A recent article in the Washington Post highlighted that despite pro-family rhetoric, many religions do not offer paid family leave to employees. Mormonism was highlighted as providing no paid family leave to either men or women [1], although they were consistent with a few other conservative religious groups. Given our focus on families, why doesn’t the church offer paid family leave?
E. Cook has spoken on this topic twice in General Conference, and he seems to be in favor of family-friendly policies. In 2011, he said:
We should all be careful not to be judgmental or assume that sisters are less valiant if the decision is made to work outside the home. We rarely understand or fully appreciate people’s circumstances. Husbands and wives should prayerfully counsel together, understanding they are accountable to God for their decisions.
You devoted sisters who are single parents for whatever reason, our hearts reach out to you with appreciation. Prophets have made it clear “that many hands stand ready to help you. The Lord is not unmindful of you. Neither is His Church.” I would hope that Latter-day Saints would be at the forefront in creating an environment in the workplace that is more receptive and accommodating to both women and men in their responsibilities as parents.
And again in 2013, he said:
At a time when I was the only member of the Church in our law firm, one woman lawyer explained to me how she always felt like a juggler trying to keep three balls in the air at the same time. One ball was her law practice, one was her marriage, and one was her children. She had almost given up on time for herself. She was greatly concerned that one of the balls was always on the ground. I suggested we meet as a group and discuss our priorities. We determined that the primary reason we were working was to support our families. We agreed that making more money wasn’t nearly as important as our families, but we recognized that serving our clients to the best of our abilities was essential. The discussion then moved to what we did at work that was not necessary and was inconsistent with leaving time for family. Was there pressure to spend time in the workplace that was not essential?
He concluded:
We decided that our goal would be a family-friendly environment for both women and men. Let us be at the forefront in protecting time for family.
Women in careers frequently face disproportionate challenges to their male peers when parental leave policies are minimal. Aside from the obvious need for infants to have a caregiver and for women who give birth to have time to heal properly, companies with leave policies dominated by male interests often foster hostile attitudes toward women who have children. When I moved to Singapore in 2011, one of the headlines in the Straits Times was that Singapore Air was finally dropping its practice of firing any pregnant flight attendants. Although it sounded like something out of Mad Men, a nearly unfathomable discriminatory practice, I soon discovered that the church’s CES department also fired women who had babies, claiming that 100% of them chose to quit. [2]
When a workplace only offers paid maternity leave but no parental leave for fathers, it can still result in a disproportionate burden on women. In these situations, women are a greater liability to their employers than men, even when men are raising families. It also places an unfair burden on women who in most contemporary marriages have a more equitable partnership with husbands in caring for their children but due to unequal policies are required to shoulder the whole burden. Because of these disadvantages, women often make less pay than men over time or choose exit ramps from their careers at higher rates, resulting in a continued lack of female representation at higher levels of management where policies are typically set.
Given these outcomes and our focus on the importance of families, why doesn’t the church provide family-friendly leave policies?
Conservative Politics
Conservatives tend to favor policies that give the most possible latitude to businesses, preferring to let markets self-regulate. For example, if a company offers more general leave than a competitor, that company may be more successful than the competitor at winning and retaining top talent which will provide them a competitive advantage. Conservatives would argue that generous leave policies have a market value, and companies should use them accordingly; government interference or regulation will only place additional burden on companies.
Unfortunately, it’s clear from looking at policies from many different companies that without government interference, status quo prevails. Companies only have to be slightly better than another company, and when all companies provide fairly poor options for family leave, the “losers” are those who don’t contribute to the economy: infants, the elderly, and other dependents in need of care. Pro-business policies are often anti-social.
While the church is theoretically pro-social, it’s also run by very politically conservative leadership. And politics color gospel interpretation far more than the reverse happens. If leaders believe in the importance of a less regulated free market, they will be reluctant to question status quo policies that seem to be acceptable business practices simply because they are the norm.
Churches, like other employers, find little reason to ever do more than the law requires, even if in principle it is better for employees. This is why free market arguments often result in anti-social policies and practices. Companies don’t want to bear the burden, and unless government requires all employers to bear that burden, eliminating the short term financial and resource disadvantage, there is little incentive for employers to go above and beyond.
