For Marilyn

That was awesome to read.  Love it when people get all crazy about this stuff like I do.

I haven't read the book.

I would like to point out a few things I thought about as I read Marilyn's review.

1)  It was always achingly obvious to me that my brothers got to do way cooler stuff than I did as a youth.  It always bothered me.  However, now as an adult I understand that a lot of that might be because the female leaders didn't like high-adventure stuff.  Marilyn's stance that we attend our activities because we are supposed to and not because they are awesome is pretty much what my mom always told me.  It is a hard fit for a girl who would rather poke her eyeballs out than do a craft and thinks that painting her fingernails is pretty close to being beheaded.  On the other hand, there were lots of girls who loved that junk.  I mean, those awesome activities.

I would like to see leaders put more emphasis on service and learning the gospel than trying to make all the activities "fun."  But again, my views are just mine and the older I get the more I realize how impossible it is for agreement on these types of things because it is all personal preference.

A lot of these types of problems just reiterate that "cultural biases" and "helping every woman feel valued" is impossible--see my mother holding her baby during a blessing example.

2) I do think we should make Activity Days every week or Scouts twice a month.  Sorry, I'm just bugged by it.  Also, I think we should do away with pack (den?) meetings where parents go once a month and ooh and aah over their boys' achievements unless we do a similar thing for our girls.  It just feels patently unfair.

3) I don't really understand the "pain" narrative so Marilyn is one up on me.

4) I no longer feel any desire to read this book.  I had high hopes that it would explore some interesting ways to meet needs of individual areas/wards.  Apparently, that isn't the focus of the book.

5) It is hard to bridge the gap between people who espouse the "pain" narrative and those of us who just want a few cultural things to change in the church.  Reading some of those quotes makes me gag, but like I said before, there are some things I would like to change.  But how would anyone decide what to change when any change would offend someone?  It is all too much for me.