Long pants, long pants!: Or, Why I'm not wearing pants to church on Dec. 16th

To clarify, I will be wearing something. Just not necessarily pants.

Not sure how many of you have come across this little story. For those who don't want to read the article, here's the first sentence that sums up the story: "A group of Mormon feminists has declared Sunday, Dec. 16, as 'Wear Pants to Church Day' and is calling on sister Saints across the globe to join the effort."

Reading about this "event" and the several comments I've seen scattered across Facebook has left me with mixed feelings and I can't stop thinking about it. As I don't want to get tangled in the back-and-forth of commenting on Facebook, and I feel like I have more to express about it than will fit there, I finally decided to just write about it here.

First of all, I actually do consider myself a feminist in many respects. In some circles of the Church, "feminist" is practically a swear word. But really most people I know are feminists--they just don't realize it. They agree that women should have rights to vote or hold office, have equal access to education, be paid equally for jobs they are qualified for and perform well, should not be considered or treated as property, should not be subject to abuse, and so on. But "feminism" has taken on some angry, negative connotations and has been taken to some extremes that I don't always want to follow it to.

So this group, All Enlisted, has called on Mormon women all over the world to wear pants to church this Sunday. Now, I don't exactly see this as quite the extremity of feminism that so many people fear. I don't even think it will be that big of a deal in the end. Not exactly the "historic" event they are hoping for. Women wearing dresses to church is a cultural phenomenon, not a doctrinal one. In 1971 the First Presidency stated that, "The Church has not attempted to indicate just how long women’s or girls’ dresses should be nor whether they should wear pant suits or other types of clothing. We have always counseled our members to be modest in their dress, [. . .] We have advised our people that when going to the temple they should not wear slacks or miniskirts, or otherwise dress immodestly. We have not, however, felt it wise or necessary to give instructions on this subject relative to attendance at our Church meetings, although we do feel that on such occasions they should have in mind that they are in the house of the Lord and should conduct themselves accordingly." (Priesthood Bulletin,June 1971.)

I think what they are hoping will be a big statement will be met with more shrugs than gasps. We're not talking about Susan B. Anthony walking into a voting booth. People have seen pants before, and in a church building. There are already places where women wear pants to church. I've been in wards in the U.S. where there were some members--men and women--who came to church in their blue jeans and no one batted an eye. The reason no one cared was that everyone knew that for these new members, that was really the best they had, and we were just glad to have them there with us. In many ways, this is kind of a non-issue that these women are turning into an issue.

So my reason for declining to "attend" the "event" has less to do with its extremity and more to do with my personal worship.

A few issues arise here. A while back I read an article (don't have the link, sorry) about teaching modesty. It had some interesting points about talking about this with children, Young Women, etc. It had a lot of points I liked. One area I didn't fully agree with, though, was it's discussion about how we shouldn't be dressing for others, just dressing for ourselves. I see what they were getting at, but I don't think they were entirely right. We often dress for others, and need to. Policemen aren't wearing those uniforms just for kicks. It's for our benefit, so we know who they are. Part of why we dress the way we do is to identify who we are. When I taught, I usually didn't wear a t-shirt and jeans because I would look too much like I was just one of the students. I dressed up a bit to set myself apart, give myself a little authority with them. Soldiers in uniform have distinct markings to indicate their ranks to one another. Teenagers have all kinds of ways of doing this in high school. Gangs do this. Everyone does this. We dress for other people.

So, my question is, when we go to church, who are we dressing for? At different times in my life I probably would have answered this in different ways. Hopefully I'm to the point that I can honestly answer that I am dressing for God. That my purpose for church attendance is worship, and so I want to dress in my "Sunday best" out of respect and worship for my Father in Heaven. It's why I don't wear the same shoes to the temple that I wear to do yard work. Respect and worship. For me, Sunday best is a dress or skirt and nice blouse or sweater. I don't think I have any pants that would be as nice as any dresses I own, so it would not be respectful for me to wear them. They might be fine to wear standing up in front of an English 293 class at BYU,  but I wouldn't feel worshipful in them. The same goes for some skirts I own, which I have determined are a bit too casual for church. Maybe someone else has a killer pantsuit that is nicer than any dress they own and wants to wear that. More power to them. If that is really why these women are wearing pants to church, if that is Who they are dressing for, then who am I to judge?

Some of you might think this is all just steeped in tradition for me, and if I just broke out of the tradition I'd be fine wearing pants. Perhaps it is just tradition for me. If we uphold traditions without meaning, we become Pharisees, worshiping the tradition above the Lord. But I think I've explained pretty thoroughly that this tradition does still hold meaning for me. It's a tradition that points me toward worshiping, not toward itself. Clearly, this tradition has lost meaning for some women and they want to reevaluate.

