I wonder why I was asked to fulfill this humbling assignment about raising children. I am sure that most of you have knowledge and experiences that my husband and I can learn from, but I have the assignment! My husband and I have eleven children, all of whom are girls except seven! Our oldest is 35, and our youngest is 14. We call these two our bookends. Our oldest returned from his mission to a 3 month old baby brother he had never met. We have been in the trenches for a long time. Maybe something said here tonight might be of help to someone here.

All of us have our own opinions and ideas about raising children. Our strongest opinions were held while we were still single, when we maintained “No kid of mine will ever...” That was before we were worn down in the actual arena. Many of my opinions went by the wayside when I became a parent and realized the sobering truth that we were in this for the long haul, that we were never going to sleep the same again, and that we had better do our best to get it right.

Many of my opinions changed when I considered the teachings of our Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the prophets. Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all they heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct thy paths.” That scripture became a guiding light. I believe that when our personal opinions conflict with Church teachings, that the teachings of the Church prevail.

Consider the Church's teaching on dating...which is that young people do not date until they are sixteen, and then only in groups. We might be tempted to say, “But my child is more mature at fourteen than others are at sixteen!” Or, “I dated at fourteen, and I turned out alright!” Or, “My God would never ...”. We tend to do that all the time. We hear a commandment or teaching and say, “But I think...”Then we are counseling God. When we do this, we are creating a God that is belittled by our opinions and ideas. We are worshiping a false God, and so does that make us idol worshipers? Besides, as our current Young Woman General President Ardith Kapp said, “It has nothing to do with being sixteen. It has everything to do with obedience.” And dating is not the missionary program of the Church. Dating non-members, hoping they will become interested in the church usually doesn't work out. Of course, non-member friends can and should be friendshipped without dating. They can be invited to attend group activities and meetings without actually pairing off.

Raising children begins long before the child is born. The best thing I ever did for my children was to marry their father in a holy temple. When each child was born, and they were wrapped up like little sausages in the hospital nursery, not only was ours obviously a little cuter and smarter-looking than the other little sausages, but ours had invisible initials behind their names. Those initials were BIC, which is short for Born in the Covenant. They were already inheritors of all the blessings of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They were already sealed and strengthened by this great blessing. They started life with the advantages of the temple covenants, which can serve as an armor against wickedness.

I worried when we were expecting our second baby... that I wouldn't be able to love another child as much as our first. I hadn't yet learned the mathematics of baby love. That baby love doesn't divide, it multiplies, and it really multiplies when other siblings welcome a new baby into the family.

We had decided as a couple that I would be a career woman, and that my career would be as far as possible, to stay at home rearing our children. It wasn't always easy financially, and we understand that sometimes it isn't possible, as much as desired. Today, I work outside the home, teaching learning disable d children, but for over 25 years, I was a stay-at-home mom. Pres. Kimball said, “Too many mothers work away from home to furnish sweaters, and music lessons and trips and fun for their children. Too many women spend their time in socializing, in politicking, in public services when they should be home to teach and train and receive and love their children into security.”

A child needs a mother more than all the things money can buy. Again, there are situations where the mother must work outside the home. I have been blessed to be able to go to college, serve a mission, teach school, get married, be a wife and a mother, and then teach school again. We can have it all! We just can't have it all at once.

It is very difficult to raise a large family on one income. Nobody needs to tell us how difficult it is, but one good thing is that our children were never spoiled by having too much of the wrong things. We learned that children have more fun with empty boxes than expensive toys, and that they learned how to entertained themselves by playing together. Their brothers and sisters were their best friends. Their father was very involved in spending time playing and working with them. Two of our sons used to walk around the house with their arms around each other chanting, “We are buddies. Special, special buddies.” That special closeness exists today. We had kneeling family prayer twice a day, and we all ate together at breakfast and dinner almost always. Our children left for school strengthened by scripture reading, eating breakfast together, and the phrase, “Remember who you are.” ringing in their ears.

We believe that one of the greatest things parents can lovingly teach their children is to be obedient. The prophet Samuel told King Saul, that “to obey is better than sacrifice. Being obedient is a skill that many parents fail to provide for their children, causing unnecessary strife and heartache, as the child grows older.

When children are very young, they can be lovingly taught simple obedience. Maybe they are asked to put their toys away. You may have to take their little hand in yours, pick up the toy and put it in the right place. We all need to know there are things that need to be done even when we don't want to do them. A familiar phrase at home, is “You don't have to like it...you just have to do it. One thing we can all realize is that a great deal of the work in the world is done by people who are tired, and maybe even sick. Don't fall for the excuse...”It's so boring!”

