Truth #3 for YW about dating & marriage

It's all about having a point of reference

I'm not going to bore you with another analogy about maps, compasses, directions, etc. I'm sure that you've been introduced to a number of these by now--if not, then you either did not go to Girls Camp, missed out on EFY, never read the New Era, never went to a fireside, didn't listen in your Young Women's lessons--basically, you were absent.

You know that it's so easy to get lost if you don't have a point of reference (either from which you are leaving or are headed to). It's also very difficult in life to be happy without having a point of reference. How do you know what "hot" is if you don't know what some exposure to "cold"? It's not just about opposites, but rather about filling in the spectrum of experience so that you have a complete picture and point of reference.

Too many girls are getting married without any points of reference--they are living lives that are empty and shallow. Their lives empty and vapid, they are focused on silly, trivial things. This certainly doesn't apply to all or even most girls, but it does apply to too many. And much too many are living lives that fail to meet their potential; their lives are devoid of any personal growth and development. They are "Barbie" incarnate--little more than a plaything (some, however, come with shiny, attractive accessories!). (Note: if you had to look up the words vapid, devoid, and incarnate, I might be talking about you...ouch, huh?)

Sadly, you are being inundated with message from media sources and society in general that your primary value is in the shape of your body, the color of your hair, how in style your clothes are. You're being told that your aspiration in life is to be provided for, sheltered, luxurious, and leisurely. MTV tells you simultaneously that you're a princess at 16 who deserves to be pampered to the extreme and that the best way to be hot is to dress like a whore and "shake that ass" for a rapper's posse in a music video. You, too, can make on the cast of the Real World if you are willing to dabble in bi-sexuality and mate multiple partners within hours of one another.

Let's see who some of your top icons and role models are (according to the media): Paris Hilton (bimbo playgirl heiress with a sex tape); Lindsey Lohan (bimbo bi-sexual actress with a drug problem); Britney Spears (bimbo deliquint single mother with too many problems to list); etc. Even many of the good girls have lots of issues--they're applauded just because they remember to wear panties when they go out for a night on the town! Do you remember your panties?

Even your LDS boyfriend or the boys you want to date are reinforcing the message that you are only as worthwhile as you are physically attractive. Sadly, YM are mindless predator sharks hungry for an appetizing meal--they're not doing it maliciously, but the fact remains. I'm working on them, too (see the other chapters for YM).

One day it will be worth it to you to be more than an object, more than a Cosmo girl who "like, totally, like, completely, is on the down low." You need to build yourself a life and give yourself the points of reference that will give your existence meaning and richness. You need to do this for you and you need to do it for your husband to be if you want to be happy and fulfilled. That's a very important distinction to make--I'm trying to help you be happy AND fulfilled. You can be a very happy housewife whose primary activites are caring for children, eating bon-bons, picking out hair color, and reading the Twilight series (or Harry Potter). That doesn't mean that you're having an enriching experience that takes advantage of your natural talents and the resources available to you. You have potential and "girl we gonna work it!"

What you need to do as a young woman is get yourself some education and/ or life experience. You have the time, energy, resources to acquire these while you are young. It's not impossible to get education or life experiences when you're older but it is much harder. Your free time is limited as your age (until you're what you would call "old"). It's kinda of like dancing--much easier when you can bend in most directions (try doing a latin-style dance when you're 50--egad!!! Which brings to a tangent--wasn't the old lady Cloris Leachman on Dancing with the Stars freakin' scary? It was like a bad freakshow-when they had her do sexy routines it was akin to watching your parents having sex--not a good thing).

Anyways, you are what you make of yourself. You need to acquire some knowledge of how things work in the world. You need to discover the great treasures of wisdom and learning that mankind has amassed. You need to expose yourself to beauty and truth (no I'm not talking about getting beauty tips from Oprah or Tyra Banks). You need to find paths to wander down (not shopping ailses); you need to find meaningful daily activity (other than choosing an outfit); you need to find a reason for being. If you weren't sure by what I meant without reading the quips in the parentheses, then you're in trouble--as in, are you suffering from a lack of oxygen? Are you reading this or do you have to have it read to you?.. Education and life experiences are the gateway to finding fulfillment.

