Hi, I’m Theresa. I am a wife and mother of 8 amazing children ages 6-30. I have 5 sons and 3 daughters. I have been LDS my entire life. I have had times where I have looked at other faiths, but none have ever given me the sense of family and community that the LDS Church has.
Over the last few years, however, as my daughters are growing up I have been looking at Church doctrine with new eyes. I take issue with the way they make women who make other choices feel. When I have worked outside the home I have felt unworthy. I see young women pressured to be married and stay home, and not encouraged to fulfill other dreams. We teach our young men to be successful, we teach our young women to be dependent. The saddest part is that I see Mormon families using the welfare system so that the wife can stay home even when they cannot support themselves on one income.
I want my daughters to always know they are man’s equal in the eyes of God. I want my 23 year old to feel she can be a great Mormon without being a wife or mother if that is her path. I want my sons to know that their wives and sisters are just as capable of teaching and blessing others, and that God does not give one gender power over another from birth.
Watching what is happening to Ordain Women has made up my mind for me that I need to search my heart and decide if I can stay in a faith that teaches that I am a lesser disciple of God than my husband or my sons, who would not even be on this earth if I had not given them life and raised them in this faith. I do not think I can.
I applaud you for voicing what many of us are feeling but haven’t expressed. I will wait to see what happens and I hope the church has a moment of clarity and decides to listen to those of us who will give birth to the next generation of LDS members, because if they excommunicate you, they will lose all future generations of mine. I believe that women should be ordained.