Sexism
Is it possible to be pro-family while being anti-woman? It sure seems like it is. Conservatives who favor traditional gender roles frequently place women in a difficult position with regard to family responsibility. Very few families can support themselves financially with only one income, and that number is getting smaller as the economy continues to struggle. Our current economy is based on an expectation of dual income families, not on single breadwinner families. If we ignore this reality, we blame those who are trying hard to “adapt to individual circumstances” as it says in the Proclamation on the Family rather than supporting the policies that will enable them to succeed.
Policies that make it a financial hardship to women to give birth by not providing any paid leave make it harder for families, period. Policies that don’t provide paid leave for fathers as well as mothers likewise place undue burden on women which adds stress to the family.
Additionally, companies with a lack of female representation at policy-setting levels consistently lag behind competitors in creating family friendly policies. Perhaps adding more women to councils will improve this within church employment.
Frugality
Churches are largely volunteer organizations that don’t always have deep coffers. While that’s not true of the Mormon church, as we have had many years of very wise financial investments, church employment positions are consistently low paying. For those who choose church employment, there must be other attractions than mere pay. And yet, that doesn’t mean benefits should require choices that hurt families for those who feel church employment is a good choice for them, particularly when we also encourage all church members to have families. Those families require both nurturing support by present caregivers (of both sexes) and sufficient financial support.
Tradition
Maybe it’s just a matter of time. Once it is the norm for companies to provide better paid parental leave, the church will follow suit. That’s not demonstrating leadership on this topic, of course. Doing no better than the market dictates isn’t any better than waiting for governmental regulation to require it.
Perhaps Elder Cook is the only one who feels this is important.
Peer Performance
The original linked article put the Mormon church on par with Focus on the Family and Catholic Charities USA, two other conservative religious employers. It also noted that most religious groups lagged behind professional companies in providing paid family leave. Perhaps the issue isn’t just the market, US norms, or tradition. Maybe it’s just what is tolerable for religious employers.
What do you think?
[poll id=”546″]
Since offering no paid leave hurts growing families, what exactly are we defending?
Discuss.
[1] BYU-P does offer generous (by US standards) paid maternity leave. BYU-I does not offer any paid parental leave. Neither school considers fathers eligible for any paid leave for the care of a newborn. Considering how few women are employed by the church, adding these benefits would not be a substantial cost, although extending them to both sexes would be far more family-friendly.
[2] Because who wouldn’t rather live on food stamps and welfare? This harmful policy was finally changed last year.
Wheat & Tares 
I wanted to select all the options under, “What do you think of the church’s policies as an employer?” I didn’t find any of them mutually exclusive. They all could be true.
The only thing I found that was probably undue of insinuation of the leaders is the suit the guy is wearing in the “Traditional Maternity Leave” cartoon.
I think these policies are intended, at least in part, to discourage women from working. I don’t know that anyone would classify it as a “sin” but it is definitely something that the church (unfortunately) discourages.
Also, it is a matter of Conservative politics wherein the financial benefit to the corporation is the primary motivation at all times.
“Dude looks like a lady.”
Because dude skips arm day.
This is a wonderful post. I’m surprised that BYU-Idaho and BYU-Provo have different maternity leave policies, since both share the same board of directors. As to the reasons, I think it comes down to two things, which you’ve basically outlined:
One, during the culture wars there were two visions of how to support the family. The traditional vision was to encourage mothers to stay home and raise their children to provide them with a stable environment and the proper moral education. Policies that made it easier for women to work outside the home (and compete for jobs with men, driving down their salaries), were viewed as anti family. The feminist vision was to enable women to work outside the home by providing family planning options such as birth control, affordable day care, maternity leave, equal pay for equal work, etc. The LDS Church is in the traditional vision camp. As women working is becoming the norm, even in the church, we see more and more of these policies being adopted. But the old biases remain.
Two, many of the LDS Church leadership come from corporate America and bring those corporate practices to their new workplace. They succeeded by keeping costs down and maximizing profits. So any policy change that adds costs without a visible financial benefit is going to be a tough sell, given the conservative nature of the organization. And I do think they look around at what other churches and corporations do to use as a guideline.
While I was at Deseret Book, they had a policy on Family Leave where you could swap regular time off for “family leave” at a rate of 1 regular day off for 3 family leave days. Family Leave could only be used to care for a new baby, newly adopted child, or care for a family member with a serious illness. They did offer 12 weeks unpaid for new babies and newly adopted children, but you could pay for it with your Family Leave. I had a baby while working there and found them very accommodating and my transition back to work was nice and smooth. I know that DB gets a lot of crap on the Bloggernacle, but I have often wished that the church was run more like Deseret Book.
