A couple weekends ago we had a big, all-day ward YM/YW activity, and seeing as we had 35 or so youth to shuttle and I had a big 12-passenger van, I ended up driving 10 deacons. It was a good day and everybody had fun, but the drive back was a bit of a nightmare. If you’ve worked with deacons before, you know that individually they’re fairly smart, but when grouped, their collective IQ is inversely proportional to the number in the group. I had an emergency bag (jumper cables, first aid kit, flare, etc.) under one of the seats [1], and the boys got into it and started throwing things around the van. I was hit in the back of the head with a mini roll of duct tape, and one kid even lit a match (apparently there were matches). They got out of my stuff when I asked them to (they weren’t exactly malicious, just crazy — not sure why, because I’d thought they’d be tired), but the rough housing and screaming just wouldn’t stop. Several of the boys were trying to meet a goal to read their scriptures daily, and since we were getting home late, I proposed we all listen to scriptures for 10 minutes, both to meet the goal and calm them down. About half liked it because they’d had it with the chaos, but the other half started screaming to drown it out. Finally, I exited the freeway onto a dark street where I could pull over. At first, the trouble makers freaked out a little, but when they saw that I was completely calm and didn’t make any threats, they actually continued being crazy. They didn’t get it until they saw me texting and wanted to know what I was doing. “Telling people why you’re going to be late.” Then they started calming down. There was a lot of discussion about who was responsible for what, but nobody confessed to anything, and I certainly wasn’t going to continue as things were. I’d seen enough in the rear-view mirror. I knew their voices, and I pretty much knew what to do to solve the problem. I made two of the rowdiest boys in back switch with two of the calm kids in front.
What shocked me was how offended those two rowdy boys were. They just couldn’t believe they’d been singled out. The one I’d sat shotgun sulked for the next half hour about how unfair I’d been that he didn’t get to sit next to anybody. Let me point out that I hadn’t accused any of them of anything I hadn’t actually seen or heard, that I hadn’t demeaned or disrespected any of them in any way, and I hadn’t yelled or even threatened to tell their parents. I’ve had several stints dealing with YM, and I’ve never had a situation like that in which I’d behaved more calmly or fair-mindedly. So why were they so upset with me? I think it was equal parts shame (being singled out from their peers, even though I’d made it clear it was a collective problem) and resentment over being compelled (they didn’t like that I could exercise authority over them).
Isn’t that what it feels like to be judged? People shame you and compel you? I’ve heard it said that our church culture is very judgmental, and I think that’s what they mean. Apparently I had just contributed to that. But what was I to do? There simply had to be a higher standard of behavior than what they were arriving at on their own. How can you enforce a standard without somebody feeling judged?
In Jana Riess’ recent piece “How to create ex-Mormons”, she describes a poster she saw for Mormon Prom that listed lines and lines of rules for what girls couldn’t wear (no bare shoulders, low necklines, you know the list). These rules made up most of the poster (the guys’ rules were a single line about baggy pants) and included the threat of cardigans and maxi-skirts for those girls who arrived wearing dresses that didn’t meet the standards. As a preventive measure, girls were to text a picture of their dresses and get approved by their young women leaders. Riess felt the poster illustrated both a double standard and a culture of judgmentalism within the church that explains why, in her 2016 Next Mormon Survey, she found that the number one reason given among ex-Mormon women [2] for leaving the church was “I felt judged or misunderstood”.
Since Riess and I live in the same general area, I could imagine seeing just such a poster in my church foyer. While I have no sympathy for the double standard complaint [3], and I’m unapologetic about modesty standards, even I would find the poster off-putting and counter-productive. I don’t like being shamed or compelled either.
But for those of you wondering what “Mormon Prom” is, it’s basically a dance for older teens held as an alternative to the high school proms, which are considered to not have the best environment (grinding, vulgarity, drugs, etc.) In my area, there have been some pretty amazing Mormon Proms, and they’re a whole lot of work and money to put together. The idea of “Mormon Prom” is to create the magic of prom while maintaining a safe, wholesome environment, as opposed to the school dances, which are simply aiming for safe. A lot of kids (and their parents) don’t feel comfortable going to the school proms, and attend Mormon Prom instead. A lot of kids go to both Mormon Prom and their school prom. A lot of kids go to neither. But the point is, if there weren’t standards, then there’d be no reason for having Mormon Prom at all.