Note: being a housewife and mother can be a VERY fulfilling and purposeful activity/role. While some (many, most, or even all) of the housewifey and mothery duties can be unfulfilling, mundane, and dull--they are only the functional means to a very good end--producing healthy, stable, productive citizens. Don't jump to conclusions that I'm gonna say burn that bra and get in the workplace. If you become a mother, wear a bra. Please.

Education and life experiences can be acquired in a variety of manners. Not everyone has to go to college; not everyone has to go to work. Those are two very effective and well traveled paths, ones you would do well to consider. You can also serve a mission, do volunteer work, self study, pursue interests that expand your horizons. You need to assert yourself and do things for yourself. Those are two wonderful things that come from getting an education or from working or doing other worthwhile things .

The third benefit is that you become your own person. As a child you are dependent on your parents and teachers and other adults to point the way, to tell you what to think, and what to do. Part of your maturation into adulthood is learning how to identify the way, thinking for yourself, choosing what to do. Having an education (formal or informal) and/or life experiences makes you an unique individual and gives you some substance. You'll be able to stand on your own and have worth in your own right.

Note: You don't get credit for your spouse and their education or life experiences. You don't get vicarious credit for what your husband does or might have experienced. Just in the same way that you are not a Returned Missionary because your husband is an RM, you are not an engineer because he is an engineer. If your husband owns or operates a business, you are not a business owner (helping out with some office duties or supervising the receptionist does not count--you have to spend equal time and have equal involvement day-in and day-out.).

Two of the women that I know personally and respect very much are very smart (my mother and my wife)--they have graduated from college and worked, but more importantly, they have continued to grow after the fact. My mother is one of the brightest people I know and I think that it would be safe to say that much of what she has learned she learned after getting married. Certainly, going to college probably taught her something about how to learn on her own. Gaining education and life experiences is a life long pursuit. You'll have to read non-fiction and the news, watch good TV programming, go places, do things (going places and doing things do not include going to get a manicure--yes you'll get your manicure from a little Korean man, but that's not really going international. Oh, I can't help myself. Ok, say the following with your best Korean accent: "You have very bad cuticles! Very ugly. You want flower? I make you very sexy flower for $5"). If you can name all of the characters from Grey's Anatomy but can't name more than 2 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices or both your US senators, then you're misplacing your focus (yes, you can still have guilty pleasures btw). Hey, Grey's Anatomy fans--hate the play, not the player!

This is starting to get very long so let's get to some summary points: First and foremost, education and/or life experiences will make your life more fulfilling and enriched. You'll have the benefit of knowing what life offers and what you can achieve. You'll be able to better appreciate the high and lows, beauty and ugliness, truth and falsehoods. You'll know who you are and what you can become. You might even get to be in my circle of friends (I mean, if you want to be friends...Check the yes or no box at the bottom of this note...No, I haven't grown up past 7th grade and I just want someone to check yes because nobody would check yes in the 7th grade and it scarred me and I wasn't able to kiss a girl until I was almost 18, ok, I was able but didn't get to and I think that it all had to do with the notes in 7th grade--what the hell is happening, I can't stop typing and revealing personal secrets, kill me now, somebody stop me pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!!!).

Having some education and/or life experiences will make motherhood more fulfilling because you'll appreciate the consequences of your role and will have maybe have a better idea of how to do it.

Having some education and/or life experiences will make you a better wife and spouse because you'll be an equal partner and he'll treat you like it. You'll be a confidant he can turn to because you'll be able to think out situations with him. You'll be a source of information, insight, and ideas. He'll be proud of you and will think of you as more than just an object and staff member in his household.

Having these will also have the benefit of pushing your husband to be a better person. He'll want to keep up with you. He'll want to do more than just watch sports and Sportscenter. He'll want to talk to you about stuff (always a tough one)! Anything you can do to help him be better, is good for you, too. That's a point to remember.

