Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Big Can Be Beautiful

I would like to have the bishop read a little bit about what Laura is about, in a letter to the editor that she wrote after a lady observed a young mother in a story trying to take care of a bunch of little kids in a shopping cart and trying to shop in a store.  So this is Laura’s retort to that letter.  And I keep it in – I have a book, a little special book of mine, and this is it.  And I keep it with a great picture of her  – this is next to my patriarchal blessing.  This is what Laura’s about.  And she was not afraid to be vociferous about it.  
  
Big Can Be Beautiful. 
As a pregnant young woman with three small children, I’d like to respond to Mrs. Hart’s letter ‘Plan for Parenthood’, November 6th.  I do not appreciate her grief for my children or myself.  My children, like many others, were planned, and welcome.  They are a full time job, I'll admit, but no child will be left out, as she put it.  Love is unlimited, and a child can just as easily share his mother’s time and attention with other children who also supply love and attention to each other, as a job, community service, fancy cooking, immaculate housekeeping, social activities and/or hobbies. 
I enjoy raising children, and am quite proud of my profession.  Please don't pity me or my sisters in fulltime motherhood, and please, Mrs. Hart, don't judge the quality or the lives of our children by the supermarket scene.  A shopping cart is hardly the place to teach and entertain three small children.  A home can be.
I’d also like to respond to the idea that large families on low incomes are miserable because they are crowded, hungry, uneducated and uninvolved.  I am one of 9 children.  My father was still in school with 4 children, so our income was extremely limited.  Mother never worked.  Few women have to work.  We were a little crowded, I admit, but I like to think of it as close.  There is no price tag on love, and that was rich in abundance.  My mother was a great teacher, and even if I did have to work my way through college, it was a course in time and money management which I'll never regret.
Big families can be beautiful, even on low incomes.  I know.
Laura Savage








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