Praise for Youth Leaders
Recently my daughter stood at the front of the cultural hall with her Young Women’s leaders and the other young women in our ward. As I watched the Young Women’s president look at each of her girls with so much love, I began to reflect on how much my daughter had gained from this program. She officially “graduated” to the Young Single Adult program this week. My oldest daughter is married and in business for herself, and my son has only a year left of the youth program. All of them have Primary and youth leaders to thank when they reflect on who they have become.
The church’s extensive programs for children and youth exist not to replace the home, but to assist it. These loving, sacrificing leaders and teachers add to what we can offer in our home. They give new points of view, additional role models to follow, and more adults for our children to talk to. Children are not best socialized by their peers; they choose who to become as adults by watching the adults they spend time with. These Primary and youth leaders add a structure than can be hard to maintain in a busy home, and introduce our children to skills their parents don’t have. My children can lead music although I can’t read a single note. They’ve taught lessons to their classmates, conducted meetings and planned activities. They’ve climbed down mountains, canoed the Colorado River and gone scuba diving. Certainly they would never have done these last three if I had to provide all their experiences. My idea of a good vacation is to get locked into Barnes and Noble for an entire week.
Although Mom might seem too old and out of touch to listen to, my children have often had very young Primary teachers and youth leaders, people who actually know how to put on make-up and who know the words to my children’s music even if it isn’t a remake. When they explained that they did not violate church standards in order to be popular, my children listened to them. So often, they knew how to explain a principle so it made sense in the “real world” connotations so removed from my life as a homemaker and writer.
I see their gentle touches in who my children have become: The famous writer who talked to them as writer-to-writer, the scientist who encouraged them to explore something other than their favorite astrophysics, the leaders who bore testimony and the leaders who loved them.
Now, as my daughter, the only girl who is graduating this year from our ward, moves reluctantly into the adult classes, I watch as her leaders transition their relationships from leaders to friends, sitting with her in Enrichment meetings, inviting her on outings, and showing her that she has a place in this new aspect of the church. They may no longer be her leaders, but they are still there, leaving their gentle touches on her life and enriching her with their continuing influence.
I thank all those teachers and leaders, spread across the country, who provided the village of love in which my children were raised.
