Dear Gramps,
My husband and I are college students with the recent addition of a sweet, beautiful baby.  I think it’s time for me to be finished with school now so I can devote myself to being the wife and mother I love so much to be, but could use some good quotes about the need for mothers to stay in the home to help break it to my family, some of which are very education oriented, and even to steel myself a bit.  I’m really excited about staying home, but it’s a pretty big change.
Samantha, from Rexburg, Idaho

Dear Samantha,
What a wise choice you have made! Here are the words of some of the brethren on the subject—

“President Ezra Taft Benson expressed it clearly: The Lord has charged men with the responsibility to provide for their families in such a way that the wife is allowed to fulfill her role as mother in the home.  Sometimes the mother works outside of the home at the encouragement, or even insistence, of her husband  [for the] convenience[s] that the extra income can buy. Not only will the family suffer in such instances, brethren, but your own spiritual growth and progression will be hampered (Elder L. Tom Perry, Fatherhood, an Eternal Calling, Ensign, May 2004, p.69).

“Through the restored gospel we learn there is an ideal family. It is a family composed of a righteous Melchizedek Priesthood bearer with a righteous wife sealed to him and children born in the covenant or sealed to them. With a mother in the home in an environment of love and service, the parents teach their children, through example and precept, the ways of the Lord and His truths. They fulfill their divinely appointed roles mentioned in the family proclamation” Elder Richard G. Scott, First Things First, Ensign, May 2001, p.6.

“As I travel throughout the Church, I feel that the great majority of Latter-day Saint mothers earnestly want to follow this counsel. But we know that sometimes the mother works outside of the home at the encouragement, or even insistence, of her husband. It is he who wants the items of convenience that the extra income can buy. Not only will the family suffer in such instances, brethren, but your own spiritual growth and progression will be hampered. I say to all of you, the Lord has charged men with the responsibility to provide for their families in such a way that the wife is allowed to fulfill her role as mother in the home”(President Ezra Taft Benson, To the Fathers in Israel, Ensign, November 1987, p.48)

Gramps