How Should Parents Teach Daughters to Aspire to Marriage and Family?

Families, communities, states, and nations are stronger when young women are encouraged to consider marriage and family to be an important part of life. In her article published at the Deseret News, Amanda Freebairn discussed the value of parents “Teaching your daughters to aspire to marriage and family is a good thing.” She added that parents must be direct and open about these teachings; otherwise, other forces will convince them to go a different way. 

For years, popular stories in the media landscape have treated commitment, and in particular family life, as the thing a serious young woman must outgrow in order to become her best self. Girls hear the message early: Don’t build your life around love and family too soon or you’ll drown in drudgery.

Encouraging marriage and family, on the other hand, has been seen as cringe and religiously fundamentalist, at best – and, at worst, as dangerous and misogynistic. The true modern woman proves her strength by staying unencumbered: career first, autonomy above all, and relationships only pursued when they don’t make too many demands.

The messaging is relentless enough that women of faith can sometimes be swept away. And as our daughters get pulled in certain directions by the gravitational force of this pervasive message, I’ve come to believe that it’s urgent to be even more up front and honest with them about what matters most.

Women should, of course, be educated, financially capable, and free to pursue meaningful work. But starting a family of one’s own can also require as much planning, sacrifice and serious preparation as any professional considerations.

A culture that treats paid work as the highest measure of meaning will inevitably downplay distinct life-giving and life-sustaining capacities women embody – biological, emotional and relational. One can affirm women’s equality without pretending the sexes are the same and honor women’s ambitions without treating caregiving as a lesser form of contribution.

When we treat caregiving as secondary, we shouldn’t be surprised to see social life begin to fray. In the last 40 years, work that has been traditionally done by women (birthing, feeding, teaching and caring for the children, keeping the home, building communities, caring for the sick and elderly) has become increasingly outsourced or abandoned altogether.

At the same time, our society has become steadily more depressed, addicted, obese, and lonely than ever. High school girls are now more than 10 percentage points less likely than boys to say they want to get married some day. In one recent poll, Gen Z women ranked being married and having children 10^th and 11^th most important on a list of attributes that make a life successful (after five economic conditions and “emotional stability” but before “fame and influence”).

But the “you can have it all” era has been cracking for years. Anne-Marie Slaughter’s widely read Atlantic essay “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” put words to what many professional women felt: It was always unreasonable to expect women to “manage to rise up the ladder as fast as men and also have a family and an active home life (and be thin and beautiful to boot).” …

This might be good news. Many women I know have grown tired of the power woman vision of success. It simply doesn’t work as well as many women have hoped….

Young parents today now have the opportunity to change the culture of ow we empower our daughters. Along with other positive messages we might share, let’s be willing to boldly teach them to aspire to marriage and family.

I’m not simply arguing that women should consider marriage and children the way they might consider a city to live in or a hobby to take up. I’m saying that parents should teach their daughters early and unapologetically that building a family is a very important good: a central way human beings give and receive love, learn responsibility, and create something that outlasts them.

Treating family as one lifestyle choice among many doesn’t just expand options; it tells girls that commitment is negotiable, that caregiving is second-rate, and that postponing love carries no cost.

The sociological data probably needs no repletion, but given these times, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the boost to social connection and stable childhood outcomes that comes from stable marriages – compared to the significant consequences for children that follow divorce.

My faith as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gives me additional language for this. “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” called the family “central” to our life’s purpose, and we are taught that unlike our worldly careers or possessions, we can find joy with our families in the eternities.

None of this means marriage alone is a guaranteed path to happiness or success…. Having frank conversations about love and marriage can play a preventive role – providing parents opportunities to teach girls what healthy love looks like, how to recognize warning signs, and how to walk away when they must.

Of course, marriage and family shouldn’t be the only aspiration young girls are permitted to have. Many women can balance fulfilling family and professional lives….

Madeleine Albright once said, “Women can have it all, just not at the same time.” This is not an insult to women’s ambition, it is a testament to our freedom – freedom to take one season of life at a time and decide where, in that moment, our own gifts are best used.

Like the author, I believe that parents should encourage their daughters to gain an education and/or training to allow her to support themselves and any children. I believe that parents should model a healthy and happy marriage to show their daughters the importance of marriage and family. Parents should also say and do things to help their daughters to develop confidence in themselves and their abilities.