By Stephanie

I’ve been on FMH for a while. One of the recurring themes is horror stories from Young Women’s. To be honest, I’ve never really understood that. I’ve been a YW President twice. Both times, I poured my heart and soul into loving the girls and trying my best to help them prepare to make good life choices (with an emphasis on obtaining a good education).

Anyways, today DH and I were cleaning out our office. It has become the “dump” room. When I can’t finish a project, I dump it in the office. I found the Finch Family File Folder Fun Book that I was going to use to make a whole bag of games for my kids for Sacrament meeting. I got as far as copying the pages onto white cardstock at Kinkos.

I also found stacks of scrapbooking supplies I’ve been buying for the last 7 years with the intent to get back to scrapbooking. And two bags of puffy paints that I took home from a “Free For All”. (I’ll just take them back to the next “Free For All”.)

Amongst the piles was a book: Young Women Fun-tastic Activities! Someone gave me this book as a congratulations and good luck gift the first time I was called to YW (but I don’t believe they ever opened it – just saw it and wanted to be helpful). I am chagrined to say that I accepted it and then forgot about it as I jumped into my calling and pregnancy with my third child, then move, then fourth child pregnancy, then called into YW again, etc. etc.

So here I sat with this book I had never even cracked open. I decided that reading it would be way more fun than packing (Yuck!). First I just flipped through it. I saw handouts like

It’s no bologna! You must build your testimony!

I’m sew honest!

Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and your mascara runs!

Okay, so my eyes are rolling a bit.

The titles in this book are different than the titles in the manual. For example, lesson 31 in the manual is called “The Law of the Land” (to teach a young woman the importance of supporting the laws of her country), but in the Fun-tastic book, it’s called “Patriotism: I Love My Country!”.

There’s a suggestion for a midweek activity to go with the “The Priesthood: A Great Blessing” lesson (that focuses on how the Priesthood can benefit your life):

Honoring the Priesthood Hour: Have young women prepare an hour-long program to honor the priesthood holders in your ward. Invite all the young men. Have a woman (the bishop’s or counselor’s wife) give a tribute to the priesthood holders in the ward. Spotlight several young men and other Melchizedek Priesthood holders, telling why they are admired. Information can be obtained from leaders, bishop, and family members. Have the bishop choose the priesthood holders to spotlight. Serve punch and star-shaped cookies with a note: Priesthood holders – You are the stars that shine bright.

You know – just in case you YW forgot your place.

But, I really had a problem with the helps for lessons 32 and 33. Lesson 32 is “The Importance of Life” and Lesson 33 is “The Sacred Power of Procreation”. These lessons have a special place in my heart. I taught them in tandem to all the YW in both wards. Lesson 32 talks about the importance of human life and is a nice segue into Lesson 33 on protecting your sacred power to procreate (or chastity). When presented appropriately, I feel they are a powerful combination in teaching young women why they would want to wait until marriage to have sex.

So I turn to the suggested handout for Lesson 32. It is a “Lullaby Lollipop”. You copy these two circles and glue them together with a lollipop inside. The front of the lollipop has a cartoon picture of a baby and says “Life is sacred”, and the back has a quote that says

The greatest mission of women is to give life, earth life, through honorable marriage, to waiting spirits, our Father’s spirit children who anxiously desire to come to dwell here in this mortal state.

You are supposed to tie two lifesavers to the bottom to represent wedding rings.

Surely the lesson can’t have that quote in it, can it? In a lesson designed to make you appreciate the sacredness of life so you won’t want to create it or destroy it inappropriately? A blatant message that the “greatest mission” of women is to have babies? I’m thinking of a good friend of mine who is currently going through a severe mid-life crisis because she got married at 19 and never went to college because she was just going to start having babies. After nearly 20 years without children (or a career or meaningful life work), she just turned 40 and feels useless because she didn’t fulfill her “greatest mission”. I wonder – did she receive a Lullaby Lollipop as a YW?

Alas, the actual lesson did contain that sentence, but it was part of a larger quote. In teaching this lesson twice to the YW, it just never stood out to me to present it that way.

The handout for the next lesson is almost as good. It’s called “Chewsing Choices”. You give each YW a piece of chewing gum to chew. (You know where this is going, don’t you?)

First, as they chew, have them close their eyes and think of the “chew”sing they will do to find their eternal companion. Each choice they “chews” will either guide them to their eternal companion or farther away.

But wait! There’s more. For activity 2, after chewing, ask them to take the gum out of their mouth and pass it to the person next to them.

Ask, “Do you want to have a piece of gum that is already chewed?” Think of being an unchewed piece of gum (being chaste and pure) as opposed to a chewed piece (unchaste).

And that, ladies, is how it happens. I wonder how many YW leaders use resources like this. I never would. It reeks of all the stereotypes I’ve ever heard. And guess what? It’s still for sale.

My point of this post is not to rip on the YW program or YW leaders. Yes, I do think the manuals are a bit outdated, but I have never really seen anything damaging presented to the YW I’ve worked with. I just don’t think that comes from the church or the approved curriculum. However, I think some of the stuff in this “Fun-tastic” book is damaging, and from some of the stories I’ve heard, it’s being used in real life. So, stop it! Stop it already!