Leadership Parenting Book List

Title	Author	Discussion Date
Boundaries	Henry Cloud	9/27/12
Little Britches	Ralph Moody	10/25/12
Nurtured By Love	Shinichi Suzuki	11/29/12
One Minute Mother	Spencer Johnson	01/03/13
Pride & Prejudice	Jane Austen	01/31/13
Boys Adrift	Leonard Sax	02/28/13
These Happy Golden Years	Laura Ingalls Wilder	03/28/13
Love and Respect	Emerson Eggerichs	04/25/13
Betsy-Tacy	Maud Hart Lovelace	05/23/13
7 Habits of Highly Effective Families	Stephen R. Covey	1 chapter per month Sept-May

• It is highly recommended and encouraged that you purchase all the books upfront. The biggest road block to a successful discussion in the past has been people not getting the books in time to get them read.
• Meetings will be held at my house from 7:30 to 9:00 PM.
• Be sure to find the full version of Boundaries, ISBN 0-310-58590-2.
• Thanks so much! I am looking forward to getting going again!

Robyn's Award Winning Story

In The Cellar

One stormy night Violet lay shivering in her bed listening to the thunder crashing and the rain pitter-pattering on the roof overhead. Her room in this old house that her family had just moved into seemed empty and eerie. "Oh I wish I could be in our old house where I knew that it was safe," she thought to herself.

Suddenly, as the noise of the storm moved away, she thought she heard another scarier sound. A whimpering noise was coming from the cellar directly underneath her room. She got nervously out of bed and crept toward the cellar to check it out. Before she got there her mother ,who was busily unpacking the kitchen, stopped her.

"Go back to bed, Violet," her mom said.

"But mom..."

Her mom cut her off. "Go back to bed now, Violet!"

Violet went sulkily back to bed.

The whimpering sound continued. Finally around midnight she couldn't stand it anymore! She had to find out what it was! She got out of bed again and tiptoed quietly over to the cellar.

It was pitch black as she entered the cellar. She needed a flashlight. She soundlessly stole back up to her room, got a flashlight out of her backpack and tiptoed back to the top of the stairs leading down to the cellar.

As she entered the cellar something growled uneasily at her from behind the furnace. Violet carefully crept over to the furnace and found the source of the growl and the whimpering. It was a big black dog.

His foot was stuck in a rat trap. She gently whispered kind words to the dog until it let her take his foot out of the rat trap. She found the dog some food and gently led him back to bed. Both Violet and the dog slept well in the safety of each other's company all the rest of that dark night.

Violet was thrilled the next morning when her parents let her keep the dog. They lived happily ever after.

Alas, Babylon

I love this book! Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank is classic. I learn so much more each time I read it. It is a fun and easy read while still not being piffle. I love the characters and the lessons they teach me. One character that I paid especial attention to this time was Helen.
I loved how Mark described Helen to Randy on p. 36 in my copy of the book.
She's my right arm..... She's all the woman I ever needed. She was like this: Back when I was a captain and we were moving from rented apartment to rented apartment every year or so, I got a terrific offer from Boeing. She knew what I wanted. I didn't even have to tell her. She said, “I want you to stay in SAC. I think you should. I think you ought to be a general and you're going to be a general.” There's an old saying that anyone can make it to Colonel on his own, but it takes a wife to make a general. I guess there wasn't quite enough time, but had there been, she would've had her star. …. She's all woman and that's what she's made for.
So different from how Dan Gunn's first wife was described on p. 55.
His wife apparently had been extravagant, a nympho, a one-drink alcoholic, and a compulsive gambler. She'd recoiled at the thought of living in Equatorial Africa or a delta village in India, and pestered him to set up practice in New York or Los Angeles, where the big money was. When Dan refused, she took to spending weekends in New York, an easy pick up at her favorite bar in the Fifties. So he'd been a gentleman and let her go to Reno and get the divorce. When her luck ran out she returned East, filed suit for alimony, and the judge had given her everything she'd asked. Now she lived in Los Angeles and each week shoveled the alimony into bingo games or pari-mutuel machines, and Dan's career was ended before it had begun.
Fabulous illustration on how much influence a wife can have. I want to be like Helen!

