I have watched, frustrated, as my three boys have been involved in Church activities that include a strong emphasis on physical fitness, emergency preparedness and systematic recognition of progress while my daughter has been presented with activities that teach her how to iron, conduct music and create crafts. My daughter can outperform the vast majority of boys her age at feats of strength. She is better-suited than any of my sons to participate in the activities that they enjoy. Why, then, is she exposed to so many activities that de-emphasize her individual strengths and ask her to fill a very specific role?

I want my daughter to grow-up in a Church that values her more than it values a role for her as mother and a nurturer. I want her to grow up in a Church that teaches her what my wife and I do–that she can be anything she sets her mind to. I want her to have opportunities to make decisions at Church and to use all of her gifts to grow and serve in the Church in the way that she believes is best and most authentic for her. I want her to participate in a Church that spends as much of its budget on her activities and development as it does on my sons.

I want her to have the opportunity to hold the priesthood. It fills my heart with joy when I think of my daughter placing her hands on my head to give me a blessing.  I’m not sure that she would choose to be ordained, even if that were an option, but I want that to be a choice that she makes. That choice will not be presented if we do not faithfully ask the Brethren to take this matter to God and inquire on our behalf if the time is again right, like it was in Biblical times, to have prophetesses and priestesses actively doing His work on the earth. I believe the Savior’s words when He said, “…knock, and it shall be opened unto you…” I am knocking now on my daughter’s behalf because I believe women should be ordained.