Appreciating the Physicality of Birth

My husband is taking a class on Isaiah and the other day he came home excited to share something his teacher had shared in class. In Isaiah 3 it talks about leadership and my husband’s teacher pointed out that it is important in order to have effective leadership in the home, in church, in society and in government you need to have the talent and strengthens of both men and women. The teacher asked the class

When you think of the word “Spiritual” what gender do you generally think of?

They replied… Women.

When you think of the word “Physical” what gender do you generally think of?

They replied… Men.

He then continued and said that generally in most societies men’s lives are more physically based– they are biologically physically stronger, they do most of the hard physical work in the family, and in general their minds are more “physically” minded than women’s. Women’s lives on the other hand are generally more spiritually based– they focus on creating relationships, they do more of the nurturing and caring work in the family, they are more likely than men to be religious and to join a church, and generally they are more “spiritually” minded than they are “physically” minded.

I thought that this was so interesting and being the birth nut that I am I immediately saw how this applied to my previous post about the importance of birth.

It is so interesting to me that men, whose minds are more physically oriented, are asked to do the more spiritual work in God’s kingdom. In D&C 121:41-42 it says that the powers of the priesthood are only to be used through persuasion, long suffering, gentleness, meekness, love unfeigned and kindness. These are qualities that are usually considered to be more feminine and which some men, if not given the opportunity to practice them, wouldn’t ever develop. It seems to me that God had eternal lessons for his son’s to learn that could only be learned by listening to their spiritual self and learning to yield to it.

On the other hand it is interesting that to women, who are more spiritually minded, God gave the more physical work of God’s kingdom. Women, who are physically weaker (generally), were given the hard physical task of bearing children. For most women pregnancy, labor and birth are the hardest things they will ever do physically. Carrying and giving birth to a child requires a great deal of endurance, faith in your body’s ability, listening to and trusting your body, learning how to handle pain, learning to let go, sheer strength and willpower. Lots of women wouldn’t ever stretch their bodies and their souls in that sort of physical unless they were forced to. God didn’t have to design childbirth to be physically hard, but he did. I think it is because He knew that his spiritually minded daughters needed to learn eternal lessons that could only be learned by learning to listen to their physical selves and learning to trust their bodies.

I think that way too often we look over the significance of birth and of the experience women have during it. I know women who are terrified of becoming pregnant, women who when they are pregnant are terrified of labor, and women who in labor are terrified of becoming mothers. I can’t help but wonder how their perspective on birth would change if they realized that the reason God gave women the physical trial of birth was to strengthen them spiritually and that there are important eternal lessons to be learned from the process.

We do so much to teach young men about the importance of their priesthood callings and we help prepare them for the hard work they have ahead of them as missionaries and as leaders. From a young age young men know that what they are going to be asked to do will be hard but that they will be given strengthen from God to handle it.

Why don’t we teach our young women from a young age that what they are going to be called to do will be hard, physically, but that God will give them the strength to handle it. Why aren’t we teaching them about the symbolism and importance of birth and motherhood? Why aren’t we helping prepare them, from the time they are 12, to handle the physicality of bearing children and motherhood? I can’t help but think that if we were doing these things that not as many women would be scared of becoming mothers.

I think that if men and women really understood the power and symbolism behind birth that the birth process would be treated much differently that it is. I also think that motherhood would be more valued in society.