P.135 has another fabulous example of Helen the day to bombs dropped. She had been a bit panicked when it first happened, but snapped out of it when Peyton needed her and she was able to calmly handle the rest of the day. That evening, “The meal was only soup, salad, and sandwiches, but Helen had laid the table as meticulously as if Dan Gunn had agreed to stay for a late supper on an ordinary evening.” I am sure that Helen's calm and meticulous manner helped everyone deal with the emergency better. Many of the other women took resources from the community as they fell apart, but Helen contributed to the community with her food and her ability to make the home feel warm, comfortable, and somehow safe even during those first few days after the crisis. I want to be like Helen!

The final example that I'll share about Helen is how she helped nurse all the injured people in her own little community. She was a huge help to Dr. Gunn and she was quick to observe what to do and how to do it. Especially when Dr. Gunn needed the nursing, she was indispensable. Her concern and attention to Dr. Gunn ultimately saved everyone as it was her reading the journal that lead to the discovery of the salt.

If Helen would have tried to compete with the men to prove how “equal” she was, the situation would have been far worse. It is best to embrace your strengths and do what you can do. All of the characters did this and things worked out well for them. I personally want to develop more of Helen's qualities so I can live my best life whether there is an emergency or life just goes on normally.

Laddie by Gene Stratton Porter

Let thy soul delight in thy husband.
D&C 25:14

Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.
Proverbs 31:10

That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
Titus 2:4,5

I love the book Laddie by Gene Stratton Porter. There are so many pearls of wisdom within it's pages! As a result of a recent Relief Society lesson that I taught, the theme that I was looking for this time around was family form, specifically as it relates to me as a wife and mother.

Mrs Stanton is an excellent example. She is amazing in her devotion to her family and her husband. She keeps a beautiful home, is beautiful, and well learned. She is a joy and a comfort to her husband. A perfect example of what Proverbs 31, Titus 2 and Doctrine and Covenants 25 all are talking about. Because “the heart of her husband” can safely trust her, he values her opinion and listens to her when she puts “her foot down – flat- most unmercifully flat (p.397)”. For example, when Leon has disappeared and the money is gone.

Father started to say something, and mother held up her hand and just said, “Paul!” and he sank back in the chair and kept still. Mother always had spoken of him as “the Head of the Family,” and here he wasn't at all! He minded her quickly as I would. (p. 173)

Contrast that with Mrs. Pryor. Mrs. Pryor spends the entire story a sickly victim, blaming her husband and worrying about her son. At the end of the story, Mr. Pryor has just had a stroke after coming to try to shoot his own son for supposedly stealing his money. Mrs. Pryor doesn't even want to see him or seem to care how he is. Little Sister says, “I guess the biggest thing the matter with the Pryors was that they didn't know how to go about loving each other right: maybe it was because they didn't love God, so they couldn't know exactly what proper love was: because God is love, like father said. (p.394)” Without biblical principles in their marriage, the Pryors are a good example of bad family form. Mrs. Pryor's sadness and family problems were just as much her fault as Mr. Pryor's.

After all Mrs. Pryor didn't need to sit back on her dignity and look so abused. He couldn't knock her down, and drag her clear here. Why didn't she say right out, in the beginning, that her son couldn't be a thief, that she knew it, and she'd stay at home and wait for him to come back? She could have put a piece in the paper saying she knew her boy was all right, and for him to come back, so they could go to work to prove it. I bet if she'd had one tenth of the ginger mother has, she'd have stopped the whole fuss in the start. I looked at her almost steadily, trying to figure out just what mother would have done in her place. Maybe I'm mistaken about exactly how she would have set to work, but this I know: she'd have stuck to the Lord; she'd have loved father, so dearly, he just couldn't have wanted her to do the things that hurt her until it gave her heart trouble; and she never, never would have given up one of us, and sat holding her heart for months, refusing to see of to speak to any one, while she waited for some one else to do something. Mother never waits. She always things a minute, if she's in doubt she asks father; if he can't decide, both of them ask God' and then you ought to see thing begin to fly (p. 395).