Reply that “Only boring people get bored.” Really smart people can figure out says to entertain themselves doing routine things. Our basement storeroom was also known as the slammer, where disobedient children were sent to think upon their sins, or to re-think their actions. Children learn from consequences. One of our little boys started spitting at his siblings. It was decided that he would spit into the toilet 100 times, and count out loud so that I could hear him. Spitting a hundred times is very hard. After a while, the mouth dries up, and takes a while for the mouth to produce enough moisture to spit. I heard him say, “32-spit, 33-spit, 24-spit. I'm never going to do THAT again!”

The Church has asked us to have Family Home Evenings and to read the scriptures with our children. We had a whole stack of inexpensive paperback blue and maroon Books of Mormon near our dining room table. Each morning while I was getting breakfast, we would take turns reading the scriptures. Each would read five verses. Some of our children claim they learned to read that way. They youngest would repeat a word or phrase read after a parent or older sibling, and when they had finished one verse, they would beam as everyone cheered and clapped for them.

We knew our children were remembering the teachings from the scriptures when we received the following not from one of our boys who was planning to run away from home. He wrote, “It is better that one boy should perish, than a family dwindle in unbelief. It is not because of you that I am leaving, it is because of some of the other guys. I think you will have a better life if I leave.” tTe spelling was a little difficult for one that young, but we knew what he meant.

We did pretty well with Family Home Evening, though not perfectly. However, when our prophets asked us to use at least one night per week, they didn't mean that was all the time we could spend. Thanks to their Dad;s involvement and encouragement, we played many family games together, outside such as steal the flag, baseball, flashlight wars, water fights,and a family game nobody else knows how to play...flippers! There were as well many indoor games such a sock wars,board games and mental puzzles that took days to figure out.

Teaching children to work is important, and we expected the boys to do their share of indoor work, as well as the girls working outside. It is a mistake to ask a child to go clean the bathroom, when they don't know what that entails. We made laminated how-to chore charts with directions as to what needed done. On the back were simple pictures for those that didn't read. Very little children can do simple chores, such as keeping bathroom paper in place, emptying small wastebaskets into larger ones, setting tables, putting away towels and washcloths from the laundry.

We have no dishwasher, so that is made easier by working together with each person being given a specific task, and while doing them, singing songs. Some favorites were “Only a Boy Named David”, The Arkansas Traveler”, and “Old Dan Tucker” were some of the favorites.

When our children grew old enough to get jobs outside the home, they hoed beets, moved hand and wheel lines, babysat, milked cows, had paper routes, worked in grocery stores and fast food establishments. Gratefully, they were willing to help the family out during difficult financial times. Several times some bought shoes for younger siblings, and were willing to help out in other ways. While on my mission in Scotland, I saw young people work and turn over their entire paycheck to their parents, to help the family. They might receive a little spending money back, but it wasn't considered their money. It was expected they would help the family. Maybe it is only a United States custom that what children earn is entirely theirs.

People used to tell us, “Just wait until they're teenagers!” We waited, but honestly didn't have the big problems we were told to expect. Fortunately we were poor enough that there was no question of our kids having cars of their own, which alone does away with many problems. Also, having a curfew, and expecting to know where they were going and with whom, was helpful. We really appreciated a young man one of our girls went with. He would come to the house to pick her up and tell us, “We are going to such and such a place, and I will have your daughter home by such and such a time.” You guys, if you want to impress a girl's parents, remember that line. We are sometimes surprised when hearing young people with immature judgment are allowed to be out late at night, with parents having no idea where they were. Are their many spouses, who would feel comfortable with their husbands or wives being out and not knowing where they were or when they would be home? If we weren't waiting up for them they were to wake us when they came in. I heard of one mother who slept in the child's bed, and had to be awakened when he or she returned.

Something I heard a General Authority say when I was young, was that youth shouldn't challenge their parents authority by saying, “Don't you trust me?” He answered, “Of course I don't trust you. I wouldn't trust myself in certain situations. Satan is so old and wise, and has been deceiving the human race for so long that we don't stand much of a chance if we aren't very careful,” I might add, “Ok, I do trust you, but I don't trust your friends, whom I barely know.”

There are many other things that can be said about strengthening youth, and you could add many ways that have worked for you. A very sobering thought for me, is to think of what answer we will give to someone who asks what I would do if I had the chance to go back and do the things you had left undone. That question might come up during the half hour of silence at the Savior's second coming. Also, it might come up as we lie on our death beds. Most of us, knowing that in a short time we would face our Creator, would wonder, as I would, why in the world did I waste so much time not doing the things the Lord has asked us to do.

Perhaps that sobering thought would help us prioritize the most important things in life, which I believe for each of us, would be to live our lives more worthily, and to do all in our power to bring our children to Christ so we could live together as forever families.