Truth #4 about dating and marriage for YM

Better check your Kelly Blue Book Value

Sometime in your adult life time you will own and car and want to sell it or trade it in for something else. You'll begin by searching out the car that you want. Maybe you're going to move up in the world--4 doors! Finally, you think that you might be able to afford a new car, or at least one that came off the assembly line within the last 5 years. The sticker price seems to be something within your price range--you don't have much for a down payment, but with the right interest rate and trade-in value on your current wheels you'll be in business.

So you go and get the Kelley Blue Book to find out what the value of your current car--just to make sure before you go to the dealer; you want to know what to expect. You think that it’s probably worth about $10,000 because that’s just a little bit less than what you paid for it 2 years ago (and that’s what you still owe on it). You open the pages and discover that your prized 1999 Honda Accord is only worth $3,000. Ouch!

You see, it’s hard to see what we really are sometimes. This is especially true when we try to evaluate ourselves and our readiness for marriage. You, my young, naive friend, are the automobile in question (and your bride-to-be, too). You think that you’re ready to get married, start a family and provide for children, etc--but I would like to offer a highly likely truth for your consideration: No, you are probably not ready.

Let’s review your resume. You highly likely to be a recently returned missionary who 1) has never had to provide shelter and food for himself (on his own dime! not Daddy's); 2) lives with several roommates now to pay the rent (maybe up to 5); 3) lived with a companion on your mission because you couldn't be trusted to behave on your own (hell, they didn't even trust you to own an emergency frequency radio for heaven's sake!); 4) oh, you probably haven’t had a real job yet (a real job is one that didn’t get from your dad or uncle, provides real benefits, and you wouldn’t be embarrassed to announce at sacrament Meeting at a normal ward--not at a singles ward or BYU married ward). Being a waiter at Olive Garden is an ok job if you’re single. Most kids don’t say, “I want to be a grocery bagger when I grow up.” 5) and you probably aren’t ready to get a real job in the next week or two.

Important note: I am all about making the best of your situation. If you are out of work or between jobs or just down on your luck, being a waiter at Olive Garden or being a grocery bagger is something you should do. There is absolutely no shame in that. The only shame in life is giving up in your role as breadwinner and doing nothing. I'm just saying that if your plans in life include supporting a family of more than 1, you had better make efforts and plans to be able to secure a regular income that will fulfill that goal. One more thing: there are lots of jobs that are just fine as second income sources (including being a waiter) that maybe don't pay a whole lot. Those are good, honorable jobs. But I am figuring that most of you YM are hoping to do the traditional breadwinning route where you can have the wife stay at home with the kids.

So, we've established that your economic Blue Book Value is less than optimal. That's ok. We can fix that and now that you know that we can help you make good choices before you make a mistake. Know is half the battle.

Before you're girlfriend/fiance gets all bent out of shape and drags out some quotes from some GA, let me clarify some things. I’m not saying that you have to be financially secure, have a career going yet, etc. to get married or have children. Church leaders have said otherwise and I agree with them. But you do need to be aware of your real worth as a husband and father. You have to have a plan of how you’re going to become financially secure. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that just because you served a mission you can now take on the obligations of a wife and children. RM doesn't just stand for Returned Missionary, it also stands for Really imMature economically (ok, so I couldn't come up with anything).

Sadly, many of your friends and peers are struggling because they were unaware or ignored the highly likely truth we're covering in this chapter. Also, many of them became a bit delusional as a result of Mission Related Ego Inflation Disorder (MREID for short). MREID causes RMs to have a sense of self that is unreal and disconnected from reality. They think that there isn't anything that they can't do and that there isn't anything they aren't entitled to because they served an honorable mission and their mission president told them that they had all sorts of blessings coming their way. There are other causes but let's move on. RMs suffering from MREID will challenge this chapter by proclaiming that they have lots of skills to offer and people who want to hire them. Unfortunately they don't get it--The CIA and States Department aren’t going to hire them and if a mission is all you got, just hope the employer doesn’t think Mormonism is a cult (highly likely outside of Utah, Idaho, California, and Arizona). Because you lived in a foreign country and speak a foreign language (Spanish most likely), you're now well qualified to be the assistant part-time shift manager at McDonalds helping to translate orders to the mexicans working the fryers. Or if you speak something like Korean, you can be the parts clerk at the regional KIA dealership who calls in special orders to the home factory in Seoul, South Korea. Wow! What career prospects! Serving a mission is a good thing (and very good for learning skills that will help you be a breadwinner one day) but it is not an internship at Microsoft or General Electric.