Many people are turned off by the scriptures that use words like obey and submit when referring to a wife's role. They erroneously equate these scriptures with a Mrs. Pryor-like wife, a victim to be used by her husband. Mrs. Pryor was a doormat, she was not obedient or submissive. She may have gone along with Mr. Pryor in body (she did move to the states with him) but she did not submit her will to his and he knew it. They were not united and they did not have a good marriage. The Stanton's, on the other hand, had a marriage based on biblical principles and it was marriage worth working for. Mrs. Stanton said, “To be a good wife and mother is the end toward which I aspire. To hold the respect and love of my husband is the greatest object of my life (p. 289).” Compare the power and influence of the two women, I'll stick with Mrs. Stanton and Lord's way of family form.

Happiness

My thoughts upon reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics book I and Plato's The Republic book VII - Allegory of the Cave


As I have made my journey through life, I have often felt like a prisoner in Plato's allegorical cave blinking in a ridiculous manner when presented with too much light all at once. And I have, more than a few times, after having received some light, tried to help my fellow prisoners escape the dark only to quickly discover that they aren't ready for that much light all at once. One truth that these experiences have taught me is that most virtues, talents, habits and other good things are simply skills. They are skills that almost anyone can master if we choose to master them. We can only work as fast as our eyes can adjust to the light, but with consistent effort we can keep moving toward more light and knowledge. Happiness is one such virtue that I have been seeking.



My journey towards happiness began eight years ago. My husband had just graduated with his master's degree in computer engineering and had gotten a “real” job. We bought a cute little house with a large lot and I quit my career as a dental hygienist to stay at home with our two kids and to “live happily ever after.” It turns out that I had no idea what that even meant.

Aristotle teaches that happiness is being engaged in virtuous action and contemplation and that other exterior things can add to that happiness.

Virtuous action. Hmmm. That is a bit different than the definition of happiness I got growing up. I had learned that I would be happy when.... When I got to high school I would be happy. When I got out of high school and started college, then I would be happy. Then I would be happy when I graduated from college. Then I would be happy when I got married, then when I had a baby, then when the baby grew up and moved out.... Pop culture didn't teach anything about virtuous action either. No sir. I learned from pop culture that to be happy was to be entertained – no working allowed.



There I was having achieved my dream of not having to “work” anymore and I should have been the happiest person alive. It turned out that I was not happy. I was bored and confused. I started searching for something, anything. Sheer desperation led me to the local library. (I hadn't been in one of those for years!)

From that little library, I brought home scads of books on all kinds of topics. I filled our home with way too much light that left the whole family blinking. I tore up that back yard and grew all kinds of food. I read a few books about dairy goats and brought home a pregnant Nigerian Dwarf goat. She was beautiful, but I should have read about goat fencing first.



I read books about home birthing and our third child was born in a blow up swimming pool in our bedroom. I incubated duck eggs and ALL 15 hatched into healthy little ducklings. There was definitely a lot of ACTION at our place, but we were still missing something. Then my husband and I went to a seminar called Face-to-Face with Greatness and gained a community to help me on this journey.



Aristotle also said that happiness “needs external goods as well; for it is impossible, or not easy, to do noble acts without the proper equipment.” The best external good in my life is my dear husband who always allows me the freedom to learn and try new things while keeping me grounded with his steadiness and careful nature. Community is a close second. We appreciate those wonderful people we met at the Face-to-Face seminar, and many others, who have helped us learn things like proper family form and how to find and live true principles. I will be forever grateful to them for teaching and modeling proper family form so I could come to appreciate my husband and allow him to function in his role as leader in our home while I learned to function more fully in my role as wife and mother.



The one point I disagree slightly with Aristotle on is his idea that sleep has no share in human excellence. While it is true sleep is not unique to humans, I have found it to be an essential element in my own excellence. In fact, sleep was the missing element I was searching for. I have had the virtuous actions and the external goods for a long time, but recently the baby began sleeping through the night and I am HAPPY!