I think the church’s policies are simply outdated and pro-corporate, not pro-employee. There isn’t a scarcity of workers/potential workers, there is an overabundance, which also doesn’t help the plight of the church employee.
I think the policies are sexist, against women AND men. Yes, this is grossly sexist for women, but it is also sexist for MEN whose parental and familial responsibilities are almost invisible. What about the single father? The adoptive father? The man who is a primary care-taker of elderly parents or a disabled family member? It isn’t fair to the men either.
Ok, Elder Cook’s comments in 2011 are completely anti-working women. You took that quote waaaaaaay out of context. He’s using a type of positive reinforcement psychology common in corporate leadership to COMPARE working women with SAHMs and give the carrot to the SAHMs. It sounds positive, but it is actually double-speak, encouraging women to be SAHMs. Women hear this stuff and at the surface read it as neutral or even positive, but then walk away depressed, because the underlying connotation was quite negative.
Here’s the actual quote. Note what is said FIRST.
“First, no woman should ever feel the need to apologize or feel that her contribution is less significant because she is devoting her primary efforts to raising and nurturing children. Nothing could be more significant in our Father in Heaven’s plan. Second, we should all be careful not to be judgmental or assume that sisters are less valiant if the decision is made to work outside the home. We rarely understand or fully appreciate people’s circumstances. Husbands and wives should prayerfully counsel together, understanding they are accountable to God for their decisions.”
Translation:
1) First, NOTHING is more significant in Heavenly Father’s plan than the work of SAHMs. (NOTHING!!!) That is huge. He’s given the highest possible praise to SAHMs- only.
2) He says that WE shouldn’t judge working moms or conclude that they are less valiant. (Only GOD can judge them and they are accountable to him- he warns. I find it interesting that the working mother and father are accountable to God, but the SAHM mother evidently isn’t.) Then he clearly states that women DECIDE to work outside the home.
I adamantly disagree that most women ‘decide’ to work outside the home. Although some women do make that ‘choice’, for the vast majority of women around in the U.S. and in the world this is not a CHOICE or DECISION, this is an IMPERATIVE. The Mormon pioneer women in my family all “worked” away from their children as farmers milking cows or in the fields, teachers, nurses and doctors, undertakers, manufacturers, cooks, seamstresses, etc. The clothes you and I are wearing right now were probably made in a factory by a woman who lives at or below the poverty level and is trying to feed children. Putting aside the ‘two-income trap’ comments that I’m sure to inspire, most developing world women work for food for themselves and their children. FOOD!
Also, it isn’t that difficult to understand the circumstances of a working mother. 85% of LDS women work. Yet working moms are always addressed AFTER the glorification of the SAHM, and with caveats and exceptions. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Although both types of moms do the work of the Lord is raising children, he HAD to split the two groups apart because he is comparing and contrasting them. (Women are blamed for being overly hard on themselves and having a perfectionism complex, but THIS is blatant guilt and comparisons! THIS is a leader showing by example that women should compare themselves to other women and keep the mommy wars raging!)
You’ll notice that working moms were not similarly praised, they were instead given a stern warning. He didn’t really describe them except to subtly say that they are probably not “less valiant”. If you didn’t catch the little word “not”, you will hear the longer words such as “less valiant” “judgement”, “They should pray”, “accountable to God” in describing working moms. Contrast that now with the praise for SAHMs- that NOTHING is more important to Heavenly Father.
The connotation and take-away is quite clear.
This is rhetoric is religious abuse, discouraging women from working.
This was an eye opener for me. I had no idea the church run business had these kind of anti-family policies. How sad!
I agree that there will be a natural lag when those making the policies are a couple generations behind the current workforce. It was not uncommon previously for women to be discouraged from working because they were taking jobs away from the men who were trying to provide for families. The manual for the institute “Celestial Marriage” course has an entire section devoted to teachings concerning mothers working outside the home – all are negative.
As a sidenote, my never-married aunt (a BYU professor) was not wild about BYU trying to be more family-friendly towards students. In her mind, diaper-changing tables in almost all the campus restrooms and women having babies while attending college (sometimes even bringing strollers into the back of the class) was completely inappropriate. Even though she was female, she definitely had old-school opinions.
