Find hope—not unreachable mom standards—in the mothers of the stripling soldiers

One of my favorite scripture stories is the story of the 2,000 stripling soldiers, though I’ve always liked my mother’s name for it: “the 2,000 wonderful mothers.”¹

The mothers of the stripling soldiers are the largest group of women in the Book of Mormon whose understanding of doctrine and influential teachings are recorded.² While knowing their story can and should teach us how influential and important mothers are, sometimes the story can create the opposite effect. I’ve known some women who feel that they are insufficient, or even failures, as mothers because they feel they’ll never be able to teach like those mothers did. Or they feel very discouraged because their children don’t seem to be growing up to be like the stripling soldiers.

I don’t think we have this story in the Book of Mormon because it is the standard by which all mothers should judge themselves. I think Mormon records it not because it is normal but because of how extraordinary and miraculous it is.

Knowing the background and context of the mothers can keep us from unfairly comparing their experiences to our own. From the information recorded about their sons, we know three things about the mothers of the stripling soldiers:³ 1) their sons served in Helaman’s army,⁴ 2) they taught their sons about faith in God and deliverance,⁵ and 3) they were part of the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people.⁶ That third point is lesser known but very important to understanding these mothers and not unfairly comparing ourselves to them.

The Anti-Nephi-Lehi people are the Lamanite converts from the missions of Ammon, Aaron, Omner, and Himni. Because of their conversion, the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people were persecuted by the Lamanites who did not convert. For several years,⁷ they lived among people whose “hatred [had become] exceedingly sore against them” (Alma 24:2).

Even in the face of this hatred, the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people never took up arms to defend themselves.⁸ They were attacked and massacred by the unconverted Lamanites more than once.⁹ Ammon called the second attack “this great work of destruction” and asked the king to have his people “flee out of the hands of our enemies, that we be not destroyed” (Alma 27:4–5). Possibly more minor, unrecorded persecution also took place.

This was life for the mothers before they had to leave their homes and flee to Nephite territory for protection.

With a promise that the Lord would preserve them,¹⁰ the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people moved their families and their flocks and herds through the wilderness. Many of the sons who were “stripling” (defined as “a youth in the state of adolescence”¹¹) when they went to war may not have been born or were infants and toddlers during this time. Many of the mothers would have been pregnant or raising young children as they traveled.

We can’t know exactly what their experience was after their conversions, through the persecutions, and during their travels in the wilderness, but I imagine that it was likely a terrifying, difficult, and grueling experience. I think that what the mothers taught their sons about trusting God and being faithful came from the persecution—even massacres—that they’d lived through.

Connecting the mothers to their trials and suffering puts their conversion, the faith of their sons, and the beauty of the miracle into perspective. These mothers taught their sons to trust in God to deliver them because they themselves had been preserved. I believe it was the faithfulness of the Anti-Nephi-Lehi people, including the mothers, in the face of suffering and persecution that gave them the faith they taught to their sons. I also believe their faithfulness amid so much difficulty was likely the reason the Lord blessed their sons with miraculous survival.

There must have been many Nephite women who were also converted, taught their sons, and wanted them to be faithful and serve faithfully in the war. And many, many of those sons died—some probably while protecting the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi. We don’t judge those Nephite mothers as failures because their sons were not the stripling soldiers, and we shouldn’t judge ourselves as failures either.

We also read about parents in the Book of Mormon who struggled with their children’s decisions:

•  Lehi and Sariah struggle with Laman and Lemuel.
•  Alma the Elder struggles with Alma the Younger before his conversion
•  Alma the Younger then struggles with his son Corianton.

We don’t label these people as bad parents because of the decisions of their children.

We also shouldn’t use the story of the mothers of the stripling soldiers to berate ourselves.

So what can we learn from their extraordinary lives? One takeaway is that when the Lord asks people to sacrifice for their beliefs, He provides blessings and miracles.

The story of the stripling soldiers and their mothers shows how wonderful blessings often come from terribly difficult circumstances. Their story can help us see the deliverance God provides for those who trust Him.

When we suffer trials and afflictions, we should remember that “the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance” (1 Nephi 1:20).

Find more articles on motherhood in the links below.

▶ The gospel message your kids may need to hear before going back to school
▶ What youth need to hear most about the world today
▶ 1 thing we forget when teaching our children about feeling the Spirit
▶ Missionary moms: You’ll love this mother’s honest thoughts on the joy and pain of sending a child on a mission

Notes

1. While 2,000 serves as an easy way to coordinate the story with the emphasis on the mothers, there were probably some mothers with more than one son in the army. You can read more about the mother's in the author's BYU Studies article: "Anti-Nephi-Lehi Mothers What They Taught Their Stripling Sons."
2. The mothers taught their sons to “keep the commandments” and trust God because “whosoever did not doubt…should be preserved by his marvelous power” (Alma 52:21, 57:26–27).
3. While the term “stripling warriors” is often used to give a connotation of the sons’ spiritual strength, they are called “stripling soldiers” in the Book of Mormon, never stripling warriors (see Alma 53:22). They are specifically not trained in war (the promise to not take up weapons would have prevented their fathers from teaching them); only Teancum’s men are called “warriors.” It sometimes dilutes the miracle and power of the story to call them “stripling warriors” because it assumes much more physical strength than the sons likely had.
4. Alma 53:10–18
5. Alma 53:21; 56:47–48; 57:20–21, 26–27
6. Alma 22–23; 53:10–16
7. From before the 11 years of the reign of the judges into the 14th year.
8. Alma 24:17–18
9. Alma 24:20–22; 27:3–10
10. Alma 27:12
11. American Dictionary of the English Language, s.v. “stripling,” last modified July 7, 2022, https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/stripling.