GENEVA -- A secure foundation for the future is only found within the realm of the family, where mothers and fathers recognize their separate and distinct roles and are not afraid to play them.
That according to leaders of the LDS Church's Relief Society and Young Women organizations who spoke Monday to the World Congress of Families II.President Mary Ellen Smoot of the general Relief Society said that in addition to fighting legislation that erodes family life, parents must teach enduring values. Family stability is formed when parents "teach their children fundamental spiritual principles that instill faith in God, reliance upon their family and allegiance to their country."
Honest labor, debt avoidance, efficient use of resources, self-sufficiency, and avoidance of pornography are also paramount to building strong family life. Moral virtues such as integrity, civility, respect for life, chastity before marriage and fidelity in the marital relationship are also required, she said.
When she projected an overhead slide of her own family behind the conference dais, showing seven children and 47 grandchildren, President Smoot received enthusiastic applause.
"Marriage and raising children are not only the beginning of strong families, however. They are the key to keeping our nations vital and strong," she said.
President Margaret Nadauld of the Young Women used a story to illustrate the importance of traditional family life and public policy that supports it.
She told of a mountain village that had long employed a caretaker to keep clean the streams that fed the town, but city officials dismissed him and built a cement reservoir to purify the water supply instead.
But the water became stagnant, impure and eventually carried a disease epidemic into every home in the village. The city council realized its mistake and begged the caretaker to return.
"There will always be a need for the people of the springs. The headwaters of those springs are the families of this world. But in many ways our homes and families are becoming polluted" by media influences that denigrate moral principles and particularly the role of women as mothers.
"May well-educated women never apologize for those traditions that have made the family strong. May our daughters aspire to noble womanhood and motherhood."
Elder Bruce Hafen of the First Quorum of the Seventy also addressed the role of women at the congress Tuesday. Historically, women have been exploited by men because of their innate sense of selflessness and willingness to sacrifice, he said.
"If being 'selfless' means a woman must give up her own inner identity and personal growth, that understanding of selflessness is wrong. That was a weakness in some versions of the Victorian model of motherhood, which viewed women as excessively dependent on their husbands.
"But today's liberationist model goes too far the other way, stereotyping women as excessively independent of their families. A more sensible view is that husbands and wives are interdependent with each other," he said, citing the LDS Church's Proclamation on the Family, which says spouses are "equal partners" who "help one another" fulfill their "divine roles."
"Those who moved mothers from selflessness to selfishness skipped the fertile middle ground of self-chosen service that contributes toward a woman's personal growth."