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I am a middle-class white lady who’s been married to the same man for eighteen years, and all four of my children were fathered by this same guy, after we got married, and I have no intention of leaving him in the near future or otherwise. I don’t have any gay friends or family members, even though I’ve been told that’s impossible in this day and age. I do have gay acquaintances, but no one I hang out with or am forced to interact with at holidays. I don’t even have gay co-workers because I haven’t worked outside the home since I had my first baby. I think I should be an ideal candidate to do as I was counseled in Saturday night’s General Women’s Broadcast and “stand with the Brethren” and “defend the Family,” which I understand is under attack. I mean, I live in a freaking bubble. I not only don’t have gay friends; I don’t really have any friends, so I couldn’t possibly suffer any social consequences if I were to become an ardent and outspoken Defender of Family. On the other hand, that also means no one would listen to me, because if a tree falls in the forest blah blah, but that’s not the point. If I’m not currently standing up for the Family, it’s definitely not because I lack moral courage, because doing so wouldn’t take any, in my particular case. It’s really just that I don’t care enough about the Family. I don’t think I care at all.

Don’t misunderstand me. I care a lot about my family, i.e. I care a lot about the individuals in my family. I care a lot about the individuals in a lot of families, which I guess means that I care about a lot of families individually, but I don’t care about the Family in general or the Family in theory or whatever is meant by the Family.

When church leaders tell me I should be defending the Family, I’m really not sure what they mean. I mean, it can’t mean that I’m supposed to be speaking out against divorce or same-sex marriage or unwed parenthood because if it did, they would just come out and say that, right? I mean, I know that church leaders rarely just come out and say anything, but if I were to raise my hand and ask for clarification by saying, “Hey, does this mean I should be speaking out against divorce and/or same-sex marriage and/or unwed parenthood?” they would definitely not respond in the affirmative but would probably say something that had nothing to do with my question and didn’t mean anything, which I think means that there’s some deeper message here that I’m just not getting.

I do get that the Family is part of God’s plan for our eternal happiness. Perhaps I’m supposed to go around affirming that being married for eighteen years to the same guy who fathered all my kids (after we were married) has made me very happy and that it can make other people happy too. Well, I’m not sure that’s true. I’m happily married, but I don’t think it’s just the fact of having been continuously married to the father of all my kids that accounts for my happiness. I enjoy a lot of advantages that other people, married and unmarried, don’t. I happen to love my husband. He’s not a jerk. He’s a good father. I enjoy a comfortable lifestyle. But I can easily envision staying married for almost 20 years to someone I didn’t love, who didn’t make me happy. Because a woman in my position—limited skills, inappropriate education, no recent work experience and no personal wealth, but also four dependent children–has a lot more incentive to stay married than just the sheer joy of it.

By contrast, a woman with some other combination of skills, education, work experience, etc., may not have any incentive to get married in the first place if she can’t find someone who makes her happy. She may want to have children anyway—which may not be the best idea she’s ever had, depending on her particular circumstances, but sometimes it happens, whether it’s a good idea or not, and by then it’s really too late to call it a good idea or a bad idea. It’s just something that has to be lived with.

That’s part of how I define family these days: something that has to be lived with.

This same weekend—just yesterday, in fact—I had an experience with my family that was especially disturbing and disheartening and put me in a somber and depressed state of mind. I do not regret getting married to a member of the opposite sex and having children (after we were married), but I can’t say that my current situation would be good publicity for the Family. In fact, it’s up close and personal experience with our family life that has convinced my teenage daughter that she never wants to have one of her own. (That may be just as well.) So I admit that I was a Negative Nelly walking into this meeting, a real Debby Downer if you will, but all this talk about the Family being under attack and me needing to defend it left me cold. Because what the heck were they talking about? I just don’t know. And I don’t care. I have more important things to worry about. Like how I’m supposed to take care of my family. Not the Family. My family, with its individual members and their varied and demanding needs. I can’t remember the last time church gave me a good idea on that front, if it ever did.

And if I, a middle-class white lady married to the same dude for eighteen years and four kids, who doesn’t even have any gay friends or a job, can’t get inspired to stand up for the Family, who can?