A couple weeks ago, four out of five of us slept through our alarms. I rushed into Stuart’s room to see how he wanted to proceed. Because Stuart gets super anxious when our routine is disrupted or altered, I was going to let him dictate how much hurrying he wanted to do. He woke up, saw what time it was, and said, “Whoa, I guess I’m just gonna be late today.” I said fine and closed his door, quietly happy that he seems to be relaxing a bit
Two seconds later, he was a blur of motion, running around like a wild thing, rushing to get ready. I went back into the hallway and asked him what was up. He shouted, “It’s Friday! I have Safety Patrol! I can’t be late!”
We kicked it into high gear. I made his lunch (which he usually takes care of himself) and some quick toast to eat on the way. He threw on his Safety Patrol belt. We jumped in the car. He arrived by 7:31. All was right with his world.
After dropping him off, I hung back to watch him for a few minutes and to snap these pictures. I thought about Safety Patrol and what it means to Stuart, to the school as a whole, and to me as his parent.
At Stuart’s school, Safety Patrol is a privilege that only 5th graders get. You have to have good behavior leading up to 5th grade to get to be on Safety Patrol. You have to sign a contract. You have to commit to upholding your responsibilities. You have to go to a training before school starts to learn what your responsibilities are. I don’t know what the PE coach (who’s in charge of Safety Patrol) tells the kids, but it must be something special because Safety Patrol is serious business for these kids.
So what do the kids on Safety Patrol do? They help with morning drop-off-raising and lowering the flags so that kids can cross the street safely. They stand at the door and greet students, which is Stuart’s favorite part. He says he likes to smile at everyone and tell them things like, “Welcome to Raguet!” and “We’re glad you’re here today!” and “I hope you have a good day today!” They also help get all the kids to the right places at dismissal time.
When Marin was in 5th grade, it was her responsibility to get the pre-K bus-riders out to their bus. She loved that job. She really got to know those little kids and love them. She learned their names and held their hands on the way out to their bus. Now, in 8th grade, when she looks back on her elementary school years, that’s one of the things she remembers most fondly-her responsibility, as part of Safety Patrol, to shepherd her pre-K kids out to their bus.
Safety Patrol makes my kids feel like they are important members of the school community. They have official tasks for which they are responsible. They are part of the public face of the school. They help set the tone for the school day. They belong. They matter. The school needs them.
If you know anything about me, you know where this is going . . .
When I contrast my kids’ experiences with Safety Patrol with my kids’ experiences at church, I alternate between shaking my head and shaking my fist.
Stuart’s only 10, but he knows how it works. He’s being prepped for when he turns 12 and is officially ordained with the priesthood in our church. He knows what that means. He’s been seeing it ever since he could remember. He’s been watching the deacons who show up the Sunday closest to their 12th birthdays with a new white shirt and a new tie-maybe even a blazer or a suit coat. They’re ready to officially participate in our church services. They (sometimes) look like they’re standing a little taller-especially those first few Sundays before the newness wears off. Their hair looks like it was combed and gelled or licked into place where maybe it hadn’t been before. He’s been watching them pass the sacrament-holding the trays and waiting for everyone in the congregation to partake. It’s a sacred duty with great significance. He has seen the entire congregation raise our right hands to sustain each boy as he gets ordained to the priesthood; he’s seen that public affirmation from his fellow congregants that means: “We support you.”
He’s seen the 14 year old boys prepare the sacrament-an official duty that is also critical to our weekly church services. We take the sacrament every Sunday. We need those boys to fulfill their duties. He has watched the 16 year old boys bless the sacrament. He hears them say the sacrament prayers-out loud-in behalf of the whole congregation. He hears them have to repeat the prayer if they miss a word. The wording is important. It matters, to all of us. We need these boys so that we can renew our baptismal covenants to follow our Savior, Jesus Christ. We can’t get by without them.
While Stuart has watched and learned what his sacred duties will be, upon turning 12, his two older sisters have also watched and learned, from their seats on the pews. Inactive. Passive. Silent. Not agents or actors in their own spiritual lives.
There is no official duty for them. No milestones, no public or official participation in sacred ordinances. No opportunity for them to see the congregation sustain them as officiants in our worship services. No audible participation in sacred rituals. No official responsibilities for which the congregation relies upon them. Nothing that the congregation can’t do without them.
