With Mother's Day approaching, our focus will turn to all the good our mother's do in our lives, which is a wonderful thing. But it makes us realize even more one thing we often fail to talk about in our culture.
I think people are surprised when they hear I work full time and Ben stays home with our daughter (and soon to be son). Ben is a hard working, multitasking, full-time student who choose to finish his degree online when our first child was born to be home with her and have the freedom of more time together as a family. Though I know he is anxious for the day that those roles are reversed, it won't be quite yet, and he embraces and loves how things are now, too.
I think it’s awesome in our culture there is so much, and well deserving, praise for motherhood and absolutely everything that comes with it for the rest of their lives. But I’m bummed when I think of the just as deserving, if not more deserving in some cases, role of fatherhood who don’t get any or enough credit.
And to do so, hopefully, like Elder Christofferson says, “To praise and encourage fatherhood and fathers is not to shame or discount anyone.”
As I’m in the home stretch of this pregnancy with only several weeks left, it has become harder to be comfortable and sleep through the night. Today actually, I’ve been awake since 4 am because of it—laying in bed hoping I’d fall back asleep before my alarm goes off to get ready for work, but don’t. So here I am at work, feeling like actual living-dead, with bags under eyes that are hitting my chin, mascara on from yesterday, about to head into another meeting. And I can’t help but think of how awesome Ben is and always has been.
The world downplays the importance of a father's place in the family, but we understand that it is a sacred, eternal calling full of joy and satisfaction. In The Righteous Role of a Father, gospel scholar and bestselling author David J. Ridges presents uplifting words to fathers, drawing from the family proclamation, reminding them of the importance of their role in mortality and through the eternities.
