Part 1: Some thoughts on the recent news about a
Stake President denying a nursing mom a Temple Recommend.
When I see an issue like this being discussed on social media I like to go out searching more to see what people are saying. I search a bit through Sisters Quorum and Mormon Feminist Housewives to see how American Feminists are taking this issue on. I always come across thoughtful dialogue and sometimes raging comments to the posts in the comment section.
I began to reflect on my own experience: a conversation I had with an old friend in Edmonton many years ago. She told me that "in the old days" mothers used to nurse their babies in church, and there was no problem. They opened up their dresses and nursed their children, the breast fully visible, the sacrament tray passing by them, no problem.
Then mothers were asked to sit on the back row of the chapel and nurse their babies. The deacons passed the sacrament to them back there. We both wondered what is the difference between having the sacrament tray pass by a nursing mother on a pew, and having all of the mothers at the back of the chapel and having the deacons pass the sacrament to them.
At any rate, the next step was mothers were asked to nurse their babies behind the curtain that separated the chapel from the recreational hall. You could hear behind that curtain. It was cloth, not the vinyl push and fold curtains of today. So women were behind the curtain, they could hear and the deacons circled out of the chapel, and passed the sacrament to them in the recreation hall.
Now I have to skip a few generations, long past when my children were grown, and a woman came to me upset, because the new chapel would not have a place for nursing mothers. They were to go nurse their babies in the women's washroom. "No one eats their meal in a bathroom. Why should a baby?", she asked me. She wanted to know what to do. I don't know which of the actions she took, or if any, but when the chapel was built, there was a room created for nursing mothers. Not a victory in the sense that women are asking for today, but at least a room of their own, and probably with the meeting being piped in electronically.
So if I can go back now to to the Exponent II website, I was curious about the picture they chose to accompany this issue. One of the many figures in the painting is a nursing mother, leaning against a wagon wheel, everyone going about their journey and no one really curious about her. No one getting a pillow for her back, or giving her a seat in a wagon, or providing any comforts for her. No drink of water at hand. She has taken off her bonnet and is feeding her baby. That must be the point of the picture, that the band of saints are travelling on, and she is in their company, feeding her child.
So there it is, not a new issue.
My daughter Rebecca Johnson was kicked out of a pub in England for nursing her baby some years ago and wrote a public essay about her experience. So the problem is not just a Mormon problem. But in this case, it is a Mormon experience that needs to have some dialogue.
When I see an issue like this being discussed on social media I like to go out searching more to see what people are saying. I search a bit through Sisters Quorum and Mormon Feminist Housewives to see how American Feminists are taking this issue on. I always come across thoughtful dialogue and sometimes raging comments to the posts in the comment section.
I began to reflect on my own experience: a conversation I had with an old friend in Edmonton many years ago. She told me that "in the old days" mothers used to nurse their babies in church, and there was no problem. They opened up their dresses and nursed their children, the breast fully visible, the sacrament tray passing by them, no problem.
Then mothers were asked to sit on the back row of the chapel and nurse their babies. The deacons passed the sacrament to them back there. We both wondered what is the difference between having the sacrament tray pass by a nursing mother on a pew, and having all of the mothers at the back of the chapel and having the deacons pass the sacrament to them.
At any rate, the next step was mothers were asked to nurse their babies behind the curtain that separated the chapel from the recreational hall. You could hear behind that curtain. It was cloth, not the vinyl push and fold curtains of today. So women were behind the curtain, they could hear and the deacons circled out of the chapel, and passed the sacrament to them in the recreation hall.
Now I have to skip a few generations, long past when my children were grown, and a woman came to me upset, because the new chapel would not have a place for nursing mothers. They were to go nurse their babies in the women's washroom. "No one eats their meal in a bathroom. Why should a baby?", she asked me. She wanted to know what to do. I don't know which of the actions she took, or if any, but when the chapel was built, there was a room created for nursing mothers. Not a victory in the sense that women are asking for today, but at least a room of their own, and probably with the meeting being piped in electronically.
So if I can go back now to to the Exponent II website, I was curious about the picture they chose to accompany this issue. One of the many figures in the painting is a nursing mother, leaning against a wagon wheel, everyone going about their journey and no one really curious about her. No one getting a pillow for her back, or giving her a seat in a wagon, or providing any comforts for her. No drink of water at hand. She has taken off her bonnet and is feeding her baby. That must be the point of the picture, that the band of saints are travelling on, and she is in their company, feeding her child.
So there it is, not a new issue.
My daughter Rebecca Johnson was kicked out of a pub in England for nursing her baby some years ago and wrote a public essay about her experience. So the problem is not just a Mormon problem. But in this case, it is a Mormon experience that needs to have some dialogue.
Part 2: How to agitate for change?
So the question is,
what to do, and do the American feminists need our help. Probably not.