Many might respond and say this movement is about more than just pants. I get that. I get that a lot of women really are struggling to find their place in the Church; they legitimately do feel pain and are feeling displaced, and I don't in any way mean to minimize that. I haven't had these struggles with finding my place in the Church. I haven't felt repressed or lesser in my position in the Church. And I haven't felt the need to make Sacrament meeting my place of protest. Again, I don't reject the idea that some women genuinely struggle with issues of equality and want to feel more at home in the Church and are not just trying to be troublemakers (some might just trying to be troublemakers, but not all). And I don't deny that women's voices need to be heard in the Church. I hope we can find this space and listen to each other in a productive dialogue, rather than divisive stances of "us" vs. "them." As long as we see each other as "those guys" who just don't "get it," I don't think we'll have an easy time being united in one heart or one mind and just keep having contentious comments circulating on Facebook.

On a lighter note, this whole situation totally reminds me of a great joke:

Knock-knock:
Who's there?
Panther.
Panther, who?
Panther on panth, I'm going thwiming!

So Glad When Daddy Comes Home

I had a conversation a while back with my mom how that Primary song about being so glad that Daddy is home is really for moms. On Father's Day they really ought to get a bunch of sleep-deprived moms get up at church and sing, "I'm so glad when Daddy comes home, glad as I can be . . ." although it is cuter having the little kids sing it and blow a kiss to their dads at the end. Not that we don't have a good time around here during the day, but seriously, when five o'clock rolls around, everyone is pretty excited around here.

Brady usually rides his bike the mile or so to work, although recently it's been pretty cold and dark on both ends of the commute, so we are rethinking this plan. He usually calls just before he leaves his office and I tell the kids he's on his way. This is how they spend the few minutes it takes him to get home (these pictures are a couple months old, before our freezing weather set in and our old laptop died):

It lasts until either Charlie starts pulling Ellie's hair or Brady pulls up on his bike and the kids race to the garage to greet him (read: attach themselves to him and not let him put anything down or take off his coat before he swings them each and gives them kisses). Then he has two extra shadows for the next couple of hours until we start winding the kids down for bed. I'm sure Daddy is so glad to come home too.

Baby in Red

This time of year I always like to get Ellie all dressed up in a fun Christmas dress for church. I'm pretty frugal when it comes to clothes for my kids and try not to go overboard, but I admit that I am kind of a sucker for all those pretty holiday dresses. I get how some people can go a little crazy, turning their baby girls into living dolls to dress up. So every year I find some kind of spectacular deal on one, and then Ellie wears it every Sunday from Thanksgiving to New Years.

This year she actually inherited her dress from her best friend Danni, who brought it over one Saturday evening in September before Ellie went to bed. The next day Ellie insisted on wearing the "Danni dress," (both to her and Danni's delight) and has already gotten quite a bit of mileage out of it.

When I snapped this picture of Ellie, I thought of her Christmas dresses over the last few years, all the red, and was reminded of a story my grandma told me a couple years ago.

Loyal readers will remember that Ellie is named after my grandmother, who goes by Betty, but Ellie calls her "Grandma Awesome" because that's how she said her last name when she was learning to talk (who's the favorite now?).

This is her. Not exactly sure what age she is here, but I like the picture. My grandmother, Betty, was named after her grandmother, who went by Lizzy.

This is Lizzy on her wedding day. Lizzy had a sister named Charlotte (Lottie). My childhood was filled with Lizzie and Lottie lore. They were like characters from a book, even raised by a wicked (well, mean) stepmother and stepsister. (Sidenote: Ellie was almost a "Lottie.")

Anyway, this particular story I had not heard until a couple years ago around the holidays. Apparently Lizzie (who was born sometime in second half of the 19th century--I know, I know, I should look up the dates for a better story; sorry, Mom) was also named for her grandmother, who I guess might have actually gone by Elizabeth. I don't know how far the name goes back, but someone ought to have used the whole thing. Apparently this Elizabeth wanted a granddaughter named for her. So when her daughter was pregnant, she told her and her husband that if they named the baby for her, she would make a new dress for the baby.

Well, the baby came and was a girl, so they named her Elizabeth. The proud papa was traveling and stopped in to visit his mother-in-law to give her to news. She knew he would be traveling back through in a matter of maybe a couple of days or so to get home (I don't know, hazy on the details here), so she would have to hurry and make a dress if she was to hold up her end of the deal. The only fabric she really had on hand was the red gingham curtains over the window. But a deal was a deal, so she made a new little dress out of it (and you thought Maria von Trapp was so original). The parents graciously accepted the gift and put their baby girl in the bright red dress. 

 Lizzie, however, was mortified at the details of this story. Remember, this was all happening back in the 1800s. People dressed babies in white. Period. "Imagine! Putting a baby in a red dress," she always scoffed when relating this story.

Yeah. Lousy parents. Sorry, Great-Great-Grandma Lizzie. I'm going to have to side with Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandma Elizabeth on this one. I quite like my baby in red.