When I listen to this song, I tear up a little bit because it teaches me how love in families is a reflection of God's love, and how our roles in families help us understand and fill our roles in Heavenly Father's family. I'd like to blog more about that later, by the way. It's beautiful. Yet, as strange as it seems to me, some people don't like this song because it too simplistically states the gender-based stereotypes of the roles of fathers and mothers in families.
I want those people to understand that this is just the ideal. I know this isn't how it works for many families, and all God asks of us is to do the best we can with what we have. For example, my Dad never took the lead in family prayer, as he probably should have, so my Mom stepped up to the plate and made sure we had family prayer and scripture study every day. She still does. It may not be the way an ideal family should work, but it works. And how often does anyone or anything live up to the "ideal" anyway? Seriously, just do whatever works best for you and your family.
That said, this is the ideal. God knows what's best for His children, and through His servants, He has stated that:
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.While He admits that "disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation," He also tells us that "happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ." That is, if we follow His teachings, including what He taught about the roles of parents in families, we're more likely to have happiness in our families than if we don't. (These quotes were taken from The Family: A Proclamation to the World.)
The roles of men and women are different. Men and women were meant, "by divine design," to do different things. Men were made to be bread-winners and women were made to be home-makers, and the only reason why anyone would be offended by that - actually, the only two reasons, as I've just remembered another one - are if one job was seen as more important than the other, or if we want to make it clear that there are some people and circumstances that break the mold.
Without repeating my mini-rant, I want to make it clear that, in my mind, neither men's jobs nor women's jobs are more important than the other. The work men do in society isn't any more valuable than the work women do in it, or vice versa. They're both pretty much vital. Asking whether it's more important to breathe air or to drink water is silly, because if you neglect either of them, you're dead, no matter which one you thought you could live without. Sure, you might die faster if you stop breathing than if you stop drinking, but it's only a matter of time either way. It's the same thing with families. We need bread-winners and we need home-makers. You won't find a good family that doesn't have both of them. Both fathers and mothers are important.
About the mold-breakers, I think I've said before that all people have some masculine traits and some feminine traits. Granted that men tend to have more masculine traits and women tend to have more feminine traits (which is how we came to identify those traits as being masculine or feminine), but we each have at least a little bit of both. Women can be bread-winners and men can be home-makers. It's been done before and there's nothing wrong with it. Versatility is great, and some situations require a little bit of versatility and mold-breaking.
I'm just thinking that if a person has a choice between acting in a traditional role for their gender or defying gender stereotypes, they should play to their strengths and not be ashamed of being who they are. Some roles are more masculine, requiring masculine traits, and some roles are more feminine, requiring feminine traits, and, as a rule of thumb, men tend to be more masculine and women tend to be more feminine. So am I saying that some roles are better suited for men and others are better suited for women? Yes, because men and women are different. We each have different sets of strengths and weaknesses. Most people have traits that cross gender lines, and that helps make each of us unique, but by and large, men are more manly and women are more womanly. It's not sexist. It's just the way it is.
Echoing a little bit of my mini-rant, I know that there are some women who think society sees masculine traits as being more desirable than feminine traits, so they attempt to develop and display more masculine traits than feminine ones. Usually, those women succeed in making themselves more masculine, while inadvertently under appreciating the value of being feminine. They show the world that they, despite being women, think that it's more desirable to possess traits that are traditionally held by men. They're so sick of women being undervalued that they begin to undervalue womanhood themselves. It's one of the most backward things I've ever heard of, and it's why I don't think modern feminism makes any sense.
In contrast, if feminists identified and embraced feminine traits (that is, traits held by more women than men) and celebrated those traits instead of neglecting them in favor of developing masculine traits, then womanhood would probably get a lot more respect, at least from other women. Most men think that it's a good thing to be masculine. Do as many women think that it's a good thing to be feminine? If they did, then there might be more women who love themselves for who they are, more women who appreciate their divine traits and God-given virtues, and less women who think that they need to be more masculine in order to have value.
I'm not sure what feminists are trying to accomplish. Do they want to make men and women the same? They're not. It's a biological and psychological fact, and no amount of social pressure can change that. Do they want women to be equal to men? They already are! Do they want women to be seen as being equal to men? Then why do they undervalue everything about themselves that makes them more like women while overvaluing the traits that make people more like men? You don't have to be manly to have as much value as a good man has, and you'd think a proud woman would know that. Heck, I know that, and I don't have a woman's clear insight and personal intuition (and if I do, it's one of my more feminine traits). There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a woman, and I have no idea why so many feminists seem to think there is.
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