I wonder how much of the policy choices are driven by the rather unique demographics of the general authorities and officers. Most of them come from the WWII and Baby Boomer generations, meaning that their fathers probably worked outside the home and their mothers were stay-at-home moms. And then they went on to become lawyers, doctors, and businessmen themselves with stay-at-home wives.
Economic and social realities have changed since the 50s, 60s, and 70s, but it’s easy to see that particular family arrangement as ideal if it’s the one you grew up in and chose as an adult, especially if you had a good enough career to be financially stable as a single-income family.
Mortimer, I’m not sure I agree that E. Cook is completely against women working. He was talking about female colleagues and has talked about female colleagues with respect and in an egalitarian manner. E. Oaks has also spoken with passion about equal pay for women. I think it’s a bit more accurate to say that their views are careful not to contradict a stance that is in favor of women choosing to stay at home, and it’s probably likely that they don’t necessarily understand the current realities of the economy as they’ve been out of it for a while.
But in any case, we certainly aren’t leading on family-friendly policies, and I appreciate your comments.
Hawkgrrl,
Usually we’re on the exact same page and I love your comments too! But here we have differing opinions. If we were to remove the gender card from these talks I think we would be quite surprised. I don’t think it is egalitarian to speak of the ONE female in the partnership having difficulty balancing three balls (wife, mother, attorney), while none of the men (supposedly husbands, fathers, and attorneys) didn’t have problems (at least not to HER extent), but gathered to accommodate and reflect on the fact that they too needed to take more time off. What is the unspoken message in that? What if we gender-flipped the story and all the men had work/life balance issues and the one woman was the organized and wise one?
Sorry, his 2011 quote feeds the fires of mommy wars and creates “ites” among us. A truly neutral message would have been instead an acknowledgement that EVERY parent- every mother- every father has a sacred duty and should spend as much time with children as possible. Period. There are no “ites” among us- we’re all rowing in the same boat.
Working moms don’t deserve this type of rhetoric. I still call it religious abuse. Mothers need blessings, not comparisons.
Mortimer: Well, given WHICH talk this quote was culled from, you may be right, and obviously, I’ve noted time and again (as have my many female colleagues) that there is an unspoken disadvantage to having children that never seems to apply to men, and isn’t that convenient (to men)? So, sure, it’s not a perfect quote. But coming from his generation, it could have been much much worse.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call it religious abuse, so there we differ. Misguided? Ill-considered? Tone deaf? Yes, yes, yes.
Hawkgrrl,
I’ll agree with you . . . women do have an unspoken disadvantage. Even working moms tend to still be the ones disproportionately responsible for housework, etc. These and other things somehow roll off men’s backs.
I wish I could agree with you that this was misguided and ill-considered, but it is far too strategic- far too crafted and skillfully done to be an accident. This is legalese; crafted-intelligent-streamlined-legalese. I am a clumsy ox and sometimes crash around with my words, but Cook, Christofferson, Oaks, and a few of the others are surgeons with scalpels when it comes to this type of oration. They know exactly what they are saying and exactly what they are doing, both in this instance and in the recent policy.
At a fundamental level, it could be generational ignorance, but they are coming out swinging with strategic push-back. I think Elder Cook KNOWS that there are Mormon Mommy wars between the SAHMs and working moms and that this is a divisive issue.
The quickest way to end it would be to have a GA shockingly reference an example of a righteous and family-oriented working mom- someone who breaks the stereotype and shows sanctification of the heart and sacrifice for family, not outwardly show. Boom. Done. (Wouldn’t that be a shocking thing to do? Something that say, Christ would do in the same way that he lifted up a woman taken in adultery, a widow and her mite, or a hated Samaratin above a Priest and a Levite?)
I just realized…
Calling Elder Renlund and Sister Renlund did exactly that. Sister Renlund is a righteous WORKING woman and mom, an attorney, who is being held up as an example for all.
Amen.
Here in the UK I was recently called out by a fellow employee for asking a job candidate about her marriage status. “Don’t you know we could get sued?!!!” In the UK it is illegal to ask any job candidate for any information about their children or marital status, and of course, they get paid parental leave
And I realised how right this is. Even if not consciously, I was factoring in the inconveniences a working mother might pose to the organisation. And I felt quite ashamed afterwards that I had done so, not just because it was illegal. We need parental leave and strong equal opportunity laws because of idiots like me.
Nate that is also illegal here in the US as well although religious groups have different exemptions.