Imagine what would happen if my kids’ school were to set up a program like Safety Patrol and announce that all the boys would get to participate; the girls would not, because they will be mothers some day. Some parents would be outraged. Some (like me) would be incredulous. Some, I imagine, might be baffled by the explanation that boys would get to be on Safety Patrol and the girls-in the distant future-would be mothers.
Yet my fellow Mormon congregants accept this explanation-priesthood equals motherhood (a complete non sequitur)-as just the-way-it-is. Worse, they accept it as the-way-God-wants-it-to-be-until-He-changes-his-mind, at which point we’ll change it. Until then, we trudge forward.
The gender inequality in the church is one of those things that used to seem okay to me. I’m a patriarchy-breather just like the rest of you, after all. I used to not notice it. It used to seem “natural” for men at church to have all these official responsibilities and duties. As a teenage girl, it seemed “right” for my male peers to be bestowed with opportunities to officiate in sacred church rituals and ordinances while I watched, silent and still, from the pew. Even sadder, and baffling to me now, I believed that’s the way God wanted it to be.
But no more.
That morning, while I watched Stuart and his male and female peers raise and lower their flags and welcome kids to the school as part of Safety Patrol-and I reflected on how important his Safety Patrol responsibilities are to him-I was deeply grateful for his school leaders and for our more enlightened society that now recognizes that boys and girls, men and women, all need opportunities like these to help us grow and to help us feel like we belong in groups, organizations, and institutions that are important to us.
I’m running out of space in my brain and room in my heart for my church, which doesn’t yet recognize this fundamental (and obvious) truth. I’m mourning what we could be but choose not to.
Heather, thanks for this great analogy and expressing the flaw in the current system so well. Perhaps the mission age change for girls is a step in this direction. It feels like teeny tiny baby steps to those of us who live in the real world and have jobs and communities in which women are treated equally and have been for the most part our whole lives. Even the other run-of-the-mill patriarchy-breathers would quickly adapt if a change to equal participation was made.
I suppose as with so many changes, we’re not the ones who need the baby steps. If we have to do things to accommodate our leaders’ fear that change will be throwing out the baby with the bathwater, we will probably continue to lose independent women and educated men as well as non-traditional families.
Very clearly stated. I too can no longer abide the inequality of opportunity, honor, prestige, responsibility, and acknowledgement. Thanks for writing it.
Really fine, Heather. I mourn with you. We have all breathed so much patriarchy that it has affected our brains. Thanks for refusing to be silent.
I’m with you on this. Great post.
In the 1950s, when I was in 6th grade, safety patrol was a boys-only honor/responsibility!
In a 2010 history of the women’s movement, ‘When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present,’ by Gail Collins:
“We were considered really radical in Dubuque,’ said Ruth Cotter Scharnau, describing her group’s fight to open up elementary school patrols to girls. ‘The principal of one school said it was ‘too cold’ outside and that girls had other jobs: ‘They wipe the tables after lunch and take care of the kindergartener children once in a while.”
While the boys went out for safety patrol, I helped my 6th grade teacher prepare bulletin boards, wipe the black board, etc.
Really love this one too, Heather. Funny coincidence. My 5th grade daughter is on the honor patrol and boy does she take her job seriously. But she relayed a conversation to me this week that I need to follow up on. She said the PE teacher made her co-captain and would have made her captain, except well the captain is usually a boy. I’m trying not to overreact in case she misunderstood something, but I am seething.
I wish the Church ordained to the priesthood just like Jesus did.
And that would be not at all.
Let me try that again…
I wish the Church would Ordain Women to the priesthood just like Jesus did.
And that would be not at all.
I wish the Church would Ordain white men to the priesthood just like Jesus did.
And that would be not at all.
I wish the Church would Ordain 12 year old boys to the priesthood just like Jesus did.
And that would be not at all.
… need I go on? Because I totally could.
I wish this would change, too. I actually think there is space for it as well–not necessarily in ordaining women, but in looking back at our history. During the 19th century, church leaders wrestled with how to fill the ranks and responsibilies of the Aaronic Priesthood, because many of the (adult) men who had it weren’t fulfilling their responsibilities. Eventually they decided to start calling young men and systematizing the conferral of Aaronic priesthood. There was some initial disagreement on whether young men should be passing and preparing the sacrament, but BY’s argument was that “passing the sacrament was not administering it.” (See , page 110) I want the church to go back to those arguments so we can get Young Women involved in passing and preparing the sacrament at least. On a similar note, I hope we can figure out a way to revisit our history on women’s blessings as well. I want that practice restored too.
