the community around them. They create interconnected relationships of support with other families. Recall a time before health insurance - when your entire family and community WAS your insurance policy, and you were theirs. When we support families, families will do their job for individuals. So, in every aspect of individual and social struggles, whether solving poverty, or crime, or illiteracy, or health crises -- our question should always be, what can we do to help families?

As Elder Eyring said in 2012, "Bishops and Relief Society presidents always invite family members to help each other when there is a need. There are many reasons for that principle. Foremost is to provide to more people the blessing of increased love that comes from serving each other...That is why the Lord has created societies of caregivers."

There are many ways to help build our struggling communities, including many of the approaches listed above. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is involved with a number of initiatives including clean water projects, neonatal resuscitation training, vision care, wheelchairs, immunizations and food production. In my husband's discipline, lobbyists and politicians create legislation that changes aid programs, zoning laws, access to public transportation and more. I'm proud of the accomplishments that we've made in helping the poor.

But like Africa, Detroit will likely continue to struggle if the interventions are aimed at individuals and not done in the context of helping families. How can we help family members spend more quality time together? How can we help families understand and teach the importance of literacy and good citizenship? How can we reduce divorce and out-of-wedlock births? How can we encourage fidelity and commitment to family relationships? How can we make pro-marriage welfare policies? How can we help fathers be better role models? How can we provide relief for working mothers? How can we strengthen ties to extended family? How can we improve communication and cooperation and commitment within the home? Like a jammed printer, if we focus on removing the obstacles in their way, families are a machine that will naturally support healthy and happy families. And healthy families, automatically, do most of the things that are needed to strengthen individuals internally, and communities externally.

Family processes are already understood as an effective and efficient social machine - we gradually migrated from orphanages to foster homes in the 1950's as we discovered that not only is a family setting cheaper, but children tend to do better when they are raised in a family instead of an institution, especially if the family is at least distantly related to them.

Our church focuses on the family so much, not only because it is in the family that we can find the greatest individual happiness, but also because it is the key to our success in the world today.
Neal A. Maxwell said:

Isn't it ironical that in an age when we are learning almost feverishly about what is most ecologically sound, what are the most efficient and economic ways to produce energy or protein in order to help other human beings, that we should be so incredibly blind--because like ancient Judah, we are "looking beyond the mark"--when it comes to pursuing those processes which are best for the production of good human beings? [As with the relative inefficiency of the amount of grain needed to raise cattle versus chickens,] The social and spiritual sum of our political, educational, ad economic institutions is usually not sufficient to offset the deficits in the home. 

Analogously, we have far too many lonely humans foraging on deficient "homesteads" and too many governmental programs which attempt abortively to substitute a less efficient system of helping humans than the home; it is the home that we must rescue, repair, and sustain. Only when homes are full of truth, warmth, and trust, can our other institutions perform their tasks...If we are really concerned about the most economical way of achieving happiness for ourselves and/or our fellowmen and about those skills that are needed in successful human enterprises, then we should seek these gains through the family. (The Inexhaustible Gospel, pg 3)

Perhaps we have gone "beyond the mark" with regards to the family because of our almost unconscious culture of individualism. Perhaps we look past the family because our own personal experiences with family have been negative (if 60% of the baby boomers are divorced, then that means approximately 60% of their children--adults my age--are victims of divorce and either terrified or apathetic toward the idea of finding happiness in a family setting). Perhaps we undervalue the family as an institution because we don't really agree what a functional family looks like, or whether we should even define it.

While the argument about the defining a functional family may be full of controversy and potential stigma, what is the alternative? We can either use the overwhelming statistics to define what healthy looks like (including factors such as having a father and mother who are married and committed to each other), and strive for it, knowing that we may fail in our endeavor, or we can say nothing out of fear and allow society to risk duplicating negative family patterns that children grow up believing to be normal and good.

We can and should still love and support those whose lives do not turn out ideally. Most lives don't. Divorce, unwanted pregnancy, infidelity, and single parenthood are realities for many many people. But while avoiding generalizations may soothe feelings, it may destroy futures. After struggling with the decision personally, I have decided that I care more about helping the child of a single mother see the importance of fatherhood and encourage the desire to have a loyal partner in raising children than to coddle their upbringing as "good enough" and thereby risk them becoming a single mother as well. We admire the strong, courageous women who parent alone, but those single mothers would never wish such a life on their children and neither should we.

So that aside, assuming that I have already offended whoever is going to be offended by the idea of defining what makes a strong, functional family.... what should that definition be?

Unlike many others, I have a few advantages in this field. First and most importantly, because I belong to a church with modern day prophets, I have clear and specific guidance about what a strong family should look like. Second, I know the research, and third, my childhood in a family community in Saudi Arabia afforded me a unique vantage point to view strong, functional families from around the world. With these in mind, I have distilled the following characteristics:

#1 - Marriage. That is, a family is headed by a couple that is permanently, legally, spiritually, physically, emotionally committed to each other.
#2 - Gender (of parents and children) is acknowledged and respected and honored as an asset.
#3 - Fidelity. Couples keep sexual relations only with each other, and in the protective bonds of marriage. "Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity"
#4 - Mothers and fathers both take responsibility to rear, protect, and teach their children to become good members of society.
#5 - Positive principles are observed in the home, including faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and positive recreation.
#6 - Division of labor occurs according to the situation and strengths and preferences of each parent, ensuring that top priorities are providing for and protecting the home, and nurturing children.
#7 - Equality. However specific tasks are divided, couples should be committed to helping each other as equals (without keeping track).
#8 - Relationships with extended family are maintained and strengthened.

These eight points allow for a wide variety of adaptations for personal and cultural differences. Positive recreation may be mountain biking or karaoke. Honoring gender may be recognizing the beauty of one's artistic talents or one's dedicated service in the community. Marriage may happen in a chapel or on a beach. Division of labor may translate to one person doing the dishes, taking turns, or making the kids do them. A relationship with extended family may be grandma living with you, or remembering to send your cousins birthday cards.

Note that none of these eight points put any kind of requirement on children. That's because they're children! Any resilience or competence we observe in children should be applauded but not expected; A strong society can never be built on such an unstable foundation. And yet - how often are governmental programs and resources directed toward building this resilience in children, as though their parents were already a lost cause?

As a final thought - I volunteered at a youth detention facility years ago and spent time talking with the delinquents who managed to put themselves behind bars before getting to their 18th birthday. The overwhelming number of those children from distressed families was too obvious to think their behavior was unrelated. Interventions include detention, mentorship programs, medication, therapy, boot camps, behaviorists (like me). I've seen just about everything. And while I don't have the solution for most of these problems, I do know this - fixing a bad kid and then putting him back in a bad family is just as ineffective as the efforts of the NGOs my Ugandan friend lamented. Fix the family. It doesn't matter that it's more complex or expensive. Fix the family and the kids will follow. Fix the family and society will follow too.