I also would applaud the church listening to Elder Cook and setting a good example.
I was not aware of the CES policy until it was over, because we don’t have CES seminary teachers where I live. However, I do listen to the BYU New Speeches podcast, where many employed women are featured as speakers. Quite a few female deans and department chairs who talked about having children during their careers. Andrea Thomas, Walmart VP and mom of three, gave an incredible talk at BYU last year–she serves on the advisory board at the business school. I loved her story about how a diabetic woman at church complained about how much healthy food costs, which inspired her to make changes in Walmart’s grocery offerings. I thank Sister Thomas in my heart each time I pick up the house brand brown sugar-Splenda mix:)
To be fair though, it is not mere policies that work against women. The biology can be a factor. Because I had devastating vomiting during pregnancy (had to have surgery to rebuild my stomach) and have published some articles on that topic, I get consulted by women who are struggling with the physical demands of pregnancy. One young women I counseled with a while back had to stop working outside the home entirely. Actually, anything outside her bed, where she lived for months. Fortunately, they already had maid service and could afford to hire a cook. Thankfully her employer supposedly offers a job guarantee that she can come back after the baby is born. But for a while her husband was supporting her, something they had not really planned.
While I generally support parental leave for both genders–dads bring a different but important piece–I don’t pretend for a minute that the genders are the same in their NEED for leave.
Also, it is not just Mormon women who may not be supportive of policies that help women to pursue career and educational objectives. I am employed at a heathen state U far from Utah, and it was a female provost who rejected a proposal to let female faculty stop the tenure clock due to pregnancy, allow part-time enrollment, etc. All policies which disproportionately hurt women if they happen to not have glowing pregnancies and easily deliveries, or are still busy with younger kids.
When I was undergrad at BYU, my male faculty were very kind about my illness during pregnancy, and allowed me to turn papers in a year later, etc. When I was in graduate school in Texas, I watched a woman be flushed out of the program because she couldn’t keep up due to her illness during pregnancy. Some might find the behavior of my male professors to be “pedestaling” or condescending, but I got my degree.
Sister Renlund is a fantastic example of someone who was able to balance a successful career with motherhood. *However*, I don’t think her experience is one the church would have girls emulate. By her own admission, Sister Renlund planned on being a stay-at-home mom while raising (multiple) children. She planned on pursuing graduate work later in life. The cancer diagnosis and resulting hysterectomy after the birth of her first child eliminated the possibility of any more biological children. From the description at the Mormon Women Project, she *was* a stay-at-home mom for a short time while her daughter was very young. Although she had to arrange childcare while pursuing her education, she had family nearby so that her daughter could still have those family connections. She is an exception.
The cornerstone institute course on the Eternal Family has lightened up considerably on the anti-working mom rhetoric. The 2003 Celestial Marriage manual that came out while I was in a young married student ward at BYU was not quite as light, and it is still used in institute courses: https://www.lds.org/manual/eternal-marriage-student-manual/mothers-employment-outside-the-home?lang=eng
I knew a couple from church about 10 years ago. They were both well educated professionals. He worked at BYU and she had worked there previously. They had a young daughter. She told of having gone to an Ivy League school for her graduate degree and being recruited heavily by several universities for employment following graduation, including BYU. Not surprisingly, BYU played the church card heavily during her recruitment, including its focus on the family. Ultimately she decided to go to work for BYU. Soon she became pregnant and was stunned to learn that the university had no maternity programs of any kind. If she wanted maternity leave beyond the normal medical leave paradigms, she would have to quit her job and reapply, because jobs were not held in such situations. When she asked how the church could treat mothers this way, considering their “family friendly” stance, she was told that the church did not provide maternity leave or hold jobs for new mothers because it didn’t want to “grease the skids” for women to work outside the home once they had children. In other words, if she wanted to resume working after starting a family, the church was not going to do anything to help her. Shocking they didn’t include that in their recruiting pitch.
I think it’s pretty clear that the church institutes policies to promote their ‘ideal’. Why else would they have some of the policies they do, like their policy on women working in the temple? Even if that is not paid work, it’s clear what the expectation is and I think it’s across the board – paid or unpaid.
Additionally, the church is ‘big business’. Businesses are mostly selfishly motivated. The bottom dollar is their main concern, and I don’t think the church is any different than a non-religious organizatoin doing business. The more they make and save, the more they have for investing in housing developments and malls, only to hopefully make more money.