Ugh. Sorry about my crappy HTML.
Heather, I only have one thing to say. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. You’re apostate and Satan has his grasp on your heart. Don’t come back to LDS church. You’re not welcome.
TNT, you need to get a grip on your hatred. That will not get you into Mormon heaven. Women deserve equality…..some poor woman had to change your diapers, wipe your nose, and love you. I believe she deserved more than that.
Any woman who doesn’t respect Priesthood and “can’t stay silent”, “had enough of this”, “can’t take the ‘inequality'”…LEAVE!!! Don’t come back to church. You’re cancerous to our church, you are on the errand of Satan. Satan wants to split apart the church. You’re attacking the church from the inside, please leave. You’re not welcome.
I’m assuming the TNT is as aspiring satirist desiring to make an impression with absurdity?
“I’m running out of space in my brain and room in my heart for my church.”
Thank you for this. It’s what I’ve been feeling for so long, but didn’t really have good words to express. This is why I had to take a self-care break from going to church, and why the thought of going back brings back feelings of hurt and anxiety.
“You’re not welcome.”
-TNT
“He inviteth all to come unto Him.”
-Jesus
Maybe Mr. TNT doesn’t understand what “all” means?
Everyone, please ignore TNT. I know this troubled gentleman in real life. I’m married to him, for crying out loud! He’s got this fetish for wearing women’s underwear whenever he passes the Sacrament, and the Bishop called him out on it last week. He’s upset because church leadership won’t “respect my wardrobe choices”, and when this happens, he just lashes out for no reason. I hope everyone here will pray for him and have pity on a deeply troubled priesthood holder.
Thanks, TNT’s wife. God bless you in your trials, both of you.
Heather, thank you for sharing this. The church will be much better off once women are able to contribute to church ordinances and leadership. President Hinkley once said that women were not agitating for the priesthood… Well they are now!
Thank you Heather. You articulated beautifully many of the things that I have been thinking for a very long time. This is one area that needs to be changed. Keep up the writing Heather. I look forward to reading more of your insight.
When I was young, in the 1960s, only boys were on safety patrol. Also there were no sports teams for girls in my high school except gymnastics and volleyball. We were required to wear dresses to school, and couldn’t wear pants, even on the coldest days, unless we wore a dress over them. When asked why I was told that the shape of little girls’ bottoms under their pants might be too distracting for the boys. We were still of the age when boys and girls think each other have cooties, but that’s what we were told. Thank goodness all these things have been changed in the time since then. I can’t wait for the church to see the light and change their regressive policies as well.
The men running the church are my parents’ age. They grew up in a different time and see the world completely differently than most people alive today. I’m afraid we will have to wait until these guys die off before we can see real positive change in these issues. I sure hope not.
I take a lot of hope from the 1978 priesthood revelation but I’m not sure I should. In 1978 the worldwide church was in real trouble from not having enough priesthood holders available to run the local wards and branches in many parts of the world. There was a definite problem that the church leadership could not ignore. I’m not sure they’ve seen any such problem about women’s responsibilities in the church yet. Gosh, I hope I’m not right about that. If the church suffers brain-drain of all the most talented and dynamic women, how will we recover from that in another generation? Will those women come back and bring their daughters with them, after another 10 or 20 or 30 years when the church finally comes into the present day? By then the society at large will be another 30 years ahead of us. Can we ever make that up? I’m very worried.
Sending MANY BLESSINGS and HUGS to you Heather. You are a shining light to those of us who have deep concerns about the church. Stay strong dear sister.
Heather, ignore TNTs bigoted responses. With a name like TNT he may just EXPLODE. I hope the door doesn;t hit him on the way out. HAHA!
I am of the generation in which girls were not allowed to be on Safety Patrol. It was actually my first feminist wake up call, I think. No, actually, my first feminist wake up call was when I was about five or six and I played “pass the sacrament” at home and my grandmother informed me that only boys could do that.
I’m glad there are people stronger than I who can stay and fight, and lend an eloquent voice to those who feel too alone to speak up. Thanks for all you do.
Also, Mrs. TnT pretty much won the internet for the day.
