Sister Elaine S. Dalton: 'Love Her Mother'
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The Lord's prophets have taught fathers how to raise happy, well-adjusted daughters in today's increasingly toxic world, said Sister Elaine S. Dalton, Young Women general president, in the Sunday morning session of conference.
"It is a simple answer and it is true — 'The most important thing a father can do for his daughter is to love her mother,'" she said. "By the way you love her mother, you will teach your daughter about tenderness, loyalty, respect, compassion and devotion. She will learn from your example what to expect from young men and what qualities to seek in a future spouse. You can show your daughter by the way you love and honor your wife that she should never settle for less. Your example will teach your daughter to value womanhood. You are showing her that she is a daughter of our Heavenly Father who loves her."
Sister Dalton asked, "Don't let any influence come into your life or home that would cause you to compromise your covenants or your commitment to your wife and family.
"In Young Women we are helping your daughter understand her identity as a daughter of God and the importance of remaining virtuous and worthy to receive the blessings of the temple and of a temple marriage. We are teaching your daughter the importance of making and keeping sacred covenants. We are teaching her to commit now to live so that she can always be worthy to enter the temple and not to allow anything to delay, distract or disqualify her from that goal. Your example, as her father, speaks louder than our important words."
Today's popular culture tries to erode and demean a father's eternal role as a patriarch and minimize his most important responsibilities, she said.
"Fathers, by definition, you are the guardians of your homes, your wives and your children. ... You must be the guardians of virtue."
Sister Dalton asked fathers to be cautious about what they view in entertainment, media or print.
"Your personal virtue will model for your daughters, and also your sons, what true strength and moral courage are. By being a guardian of virtue in your own life, in your home and in the lives of your children, you are showing your wife and daughters what true love really is. Your personal purity will give you power."
She also asked fathers to be present in their daughters' lives.
"Let her know your standards, your expectations, you hopes and dreams for her success and happiness."
Sister Dalton said Latter-day Saint fathers are "not ordinary men."
"Because of your valiance in the pre-mortal realms, you qualified to be leaders and to possess priesthood power," she said.
So, she concluded, "How do you raise a girl? Love her mother, lead your family to the temple, be guardians of virtue and magnify your priesthood. Fathers, you have been entrusted with our Heavenly Father's royal daughters. They are virtuous and elect. It is my prayer that you will watch over them, strengthen them, model virtuous behavior and teach them to follow in the Savior's every footstep — for He lives."
