mountainsara73

Your reply made absolutely no sense. Why are you attacking me anyway? Do I know you? Or did I just strike a cord with you...you know I'm right and you can't stand it? Very strange. I thought this forum was for giving advice.The OP asked a question in the advice forum and I gave my advice based on my experiences as a woman. If you don't like it, move on to the next posting but there's no reason to be catty and start attacking because someone gave advice that is different from yours. Leave the women's topics to the women!!

My mom always told me I had to be in high school to wear makeup (which seemed violently unfair to me since for my sisters hs was 9th grade and for me it was 10th.) Then for Christmas in 7th grade she put some makeup in my stocking and told me it was to play with not to wear to school. I ended up wearing makeup to school in 8th grade (13.) When I was a kid I was tall for my age and everyone thought I was 1-2 yrs older than I really was (before makeup was in the picture) and then by the time I was 18 everyone thought I was 16. Now I'm 37 and people think I'm anywhere from 27-30 but so far not older. I don't think makeup makes you look older but rather is a way to even out your skin tone, help hide blemishes (very important to a teenage girl!!!) and bring out eyes and cheek bones. OP, I am not sure I would want to wait for my daughter to come to me...do you want her to wait until she's had sex before coming to you about it? I think if you are proactive...if even just to say it's OK for them to talk to you about makeup, boys or whatever, then you are opening the door for them to communicate with you. If you wait for them to bring it up, they might think it's a taboo topic. Don't force them to talk about something, but do bring it up and let them decide whether to continue the conversation. At some point (if not already) they're going to need you to buy feminine products and makeup is a much easier topic to broach than that!

I'm the nanny of 2 boys, ages 18 mos and 4 yrs. Sometimes we go to the pool so I understand the shower thing. We've talked about privacy in the bathroom (18 mo old is fine to come in but I think 4 is too old!) Personally, I think age 3.5-4 is about right to start the privacy talks and not coming in while you're in the bathroom/shower and vice versa. Also I think 3.5-4 is old enough to bathe alone with assistance with washing (but I wouldn't close the door or go too far away to hear them; if they're splashing they're fine.) I think it's better to err on the side of caution because you don't want your daughters to say something really innocuous and have it taken the wrong way by someone who suddenly suspects you of inappropriate touching or whatever. Case in point, my 4 yr old charge had swim lessons the other week and I forgot his clothes and towel in the car so I got him dressed in the back of my station wagon. I wrapped the towel around his waist and had him put his shirt on first and talked about privacy. He made a comment that he could see his mom's vagina anything he wants. If I didn't have a good relationship with the family so I could joke about it (and she assured me he most definitely does not get to see that ever) it could have been misconstrued. Anyway, as far as the hair...I wouldn't cut it all off, I would no shorter than jaw length and then instead of worrying about braids and such you can put a cute clip or barrette in it and call it good. There are probably young women in the ward who would be happy to help out in that regard. There are hair products out there to help with the tangles. You spray it on after you wash but before you comb and it helps the comb to glide through better. I have also learned from experience not to comb the hair from the top to the bottom if there are tangles. It works better to grab a handful of hair in one hand and then comb it out with the other hand because it keeps the hair from pulling on the scalp. Good luck to you!

Um...vanity....nope. Not vanity in most cases. Adoption is NOT that easy. It costs FAR more than artificial insemination and if you go through your state foster care agency you can be rejected for a lot of dumb things that you have no control over...I knew a lady who got rejected because she had a barn with a loft, stairs in her house, and farm equipment! I have very steep stairs in my house...there's no way I would be approved. That and the fact I live on a mountain and you have to snowshoe to get to the house 3-6 months a year. It's truly not that simple to adopt. You don't wake up one day and go "I know, I'll rescue a drug addicted sexually abused child that's been bounced around the foster care system for 5-6 years and we'll all live happily ever after." It's not vanity (any definition of it) that causes women to want a child of their own, it's instinct and common sense...if a foster family can't handle a kid, how can a single woman handle a kid, plus work, plus therapy etc. But mostly it's instinct and a strong biological drive that makes women want to have a baby of their own...to experience pregnancy and breast feeding and all of those things...the things women who have children so often complain about, and things men can't do and therefore can't understand.

Why don't "regular" church members have access to the Church handbook of instructions? I think a lot of "misdeeds" could be avoided if we all had access to the same resources....

Thank you all for your wonderful responses. You've all been much kinder than I expected! I have thought about foster parenting but my house has stairs that are fairly steep and I assume I won't get approved for that reason, though to be fair, I haven't tried either. Thanks again so much for your thoughtful answers. I really wanted an LDS perspective and not just non-LDS thoughts which is what I've been getting. Also I haven't really talked to very many people about this at all; not sure what people would say. (Particularly my family.)

I am single and 37. All of my friends are mother's and have been for quite some time in some cases. I always thought I would be married and have kids by now. Even my nieces and nephews are having kids now! I'm a nanny so I do enjoy kids and know I have the potential to be a good mother. I also hate the idea of getting attached to someone else's kids for a couple of years and then having to say goodbye. I know a couple of non-LDS women who were in their late 30's and were artificially inseminated because they hadn't found "Mr. Right." Part of me (the hormonally charged part) really wants to be a mother, and part of me (the logical part) knows it's a bad idea for a single woman. I'm wondering if anyone has heard of a single LDS woman becoming a mother either through adoption or artificial insemination? I know a lot of you are going to say every child needs a father and who would the child be sealed to and so forth but I grew up in a divorced/blended family and really never had a good father figure (my own dad died of alcoholism when I was 14, my parents divorced when I was 3 and my mom remarried in the temple to an abusive man when I was 4) and I'm not sealed to anyone (my family joined the church when I was about 3, soon after my dad left though it had nothing to do with the church.) Anyway I'm just saying the daddy issue will be a hard sell with me since I didn't grow up with a positive male role model. Most of my LDS peers have been married and divorced, in some cases 2-3 times over. I think divorce would be more traumatic than no father in the first place. Does anyone have any thoughts or experience with this topic?? I would love to be a real mother...not nanny or auntie...but I don't want to make a mockery of God's plan either. I was really Ok with not having kids until just the past few months. Something changed in me for some reason.