I have to say, I watched the first session, then the LDS World Report, then the Eyring- Cook Press Conference, then the first hour of session 2, and was pretty burnt out and haven’t watched any since.

But I heard bad things from 3 different totally separate sources about Julie Beck’s Sunday afternoon talk. So I went and listened to it, and here are my thoughts.

Initially, what is this “Prophets we have sustained at this General Conference have said” trendy little quasi-scriptural thing that everyone is using? Ever more emphasis on ‘it doesn’t matter if it is stupid and wrong, it matters who said it.’? I know plenty- especially those who sleep through it and say yes to everything without turning their brains on- will say it is heretical to ever question or disagree with anythign that comes out in Conference- but sound waves that come from behind a pulpit are not guaranteed. Just as we always say "Truth from any source is brought in to the gospel", let me propose the Tim amendment "Nonsense from any source is thrown out."

First, she quoted Ezra Taft Benson saying that young couples should not postpone having children. Now, President Benson is an interesting guy, but just because he- Segregationist Party Strom Thurmond’s 1948 veep after all- says Martin Luther King is a Commie spy (as he did), I don’t have to buy it. What if the young couple don’t have health insurance? What if they are still students? Imagine that, a LDS man gets married, after his mission, and hasn’t finished school yet. There's probably 84,000 such young couples in Provo and Rexburg. Should they get on Medicaid then? Or, like my sister did, what if they are trying to pay off a car loan and resign from their job, and wait for their husband to get a good enough job, first?

Second, “Mothers whose daughters' hair is brushed and sons have white shirts on have power.” Uhhhh, yeah. OK. Who knew it was so simple?

Third, “all the education that women obtain will avail them nothing if they don’t have the skills to make a home.” I suppose in some regard, ok. But I hate any sentence that starts “All the education women obtain will avail them nothing…” Horrible phrasing. Let me tell you why.

The BYU Psych Department collected a bunch of hugely biased studies of their own and published it as ‘Mental Health and the Latter-day Saint People.’ The purpose was to refute the popularly held understanding that women in Utah are the biggest antidepressant consumers in the world. Even with numerous flaws and biases, they still reached the result that 24% of LDS women are depressed, vs. 22% of non-LDS women. But even more interesting (and probably more reliable since it was ‘by the way’ data and not the main result they were setting out to find) was the following:

LDS women with a 4 year degree or more who take antidepressants: 4%
LDS women w/o a 4 year degree or more who take antidepressants: 28%

LDS women who say “My husband helps around the house” who take antidepressants: 21%
LDS women who say “My husband does not help around the house” who take antidepressants: 67%

So, it is sensible to say that LDS young women should be encouraged to pursue education, as Pres. Hinckley does. They are 7 times less likely to face severe depression if they finish college than if they don’t!
Further, LDS men, and not women, stand in need of being encouraged (or rather ‘Guilt-tripped’ to be fair about it) in Conference to “homemake”.

Obviously, it isn't simply a dichotomy of education or nothing. And obviously 'being educated' is not a state necessarily reached by having a 4 year degree and necessarily missed by not having one- although it doesn't hurt. But the point is whether someone is having their talents and abilities put to use or ignored, whether they have a voice in their life, relationships, homes, etc., whether they have balance in their existence, etc. No one, whatever gender, is immune from the responsibilities and blessings of being a parent and making a home. Plenty of men, however, feel completelty immune from any housework ever at all. The entire city of Blackfoot, Idaho, apparently feels it scandalous for a wife and mother in her Thirties to want to go back to school 1-2 nights a week to finish her degree. Sister Beck here would agree, saying it is just a distraction from making her home a pre-MTC and getting her boys on missions.

No one can be in any way anything other than nuts if for 3 or 4 decades they are home, alone, with children, while their husband is gone 70-80 hours a week- they don't do school, they don't do any part-time work even, they don't have much social life. I've seen many such situations. It isn't really good for children either, kids from those situations are always unbearable spoiled brats.

In real life, the happy, influential, powerful women are not living their life with the singular and exclusive goal of sending their boys on missions. Let's not make a false god out of sending a kid on a mission, for crying out loud. My experience doesn’t begin in any way to reflect that women are happy that way, not does the cold hard data. And education does avail them much.