The Sacred Roles of Fathers and Mothers

To share more ideas about how mothers can nurture their children, have participants turn to pages 45–47 in the Marriage and Family Relations Participant’s Study Guide. Ask them to look for President Ezra Taft Benson’s 10 suggestions on what mothers can do to spend effective time with their children. As participants find these suggestions, list them on the chalkboard as shown below. Discuss the benefits of following each of the suggestions.


1. Be at the crossroads.

6. Be together at mealtimes.


2. Be a real friend.

7. Read scriptures daily.


3. Read to your children.

8. Do things as a family.


4. Pray with your children.

9. Teach your children.


5. Have weekly home evenings.

10. Truly love your children.



Point out that latter-day prophets have emphasized the importance of mothers staying home with their children rather than entering the workplace. Share the following statement by President Gordon B. Hinckley, the 15th President of the Church:

“There are some women (it has become very many, in fact) who have to work to provide for the needs of their families. To you I say, do the very best you can. I hope that if you are employed full-time you are doing it to ensure that basic needs are met and not simply to indulge a taste for an elaborate home, fancy cars, and other luxuries. The greatest job that any mother will ever do will be in nurturing, teaching, lifting, encouraging, and rearing her children in righteousness and truth. None other can adequately take her place” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1996, 93; or Ensign, Nov. 1996, 69).

As you conclude this section of the lesson, share one or both of the following statements:

While serving as First Counselor in the First Presidency, President Gordon B. Hinckley said: “I remind mothers everywhere of the sanctity of your calling. No other can adequately take your place. No responsibility is greater, no obligation more binding than that you rear in love and peace and integrity those whom you have brought into the world” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1993, 79; or Ensign, Nov. 1993, 60).

Speaking to mothers, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said: “Yours is the grand tradition of Eve, the mother of all the human family, the one who understood that she and Adam had to fall in order that ‘men [and women] might be’ [2 Nephi 2:25] and that there would be joy. Yours is the grand tradition of Sarah and Rebekah and Rachel, without whom there could not have been those magnificent patriarchal promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob which bless us all. Yours is the grand tradition of Lois and Eunice [see 2 Timothy 1:5] and the mothers of the 2,000 stripling warriors. Yours is the grand tradition of Mary, chosen and foreordained from before this world was, to conceive, carry, and bear the Son of God Himself. We thank all of you, including our own mothers, and tell you there is nothing more important in this world than participating so directly in the work and glory of God, in bringing to pass the mortality and earthly life of His daughters and sons, so that immortality and eternal life can come in those celestial realms on high” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1997, 48; or Ensign, May 1997, 36; see also pages 44–45 in the Marriage and Family Relations Participant’s Study Guide).

Fathers and mothers are to help one another as equal partners.

Note: If you are teaching this lesson on its own and have not taught lesson 10, consider beginning this section of the lesson with the statement by President Boyd K. Packer on page 49 of this manual.

Refer participants to the following statement in the proclamation on the family: “In [their] sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners.”