Monica Packer had a life-changing realization at age 30.
“I recognized I wasn't a person anymore,” she said. “That in my pursuit of being a good mother, I had lost Monica.”
A Latter-day Saint mom of five who followed the path laid out by her faithful family and friends, Packer got married at 21 and had her first child at 25. After getting her bachelor’s degree, she wanted to pursue a Ph.D., but didn’t, because she felt like she couldn’t do that and have a family.
Packer’s timeline is what The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is pushing for more of as birth rates fall across the country. Church leadership recently lowered the minimum age to 18 for young women to go on missions. Some of the first to go at that age are now wearing the black name tag, and they’ll return by the time they’re 19 or 20.
Church President Dallin H. Oaks said in a Deseret News interview that he hopes the change will get women to marry earlier. Connecting the dots to fertility, a new analysis from the independent blog Mormon Metrics found that delaying marriage is the top reason for lower birth rates in the LDS Church, accounting for around 50% of the decline. A decline in religious commitment came second, and the rising cost of housing, third.
Packer loves her husband and children and doesn’t regret her choices, but she has complicated feelings. She wonders what would have happened if she’d waited to get married and had more time to grow up before those big responsibilities fell on her. And she worries about other young women losing themselves as she did.
To discover herself, Packer made a list of things she wanted to try.
“I kind of had to do the ‘Runaway Bride,’ you know, Julia Roberts kind of montage of even figuring out what kind of eggs she likes, what kind of movies would she like to watch, or books to read,” she said.
As she’s discovered more of herself, Packer said she has become a better wife and mother. She’s now an author, podcast host and life coach who helps other moms find lost layers of their identity.
Packer feels lucky she figured this out at age 30 and not much later, like some women she’s worked with. The ideal time for exploration, said therapist Natasha Helfer, is emerging adulthood. That’s when women can figure out values and career paths, test out relationships and discover interests and hobbies. Encouraging younger marriage could stand in the way of that.
“We're wanting them to make a 60-plus-year decision at the age of 20, and they're not equipped,” said Helfer, founder of the Mormon Mental Health Association. “They haven't had enough experience to be able to make wise choices.”
People that age haven’t hit all their developmental milestones, she said. She also worries about women getting trapped in bad marriages because of kids and economic disadvantages like wage gaps.
But Packer isn’t sure it’s the church’s encouragement of marrying younger that’s damaging.
“I just keep coming back to, regardless of when women get married in the church, if they had more of an opportunity and a right to be a human in their families,” she said. “That's, I think, the real question.”
She’s talking about the pressure for women to be the perfect mom and the loss of other identities, and she thinks more support services for women would help.
That’s an area where the church used to be ahead of its time. Back in the 1800s, Relief Society, the church’s women’s organization, had a bold vision.
“Back then, Relief Society was not just about helping women endure difficult circumstances,” said Caroline Kline, assistant director for Global Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University. “Mormon women were actually building institutions to change the circumstances.”
The Relief Society ran co-op businesses for women, created centers to supply safe baby milk, loaned out childbirth supplies, started a hospital and trained women to be medics.
“They were saying, ‘Look, yes, I am a mother, and I'm going to be a mother to this nation. I'm going to be a mother to my community. I'm going to be a mother in my state.’”
But around 1970, that version of the Relief Society died as top church leadership took away the organization’s autonomy as part of a push to centralize power and authority. The Relief Society could no longer raise and spend its own money as it had been doing, and “The Relief Society Magazine” put out its last issue.
Today, the church still has robust social services, but they aren’t specifically for women. There are funds for bishops to help members as needed. There’s also the bishop’s storehouse to help with food insecurity, Family Services for mental health support, and online education through BYU-Pathway.
And recently, the Relief Society general president spearheaded a global women and children’s health program, a return to the organization’s roots.
But Kline still thinks the church could be doing more.
“If the church wants young women to embrace marriage and motherhood earlier, we have to start asking what institutional investment makes that choice possible, makes that choice sustainable,” she said.
Professional support for domestic violence is one thing she would like to see. In her research, she’s found domestic violence is a problem among Latter-day Saints. Kline also thinks it would be great if the church had a program to help stay-at-home moms re-enter the workforce.
The church did not grant KUER’s interview request.
Packer, the mom in Salt Lake County, also has a vision for what the church could do. Like, what if they helped pay for childcare? Many Latter-day Saint women, she said, feel guilty getting a babysitter to do something for themselves. Usually that’s only for date nights.
“If I were to find out that my tithing was going to things like childcare and education and even hosting things like mom groups, you know, I'd be thrilled,” she said.
Under current church policy, childcare initiatives wouldn’t be able to take place in church buildings. The General Handbook cites safety and tax liabilities.
Packer thinks members could do better on a cultural level too, with small things like asking men to bring meals to new parents. Or revering both parents instead of putting mothers up on a pedestal, which she said is a lonely place to be.
In the meantime, she’s continuing her journey of self-discovery with an annual project she calls the “do something” list. This year, she joined a community musical. Another time, she hopped on the sourdough bandwagon.
“It's about every year trying to come back to one other layer of ‘Who is Monica?’ and ‘How can I make sure my life is reflecting who I am?’” she said.
And she’s empowering other women to make their own lists too.