What can you do to remedy the situation? I'll share a couple of tips. If you are in college, pick a major and get going on it. Don't study something like art history or marine biology. Pick something that actually has a career track (moving from "Seal Pool Cleaner" to "Seal Feeder" to "Seal Trainer" to "Seal Show Performer" at Sea World is not a career track). A degree in Art History will only help you to appreciate the artistic elements of your struggle with poverty in a market economy that produces great wealth. Studying Forest Managment is great preparation for living in a van by the river...

Establish contacts and relationships with people who can actually help you. Your roommate who is great finding out about parties should no longer be the most important person you keep tight with. Brother Samuels, who is a regional manager for Johnson & Johnson should be the person you speak with on a regular basis.

Get a timeline going. Have a plan that has some security coming in the near future (meaning in the next 18-24 months). If you are a recent RM who still has 3 years of college left to go and your bride-to-be is 18 going on 19, you have no near term security in your future. Date for a while and milk your parents for a while longer. While you want to get married right now (see truth #2), you don't have to; you have some time to prepare yourself properly. The same is true for having kids. To be honest, I'm not sure why we let anyone under the age of 21 do anything important--vote, drink, marry, procreate (outside of Mormon-dom the last three usually go: drink, procreate, marry...). You're just too dumb until you get a wee bit older.

And last but not least (always the controversial point at the end!)--don't make "the Lord will provide" a part of your wedding and economic plan. Yes, you'll get some help and blessings for righteous living, but that doesn't mean that He will make a rich chocolate souffle from ramen noodles. He will help you improve what you create and supply. Remember on your mission the story about the missionary who couldn't speak the language but suddenly could for some occasion? What's common in all the stories? That the missionary studied his butt off trying to learn the language. He got divine help recalling his study--he didn't get new information magically planted in his head. The same goes for your welfare as a breadwinner--you'll get help if you prepare and put forth effort. I know that somewhere in the Old Testament is says something like, "For behold, prepare a full feast and harvest by the sweat of thy brow, but a warning to my people for when thou givest crap for an offering, crap shall be thy blessing and heritage..." (that's the New English Translation version)

You may be asking, well when will I know that my Blue Book Value is high enough? That's a difficult answer to quantify, but let's look at some likely factors: You should be able to pay for a place to live, transport yourself from place to place, eat, meet your other bill obligations, pay tithing, and have a little in savings--without getting any financial help from your parents, bishop, or the government (and you shouldn't have to use student loans to meet any of these expenses). If you have a car that's paid for (either by you or Dad), you need to factor in a car payment because one day you'll need to buy a new one (or make repairs to the current wheels). You also need to factor in car insurance since you'll be kicked off Dad's policy when you get married. The same goes for health insurance. Now, you can factor in income from both you and the wife-to-be but if you think that $1,300 a month is plenty, then you have another thing coming. If you can do the things listed above and are on the verge of having some good prospects near term, then you're much more highly likely to be ready to say "I do."

A Revelation?

Ok. I have some news to share. I don't know if this forum is the best place to do it, but it will have to do. I'm sharing this because I think that I need to address something about my image and the way people see me. I think that I can be misunderstood sometimes...

Let's get right to it: On Friday June 26th, I went down to the Phoenix Convention Center to audition for So You Think You Can Dance. And guess what--I was accepted to go to Las Vegas for the callbacks!!!!

However, I won't be going to Vegas because I later fessed up that I wasn't under 30 (the producers made a big point of telling us that had been given tickets that if we had lied on our applications and then gone on to Vegas that we would be in big trouble and would be enforcing the penalties listed in the Release forms).

