Supportive Culture

Year two of graduate school- I brought our two kids to the city so we could see Dad on Halloween

This week we did mini case studies that dealt with choices of whether or not to spend time with family or focus on career and for whatever reason I wanted to get on a soapbox and share some amazing advice my grandmother gave me early in my marriage that has had a large influence on our family culture.  We had recently moved to Virginia but it felt more like I lived in Virginia with our firstborn and my husband lived in D.C. where he was working and going to school full-time.  He would leave every morning before we woke up and take the train to get to work and then he would get home after dark, exhausted and have to study.  Sunday was often the only day we spent together.  I complained to my Grandma about being a single mom and she in turn shared what she had just read about Brigham Young and mothers who came to him concerned that he was calling their husbands to go on missions and they wouldn’t know their children.  Brigham Young told the mothers to teach their children the gospel, about the priesthood and the great things their husbands were doing.  He then promised them that when the children were older they would work in the fields with their father and they would love him.  She basically told me to knock it off and see the bigger picture.  I had a lot of influence in our home and could either create a supportive culture or a negative culture.  One of the privileges of being a Latter-day saint is that we have the long view. We know that as a couple we are creating an eternal partnership.  We know what we are building both in our own life and in our family’s life.  We should support our spouses in our journeys to multiply our talents and develop ourselves.  In our short thirteen years together I have learned that we each have had to take a turn at needing to lean heavily on the other for support.  This is the purpose of family counsels.