Do you remember your mother? Your real mother?

There are some who would say that the Mormons are sexist. They claim that since most of the hierarchy of the Church is male (let’s be honest, it is; have a look on the Conference Center stand), we’re an organization that doesn’t give the females the credit they deserve.

I’m here to say now that those people are wrong. Not only are females wonderful and an essential part of humankind, equal in every way to men, but one of them should also go with me to Guitars Unplugged next weekend.

Seriously, women are great. The best ones, you might say, are the mothers. Even beyond the fact that mothers keep the human race going, mothers are an indispensable part of the world. (But seriously, any takers for the Guitars Unplugged thing?)

Let’s dissect this for a second. The fundamental unit of society is the family, as The Family: A Proclamation to the World tells us so magnificently. A traditional family consists of a man, a woman, and children. Who keeps the father going? Whose primary job is it to take care of the kids? I think it’s the mother.

To sum it up — the mother is the foundation of the fundamental unit of society.

We as a church love mothers, and rightly so. Mothers carry a power we men will never have, and I’m not just talking about the ability to carry children. That ability alone is astounding — I cannot fathom carrying something like that for nine months without suffering some very ill effects. This only gives me an understanding and an appreciation for the burden that only women can bear.

The poet William R. Wallace wrote, “A mightier power and stronger / Man from his throne has hurled / For the hand that rocks the cradle / Is the hand that rules the world.”

Never underestimate the power of a good mother. They say that behind every good man is a good woman. I say that behind every good man are multiple good women — one of whom is his mother.

Few girls, and few mothers, are mentioned by name in the Book of Mormon. There’s Sariah, Abish, Mary, and of course Isabel the harlot. Nevertheless, our church holds in high esteem many great women. What of the two thousand nameless Ammonite mothers, for example, to be forever lauded in Mormonism as the perfect examples of motherhood?

Latter-day Saints revere God’s most marvelous creation. Why is pornography such a heinous plague? Because it defiles the image of the woman’s body.

We love women; we love mothers. No one could ever argue that Mormons belittle women when they read the following hallowed line from our hymn “O My Father”, which affirms with appropriate sanctity the glorious eternal potential of that great calling called mother:

“Truth is reason, truth eternal / Tells me I’ve a mother there.”