Be Careful What You Ask For
Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.
Robert Frost
We had Stake Conferenced this morning in-person and via Zoom. I have no idea how many people attended since the camera is fixed and only shows the podium. Good thing I am familiar with I Am A Child of God because I couldn’t see the chorister either. But it was very pleasant to sit quietly next to Daughter #1 and actually listen to the words of the speakers. There was a time when that was out of the question.
Taking eight kids to a two-hour religious meeting was, as Son #3 says, “definitely sub-optimal”. Because the ten of us took up a whole row, my husband and I strategically seated the kids so that none of this week’s enemies were sitting next to each other. I usually took charge of the baby, and my husband wrestled with the boys—until he and the older ones dozed off, that is. That left the younger ones to bicker, throw toys at the nice older couple who always had the misfortune to be sitting in front of us, and climb around the folding chairs. (Yes, they could go over the top, through the bottom and return to their seats without ever touching the floor!).
Early on, I devised a method of threatening rowdy behavior at church without using any words. As soon as a child got out of line, I flashed my forefinger at him (it was seldom a “her”) as a warning Number One. Another infraction meant a two-finger alert, and three fingers designated no hot fudge sundae or cake after Sunday dinner. The Three-Finger warning system worked for most of the kids—except whoever was two, three, four-years old, or, now that I think about it, any rebellious teen-ager—which was always more than ½ half of them. Sunday dinner routinely consisted of long faces, rigorous protestations of parental misunderstanding of church behavior, and sneaking into the kitchen on late night forays to cram a serving of dessert into small mouths with sticky fingers, sometimes aided and abetted by an older, sympathetic sibling.
We were just getting the hang of reverence in Stake Conference when my husband inadvertently dismantled all our carefully designed rules for appropriate behavior. The Stake President was the last speaker on a program one winter conference. It was late in the meeting, and as he began his message, he rhetorically mentioned that he didn’t intend to preach longer than five minutes because he knew the young children were tired and restless. (Wise. At the time, we had over 300 children under eight in our ward alone. Briefly the largest Primary in the Church!)
My husband fixed his eyes on the clock. When the five minutes had passed, he raised his hand from the back of the cultural hall where we were seated. The Stake President spied him, stopped his speech, and said, “Yes, Brother Voorhies?”
“President, your time is up,” my husband called from the rear of the packed assembly.
The Stake President did a double-take, glanced at his notes, sighed, and ended his message. Truth.
After the closing hymn and prayer, that good leader sought out my husband to “thank” him for taking his request from the pulpit seriously and monitoring the timeframe of his speech. My husband was quite pleased with himself. An impressive number of audience members near him patted him on the back in appreciation—virtually every family in the audience had a two-year old!
But it didn’t end there. A couple of years later, Son #1, now a deacon or teacher—I don’t remember which, was attending a youth fireside on chastity. New Stake President. Same Gene Pool. The meeting was near the end of its 90-minute schedule when the Stake President rose to address one of his priority concerns for young people. After his lengthy message, he called for questions and was delighted that Son #1 broke the ice by raising his hand.
“Yes, Brother Voorhies. What’s your question?”
“President, we’re tired. Isn’t it time for refreshments?”
Like father; like son.