Great post, Heather. You’re doing a good thing here. I’m optimistic one day your efforts will be more appreciated by the general membership of the Church. I just wish that day were sooner rather than later. There’s no doubt the Church is an evolving one but tough to recognize just how slow the process is. Keep fighting the good fight. Change will happen one conversation at a time. In the meantime, I hope people won’t resent the idea that in an institution run by human beings (and that President Uchtdorf admitted isn’t perfect because of that very fact) that we can be better than we currently are to include women more equally.
Great post Heather! I only have one daughter raised LDS, my other daughter “got it” as soon as she hit Beehives and left. Her questions were not welcomed in YW’s about “why” and “that doesn’t seem fair”. The answers she got from her leaders were not satisfactory to her independent mind. My whole family has since left, for many many reasons, the treatment of women being one of them. You nailed this analogy! Thanks for being able to be a voice for so many! Sorry about Mr TNT. In the words of my 18 yr. old daughter, “haters gonna hate”. It stings, but let it go, just let it go, there’s always going to be angry folks out there, just have to follow your path regardless…..
I wish I could say TNT is unrealistic. Unfortunately this kind of hateful thinking is common enough in the church that quite a lot of people leave because there doesn’t in fact seem to be any room for them. I think the larger problem than people like TNT is the fact that these attitudes are better tolerated than the ideas of nonconformists like the author of this post. In many ways there won’t be room for diverse thought in Mormonism unless members make it clear to hardline conservatives that their hateful attitudes aren’t welcome.
As for me, I don’t know anything about Satan, but I’m happy to whisper that it’s much nicer outside the church where these sorts of problems grow ever rarer.
Heather, I think you’re spot on. I too appreciate your consistent logical posts that both inform and clarify issues that many of us struggle with. Keep up the good work.
And, TNT. Trolling Nearsighted, and Trivial?
I don’t think Safety Patrol exists where I live, but I do expect that the Church will stand out to my kids as the only place where gender dictates what they can do. That is not going to be easy on any of us. But I’m sticking it out with you, Heather.
P.S., that’s a cute kid you’ve got there!
Can people be equal and perform different rolls? I think so. The priesthood in the church and motherhood are different but equal roles. 1st Corinthians 12 speaks of a body that is composed of different parts.
Men and Women also have been given different gifts. God has designed us to perform different roles. Although each can do the other roles God has given men special gifts to they may hold the priesthood and be the provider and women are to be the nurturer and mother. Each supports the other. What women does not “Ahhh” when they see a cute baby? They can give care that men cannot.
In answer to this question: “What woman does not “Ahhh” when they see a cute baby?”
Me! I never do that.
“They can give care that men cannot.” What care, (besides breastmilk) is this, exactly?
Heather, Perhaps some in your church feel like you are not well behaved. I might agree but, in the words of one wiser than I, “Well behaved women seldom make history!”
Misbehave! Blaze a trail! Speak out! MAKE HISTORY! Even if your daughters don’t see the benefits of your work, perhaps your granddaughters will!
Either way, know that this non-Mormon male friend supports you and is cheering you on! I’ve got your back in whatever way a non-Mormom male friend can have it!
Oh my word, please tell me that TNT is being humorous. If not, TNT, did you not listen to recent conference talks by Elder Uchtdorf (inviting all to come and/or return to us) or Elder Holland, etc.?
It reminds me of another talk given by Elder Uchtdorf. Where man and Satan want to tell people that they are “nothing,” the Lord always remember the worth of a soul (see https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/you-matter-to-him?lang=eng). Wouldn’t be we wise to do the same??
I don’t recall the Savior EVER telling anyone to leave the gospel, or to depart from their brothers and sisters. In fact, quite the opposite. He (and our Heavenly Father and Mother) always invite us to “come home.” How anyone could say different is beyond my comprehension.
May we, with all of our diversity and differences, remember that we are all brothers and sisters, and may we extend the hands of fellowship, love, and brotherhood/sisterhood, so no one ever feels unwelcome, unloved, judged, or marginalized. May we remember the perfect example of our brother, Jesus Christ, who never forgets our individual worth, because, as Elder Uchtdorf stated, “You matter to Him.”
Heather, Why don’t you do what the Unitarians do, hold a “Coming of Age” ceremony for each of your children to honor their transition to adulthood? Why wait for a priesthood that doesn’t give you the authority to recognize each of your children? Take the authority and do it!
Just as a little aside note, the people who enjoy cute little babies the most, IME are kids between age 9 and 12, with boys outweighing girls IME.