Guest Post: Some Reflections on Mother’s Day in the LDS Church
by Carol Brown
In a church that idolizes the heteronormative family, the annual Sunday Mother’s Day can be a fraught Sabbath worship service for many. A majority of LDS members are single, and some married women long to have children but cannot. Others have challenging relationships with mothers, and some feel bereft at the radio silence of the LDS church regarding Heavenly Mother. Yet, every year the LDS Church holds a Sabbath service that venerates mothers, leaving some women feeling marginalized and others feeling like they are never enough.
While some Christian congregations will focus on Jesus on Mother’s Day, LDS ones will revere mothers and pass out flowers or candies to them after the service. Primary children will sing about the exalted role of mothers while parents beam and childless couples cringe. A speaker or two will talk about motherhood, while some single women wonder if they will need to be eternal polygamists to fulfill that role in the afterlife. Those grieving the loss of their mothers may wish that the service focused more on Jesus and less on mothers. LGBTQ members will feel an increased exclusion from a church that only values heterosexual families. Some infertile women will leave the service, vowing to forego future Mother’s Day meetings. A few mothers will leave the Church service in tears.
If the Church valued love and kindness as much as the temple and obedience, it would be a safer space for all to attend, including on Mother’s Day. More would feel welcome if the Church focused on Jesus’ compassion, inclusivity, and mercy instead of emphasizing God’s wrath and judgment. Women would feel worthy just because they exist, and fewer would feel they are never doing enough to be of value to the church or themselves. There would be less depression among LDS women and more unity in the church.
Because of the complex emotions connected with LDS Mother’s Day, some women do not attend church on that day. Some brave women speak up for equity, hoping the Church will value women as Jesus did. Many long for the day when the LDS Church will allow all members a seat at the table, which is now reserved for married heterosexual men.
The church should remember that a single childless woman was the first person to see Jesus after his resurrection. Some honor Mary Magdalene as an “apostle to the apostles” for she was the first person to proclaim that Jesus had risen. Mary Magdalene, Mary, Jesus’ mother, and Salome stood at the cross when Jesus was crucified. In the early days of the church, Phoebe led the Cenchrean congregation that met in her home. The church could celebrate all women who carry so much of the burden of church service. Or, better yet, the Church could include women as Jesus did, giving each a seat at the table.
On Mother’s Day and every day, let us honor all who respect, value, and include marginalized people, especially those whom religions exclude, shun, and devalue. Jesus invited all to sit at his table, including women, the poor, the bad and the good. Jesus’ first convert was a woman. His first miracle was given to honor a woman. The first person to proclaim Jesus’ resurrection was a woman.
May the Church inspire us to love others—and ourselves—and include and value all as Jesus did.
Carol loves to serve and learn from those whom the LDS Church has chosen to marginalize.