Let me tell you about it: First, there were thousands of people. Lots of folks brought friends and family. I was by myself (4 kids outside in 100* weather sounds more fun than it is). There were freaks and attention-whores--you know the people who will do anything to get noticed and hopefully get on TV. Lots of people thinking that they needed to start warming up and practice their routine for hours. There wasn't a lot of guys (I thought that would help my chances--they need guys and so there wasn't as much competition). Anyway, we got in line and started the wait--that summaries the day: get in line and wait; do one or two things and then get in line a wait.

Once we got going inside, you have to turn in your paperwork and get your number. They then divide you up and you start the interview process. You go from producer to producer answering questions--they're looking for people who have interesting stories or who will be a big time embarassment on stage. I was hoping to play the big-tall-guy-who-hasn't-danced-in-years-but-not-giving-up-the-dream story, but they didn't seem to really care. I didn't see any of the judges or other famous folks walking around, but they had to have been there because you could hear people scream out names every now and then.

Some people were turned away after different interview sessions. After about 2-3 sessions, they put you in a screen room where they asked you to do a few dance moves and tell the camera that "I'm America's favorite dancer." Then we went to a room and had the opportunity to do part of your routine for a group of judges (although I didn't recognize any of them). Again, more were told "no thanks" and the rest of us moved on. By this time we were getting prepped to actually go on stage and dance. It was at this point I saw my first celeb--host Cat Deeley. Let me say a few things: She is TALL. You see it on TV, but she wasn't much shorter than me. She is a pencil and seems to have a much thicker accent in person. Anyway, she didn't interview all of us, but I did get a "Finally, a dancer I can look up to!". That was actually kind of exciting.

So, before heading on stage, we went to a staging area to turn in our CDs (they have very specific rules on the music you bring). Then you sit down and wait to be called up. They bring you up in groups of 5 at a time. You can hear most of the judges comments but not all of them. Once you are in the group of 5 waiting, you can hear them much better and it makes you very nervous.It was a little after 3 pm by the time I got on stage. I decided to do a jazz-contemporary routine. Since I haven't done choreographed dance in years, I had gone on YouTube to find a routine. I found one from season 2 auditions that went over really well. I spent several weeks practicing it and I think that I had it down well. I even did the same music: "Calabria" by Enur.

It went as well as I could hope. They let me do the whole routine--at the time, I didn't know if that was a good thing or not. Nigel was nice, said I brought a lot of energy and moved well for being such a tall dancer. Mary Murphy was nice but didn't say much (which kind of shocked me), and the third judge, Lil' C said I needed more technique work and needed to find my connection to the movement (not sure what he meant). They then went back and forth for a bit and talked about wanting to have someone who could bring some size and manliness to the program (the routine was not so gay). So they said that I had potential and should prove my worth in Vegas! I could hardly speak. I did a little jig and then ran to get my ticket.

Anyways, there are lots of things that you do after dancing on stage, but the short of it is there is a big lecture on keeping things confidential and following the rules in the Release form, etc. They put it out there that this was the time to "Come to Jesus" about things they needed to know. That's where I decided to get out now--so I didn't incur any penalities. They were upset, but not so much and I don't think that they were surprised either. That probably means that I won't be on TV at all, but that's not why I did it. I did it for the love of dance and art. I don't hate happiness; I don't hate beauty. I love it and I love artistic expression. I hope to be on a Broadway stage one day. Wish me luck!

More on that revelation...

Did you really think that I was that gay?!?!? Of course, I didn't audition or any of that. Watching "So You Think You Can Dance" has only confirmed to me that I will never enroll my boys in dance classes--I want them to be STRAIGHT and not dream about either being a dancer or fashion designer. I don't want to see my son doing a contemporary dance about flower petals while wearing a spandex. I don't want to worry about my son telling me--"I've got a part in Hairspray. I'm going to be Edna Turnblad."

Anyway, I hope that you had a good laugh.