Persevere when it comes to Family Night

MAPLETON, Utah — Author Anne Bradshaw admits that family home evening can sometimes be a challenge, even though it's become a staple for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"We had some disasters, but we struggled on," she said. "I've met people who have given up so I wanted to put something together to encourage them. I've always been a fan of family night."

From that kernel of thought came her new book, "Famous Family Nights," in which she gathered 91 family night anecdotal stories from recognizable Mormons.

Some stand out for their humor, others for their spirituality. And yes, even famous people have family night disasters.

Paul B. Skousen, author of "The Skousen Book of Mormon World Records" and its sequel, recalls how he was teaching his children not to use bad language when he made a mistake.

He asked them what words not to use — and they told him, with "such eloquence, such mastery of the phraseology, syntax, and location as they rehearsed back all seven of the forbidden utterances yet conceived by the vulgar mouth of man."

As he turned beet red and has mother-in-law's face took on a look of shock, "my little angels looked up at wise dad for some acceptance."

On a more spiritual note, C.S. Bezas, who writes for "Meridian Magazine" and owns LDSMusicals.org, played a game where her kids were blindfolded with the objective of following their father's voice until they "found" him.

Even the older children enjoyed that game, she said. Then she asked her kids to find a scripture to symbolize the game.

"It was amazing to see what they found on their own!" she wrote.

Susan Easton Black, a BYU professor, recalled how her family held a home evening one August in which the children pledged to give service to their elderly next door neighbor.

Her son, Todd, said he would shovel her walks.

The family laughed then, but when the first snow fell and Todd got up to shovel the walks, he found that the neighbor was shoveling theirs.

Bradshaw took two years to compile the book, printed in paperback by Cedar Fort Inc. of Springville.

She found a common thread among the stories she received: No one always has a perfect home evening, but they persevered.

Home evening is more difficult now than in the past, she said, because of the many distractions that pull families away from the central strength of the home such as sports and school activities.

Distractions are even within the home these days, with television, in-home movies and videos, the Internet and electronic games.

Still, she said, the book encourages families to stick with it.

E-mail: rodger@desnews.com