Advise about college and love

November 7, l990
Save these letters, I may be famous someday.

This is as fun as any pen pal I've ever had, and I get to give advice too. First advice is don't use two different word processers because you get messed up when you change over.

SCHOOL: a major IS about 40 or 46 hours in one field of study, like English, I have about 46 hours of under graduate English classes. Then you take Education classes, I don't know what is required, but they are not part of your major in secondary. A Minor is 28 hours, I think, in one area like Spanish is mine.
Master's degree can be from 30 to 60 hours in 500 and 600 level classes, very carefully defined by each department. There can be substitutions, but they have to be approved in advance by your advisor or department chairman.

I totally agree with your dad about working after your bachelors degree, whatever you choose. Really, my suggestion has been to take a nine month technology course, like in optometry, dental hygiene, chiropractic assistant, then use that to work your way through your bachelors degree. Having a masters with little experience can really hurt you, like it did me, no district wanted to pay the price for my masters hours on their pay scale when I only had three years classroom experience. But if you do get a job it gives you a big boost in pay right off the top.

You have to look long term, and I know how hard that is from your end. I couldn't see a week ahead when I was a teen, much less a decade or two.
I had a love named Barry in high school, and to quote my own mother, "they will be a hundred Barrys in your life."

I know that doesn’t sound right or true to you right now, but you are much more beautiful than I ever was and I have had many boyfriends and have fallen in love with many men. It comes down to, if you want to
go on a mission bad enough to give up sex and love and possible marriage for four years, including the mission.

Believe me, I know how hard it is to break off a romance without fighting. It is so much easier when you can fight and hate each other than when you just know you have to stop seeing each other because of the physical attraction. Bill and I went through that in high school, and Lane and I at Mesa Community. I went through it with Jess at NAU, and your dad and I moved our wedding date ahead three times for no other reason. Even now, when you would think I should be too old for such nonsense I have had problems with it with Don and 'Ron and we had to break it off even though we were great friends, we knew we were not a good match for marriage. It never ends.

Neither your dad nor I planned on getting a divorce when we married. We planned to make a good marriage and be so much superior to our parents and brothers and sisters and their mates. We planned to be perfect parents of perfect kids, and all we got were the perfect kids.

Sterling has a daughter a year older than you but in the same grade. She was engaged last summer and we both held our breaths hoping she would break it off before it was too late, and we were very thankful for her sake when she did. Not because the boy was bad or wrong, but because she is so young. Mother used to say, "you have so long to be married hijita quedida." And I have to echo that remark.

My darling daughter, I honestly have not seen myself a perfect marriage. Actually I haven't even seen many good marriages. I've seen a lot of people trying very hard, like your own parents, to make a good marriage with no skills and no communication. I am currently counseling a couple that love each other very much, but can't communicate their feelings because they really don't know what they are feeling. I asked each of them, "what do you picture it would be like if you didn't have this problem." They can't even identify the problem. Your dad and I went to over l00 hours of marriage counseling together and never were able to identify the problem. We accused each other, we blamed each other, we insulted each other, but never learned to pinpoint the problem, isolate it and communicate about it. That's really sad.


You don't have to be smart to major in psychology, I know a lot of stupid psychologists. It is just like any other subject, you learn line upon line and precept upon precept, and then you go on. No one asks you to take psycho diagnostics until you have the basics of theories and understandings of insights. It is a fascinating study, and I sorted to minor in it a million years ago, but I thought, "oh, you have to be smart to minor in psychology." I love to study it and learn more. In fact, most of what I read for leisure reading is self help psychology or counseling books.

By the way, give yourself more credit, you can't be too lacking in intelligence with the parents you come from.

Oh, baby, if I could transport you 20 years ahead and have you look back you could see how short time is (time in just a little dot in God's eternal plan) I could show you what mistakes you might make so you could go back and change them to make your life better. But I can't I can only say "trust me." Trust that adults have felt what you are feeling; that we have lived what you are living that we have made the mistakes that you might make and tried the paths that you might take and all we can do is stand back and say, "I have taught you the right principles all your young life, now you must govern yourself.

I can promise you this so I will: If you keep yourself clean and worthy of the temple blessings, if you dedicate yourself to your school work and associate with righteous friends in groups of odd numbers so you don't pair off, the time will come when you will know it is right to go on a mission or to get married, and you will not feel confused and "stupor of thought" about the decision, because the Holy Ghost will comfort you with a feeling of peace and calmness that cannot be mistaken. I doubt that Barry will be able to wait; he is already looking for a wife. But I know there will be a young man who will love you and dedicate his life to making you the princess you deserve to be, and you will dedicate your life to making him a prince of princes. The price for this blessing is patience, diligence and perseverance in living a righteous life, in preparing yourself physically, mentally, and spiritually and in doing all you can do to know what you want, and to know how to communicate your needs to another.

All the advice I give you about getting psychotherapy, or majors, or minors or dorm rooms is just "motherly advice” but the above promise comes from the Lord. I have that right to receive inspiration and pronounce blessings, because I am your mother and I am living righteously.

Your comment, "we just started dating and we fell in love” is so typical. that's why we tell you "you marry who you date" That's why I won't date a non Mormon even just "for fun" It's too easy for me to fall in love, and I've done it too many times to trust myself.
Daddy told me once, (probably the only advice he ever gave me)
"If you’re going to be married in the temple, you ought to start dating
someone who can take you there." I broke up with Bill that night.

I'm really proud of you, my darling daughter. At least you know you have a problem, and you are willing to listen to (or read) advice. and at best Barry is righteous and temple worthy, so I want you to know, if it comes to marriage, I'm on your side there too. Don't be afraid to call and say, "mom, guess what." It is just that I want so badly for you to have time to grow up and process what you have learned.

Don and Joyce got married under the worst possible circumstances when she was not quite l6 and he was maybe l9. They have the only marriage that is even close to stable, among us all, because they work at it constantly, they seek council and follow it, and they have stayed active and grown in the church. For Joyce it was her only good choice. She was from a pervert family, and she was very pregnant.
But you have choices. As I've said and will keep on saying, i don't want you to have sex but if for some reason along the line you decide to defy all that you know and rebel against all authority and morality and have sex, please protect yourself from disease and pregnancy. Birth control is easy to get and sure a lot easier to deal with than an unwanted pregnancy or aids. I don't expect you to need that paragraph of advice, and I don't want it to insult you, but in this day and time when it seems so natural and so common to have recreational sex, I don't want you to get trapped into the consequences. The consequences of sex itself are difficult enough emotionally without adding illness or pregnancy.

The church says basically, get your education and boys go on a mission as soon as you turn l9. Girls get your education and go on a mission if you have not married by that time. The prophets have put marriage above education, and having a family above education. It seems they say the priority order is marriage, family education. I don't know. Max and I went through 3 years of education; deliberately putting off a family, but you were born three weeks after his first pay check came. If think we cut it pretty close. Ann was PG when she got married and had to drop out of high school. But she went back with two kids and finished high school and college and got a master's degree. That's difficult. She and your dad and I are the only ones of the l8 that finished college at all, much less went on to graduate school.
I've done all my graduate work for my counseling masters with kids, but my bachelors and first masters I finished during those three years and graduated with the masters a month after you were born. You see, you've had more college than you thought.

I love you. Thank you for turning to me for advice. I hope I have helped you some. Call if you need to, use my card.

Mom