They are a powerful group.
Thinking about whether
or not American feminists need our help and support, I started thinking about
how to be successful if we do choose to be activists.
I saw the Exponent Essay is asking women to write to the general authorities, the women who have positions on general boards of the church. So, there is a little dark humour in me, for I am sure that in the past, someone would have corrected me if I had called these women general authorities. My best guess is that someone would have told me, only men can be general authorities. But I give the writer of the essay a salute for acknowledging that these women are general, rather than local authorities.
But will the stamps we put on the letters to them be worth the postage. The past has shown us that these issues are not taken to the women for discussion (I am not footnoting a blog post, but in this respect see what Cheiko had to say on this point. In her case, the decision was made before they even came to the women.) So if we can rely on past experience, we are going to be wasting our money, writing to female general authorities.
I am at an intellectual impasse.
If we write letters to the general authorities, those letters are sent back to us, asking us to go to our local authorities. I tried this with the Joseph L. Bishop fiasco, and have talked to my home teacher and bishop, but didn't get a visit with my stake president, whom I cc-ed, but from whom I didn't get a written response.
There could not be two more genuine, kind and thoughtful men than these my bishop and my home teacher, but what I couldn't get across in my letter to them is that I need something to be done, either at the general authority level, or at middle management level about the care of the woman that J.L. Bishop raped. There just is no getting at that specific point. What do I want? I want the church to settle with her and let her begin to heal. I want something specific to happen. She has a suit against them. Just settle with her. I don't want assurances that "things" are going to change. Just do what is right by her.
So what does this have to do with the nursing mothers being denied temple recommends? Well, I think maybe the post by Sam Young where he tells people to get in touch with an apostle? That might work.
If people ask their bishop to ask their stake president, to ask their area leader, to ask their seventy, to ask to speak to an apostle? That seems to be the only way to speak to the general authorities on any issue.
To be clear, now. What is it that I want?
I want a place on the pews for all of us and that includes nursing mothers.
How to get that? Turmoil on social media? I don't want to believe that is the only solution. Any of you have any ideas you want to share?
ArtaI saw the Exponent Essay is asking women to write to the general authorities, the women who have positions on general boards of the church. So, there is a little dark humour in me, for I am sure that in the past, someone would have corrected me if I had called these women general authorities. My best guess is that someone would have told me, only men can be general authorities. But I give the writer of the essay a salute for acknowledging that these women are general, rather than local authorities.
But will the stamps we put on the letters to them be worth the postage. The past has shown us that these issues are not taken to the women for discussion (I am not footnoting a blog post, but in this respect see what Cheiko had to say on this point. In her case, the decision was made before they even came to the women.) So if we can rely on past experience, we are going to be wasting our money, writing to female general authorities.
I am at an intellectual impasse.
If we write letters to the general authorities, those letters are sent back to us, asking us to go to our local authorities. I tried this with the Joseph L. Bishop fiasco, and have talked to my home teacher and bishop, but didn't get a visit with my stake president, whom I cc-ed, but from whom I didn't get a written response.
There could not be two more genuine, kind and thoughtful men than these my bishop and my home teacher, but what I couldn't get across in my letter to them is that I need something to be done, either at the general authority level, or at middle management level about the care of the woman that J.L. Bishop raped. There just is no getting at that specific point. What do I want? I want the church to settle with her and let her begin to heal. I want something specific to happen. She has a suit against them. Just settle with her. I don't want assurances that "things" are going to change. Just do what is right by her.
So what does this have to do with the nursing mothers being denied temple recommends? Well, I think maybe the post by Sam Young where he tells people to get in touch with an apostle? That might work.
If people ask their bishop to ask their stake president, to ask their area leader, to ask their seventy, to ask to speak to an apostle? That seems to be the only way to speak to the general authorities on any issue.
To be clear, now. What is it that I want?
I want a place on the pews for all of us and that includes nursing mothers.
How to get that? Turmoil on social media? I don't want to believe that is the only solution. Any of you have any ideas you want to share?
---
July 25, 2018
And here is an addendum to the post above
Addendum:
I'm glad you posted your thoughts on this. It made me grateful for how normal it was to see aunts nursing babies at the Lake when I was growing up. And talking about it. And joking about which breast had white vs. chocolate milk in it. I remember being really offended when i was nursing Xavier at the house of the parents of a friend and the dad put a dishcloth over my boob and baby and told me that his wife always covered up and that the babies prefer the privacy?????
ReplyDeleteWhat a painful story, Mary. Thank you for sharing it. ♡
DeleteThere was another post that followed this one, an addendum that is fun to read. Hope you didn't miss it:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.the-exponent.com/addendum-7-24-18-stake-president-denies-temple-recommend-to-nursing-mother/comment-page-1/#comment-1566652