Real Reality TV

Today we had stake conference. We had a visiting area authority, Elder Phippen. He spoke about a lot of different things, but my favorite part was when he talked about how wonderful the women of the church are. He said he's not really into the primetime waste of time on TV and he thinks that Reality TV is really stupid, but he'd love to write a reality TV show. It would be something like Survivor, but the contestants would be 6 adult men. They would be dropped off on a remote island with 4 children and would be 100% responsible for the care of children and house for six weeks. They would be required to provide 3 meals a day (no fast food restaurants on the island), they'd be required to plant flowers outside the house and decorate the inside of the house. They would have to balance an imaginary checkbook with not enough money to pay all the imaginary bills and still figure out where money would come from to buy groceries. All 4 children would be involved in 2 sports and some type of music lessons. The men would be responsible for taking all 4 children to a doctors appointment, a dentist appointment, and some type of emergency visit. He went on and on about the requirements that mothers deal with daily and then said the children would be the ones to vote each loser off the island and the winners prize would be to live that way for the next 20 years and any monetary prize won would be given to his real wife at home. He then challenged the men in the congregation to trade places with their wives and make the reality show a reality, and then talked about how amazing women are. As I listened to him I thought about my friend Nicole's blog, and all of her experiences raising her two small children while working part time; then I thought of my sister in law Nicole who is responsible for her small son, while being 8 months pregnant, while Todd is away at school and work, trying to help the family by being the supporter. I then thought of all the other mothers that I know who sacrifice their time and effort raising the next generation. Lastly I thought of my mother, who is pretty much done with the hectic mom stages and I look back at all the things I never even realized my mom did, but that obviously got done. I realize that I can't really get as good a grasp on being a mother as the rest of you who actually are, but let me just say Thanks. My hat is off to all of you wonderful women who put aside your life for things of a better. And to my mom, please know that I love you and appreciate all the times when I was the most important thing in your life.