Mormon Mom Becomes the Provider for Her Family - Cate Smith | Ep. 2101
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.6 ā¢ 5.2K Ratings
šļø 5 January 2026
ā±ļø 129 minutes
šļø Recording | iTunes | RSS
š§¾ļø Download transcript
Summary
What happens when a Mormon woman becomes the primary provider for her family āinside a religion that teaches her highest purpose is in the home?
In this deeply personal and honest conversation, Cate Smith shares her journey growing up Mormon, internalizing the Family Proclamation, and believing her eternal destiny was marriage, motherhood, and supporting her husband. From being voted āmost likely to be momā as a teenager to entering the temple and covenanting to hearken to her husband, Cate explains how clearly her path seemed laid out for her.
But life didn't unfold the way Mormonism promised.
After earning a degree in accounting āas a backup,ā Cate unexpectedly became the breadwinner, while her husband stepped into a more nurturing, stay-at-home role. What followed was grief, identity loss, social pressure, depression, and eventually therapy āalong with the realization that the only thing wrong with being a working mom was being Mormon.
As Cate began questioning gender roles, authority, and worth, those questions expanded into a full faith crisis āsparked by therapy, church culture, the Family Proclamation, Ensign Peak and SEC fraud revelations, racism in church history, and the fear-based framework of Mormon belief. She shares how integrity ultimately mattered more than certainty, and why she chose to resign from the Church before she even fully believed it wasnāt true.
Cateās story is raw, thoughtful, and deeply relatable āespecially for women navigating faith, motherhood, careers, and self-trust after leaving a high-demand religion.
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. |
| 0:03.3 | I'm your host, John Dillon. |
| 0:04.4 | It is December 9th, 2025. |
| 0:06.9 | And today we're answering the question, what happens when a Mormon wife becomes the provider |
| 0:13.4 | when the LDS Church's proclamation on the family says that the husband should be the provider and preside. That's what we're going to |
| 0:23.6 | be talking about today. I am joined by my wife and co-host Margie. Hey Margie. Hello. And we are so |
| 0:30.5 | grateful to have in studio, Kate Smith. Hey, Kate. Hello. Thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited. |
| 0:38.9 | Yeah, we're really, we loved your story and we're excited to have you. |
| 0:43.6 | So thanks for traveling here. |
| 0:45.3 | Anytime. |
| 0:46.3 | Really quickly, we want to thank our donors that make Mormon stories possible. |
| 0:49.9 | We couldn't do without you. |
| 0:51.4 | If you're not a donor, the way that you can support us, we don't do |
| 0:54.3 | sponsorships or product placement. All we ask is that, you know, people sign up for monthly support. |
| 1:00.1 | So if you value this content and want to see, continue, go to mormonsories.org slash donate |
| 1:04.7 | and click on the donate button become a monthly donor. It's always super helpful also if you |
| 1:10.4 | can like and subscribe and comment because that helps |
| 1:13.9 | get the word out. |
| 1:14.9 | Anyway, without any further ado, Kate Smith, anything you want to say before we jump into |
| 1:19.6 | your story? |
| 1:20.6 | Absolutely. |
| 1:21.6 | I would like to set a bit of an intention because I know I have some believing family who |
... |
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