The BYU honor code (which comes up constantly in the blogosphere) has a similar purpose — to create a great university where the standards are a given — and has a similar problem. In the recent NPR story interviewing Dan Reynolds of Imagine Dragons about why he decided to speak out against the LDS Church’s position on gay marriage, he told the story of how all his siblings made it into BYU and he was so relieved he’d been accepted by the skin of his teeth. He said,
Then, one week before I was supposed to go, I met with a bishop and told him I had sex with my girlfriend of four years, and got kicked out of BYU — and that was a trigger point in my life. It was the first time that I kind of spiraled into depression. I was told that I had to stay home and all my friends went off to college and my roommate had to find someone else and I felt like a whole community was judging me.
I also felt like God saw me as this dirty kid who was sinful. And I think that was the first time that I started to think, you know, something’s not right about this — telling a child that something that is innate, that is natural, that is beautiful, is sinful. And that was really destructive to me, and it’s taken me years to see that and a lot of therapy and that’s a small level of what LGBT Mormons go through — which is feeling guilt or shame about something that is innate, that should be celebrated, that is their sexuality, that is unchangeable.
While I applaud Reynold’s empathy for LGBT Mormons, I wouldn’t compare his violation of the law of chastity with the situation they’re in, even if it did lead him to take up their cause. Regardless, he violated a BYU standard he’d signed when he applied, and BYU’s enforcement of the standard made him feel judged (shamed and forcibly excluded). BYU’s punishment (and possibly the false equivalence of his fornication with the predicament of LGTB people) has apparently led to him rejecting the church’s standard of chastity, which is undoubtedly not what BYU or his bishop would have wanted. But how can you maintain standards without enforcing them? If BYU had no standards, there would be no reason for having BYU at all.
Obviously, if the standards for a church dance or admittance to BYU are too unpopular, people won’t go. To an extent, the market decides. As long as students are clamoring to get into BYU, BYU can set whatever standards it wants. As long as kids want to go to Mormon Prom, they can strictly enforce the dress codes. As long as boys want to participate in YM activities, I can enforce standards by threatening to exclude them from the next one. However, if the standards are too harsh, people will quit participating, and the activities will quit happening. So presumably, the standards would get set to what the market will embrace, to what actually gives an event or institution extra value. But this is all beside the point. My question isn’t where the standards should be set, but how you can maintain them without anybody feeling shamed or compelled.
I think many would argue that if any standard exists, somebody is going to feel judged (shamed and compelled). So, the popular attitude these days is simply drop standards altogether. You know, let everybody do her own thing. Have a personal standard if you want, but insisting on a collective standard is considered shaming, and therefore bad. [4]
However, if you believe collective standards should exist (which you do, if you have personal standards and want to associate in groups of people who share them), the question is, how can those standards be maintained without somebody feeling judged? Other institutions have standards. Kids get suspended from school, kicked off sport teams and out of clubs. Professional organizations exclude offenders, and professional journals exclude work of those they don’t consider worthy. How is it different with church and what should the church do to keep standard violators coming back?
** By the way, I consider this post to be a rehash of thousands of posts that have gone before, and rather than raging about how bad the BYU honor code is, or how unreasonable the church’s modesty standards are, I’d be much more interested in how standards in general, any standards, can be sustained without shaming the non-compliant. Is that even possible? What’s the best we can do?
[1] ‘cause being prepared, don’t you know. I also have a blue hospital vomit pan for those who get motion sick — and it’s been used multiple times.
[2] as a whole that is — Riess breaks out the reasons by age group and they vary
[3] You could simply combine the dress standards for the girls and boys into a single standard, however. That way you won’t have in boys in low-cut shirts or girls flaunting their thongs in low-hung pants.
[4] Driving to seminary, my daughter and I were joking about something which led to me mentioning the nightmare dream of arriving at school without pants. Rather than laughing, she just looked at me and said “my teachers wouldn’t say anything.” I thought about it, and I guess she’s right — she’d just look like she’d made booty shorts by cutting the legs off some leggings. How dare they say a word.
Wheat & Tares 
Thank you, very thoughtful.
“If BYU had no standards, there would be no reason for having BYU at all.” First, nobody is suggesting NO standards (all schools have standards), but even if there were no dress code, of course there would be a lot of reasons for BYU to exist.
In theory, I like what you say about the market regulating what’s acceptable, but there’s a real tipping of the scales when it comes to BYU. The tuition there which is subsidized by MY tithing money is paying for the upkeep up the university that my boys at least will not attend because of the toxic environment. Following the honor code is the easy part. Dealing with fellow class-mates tattling on and policing each others’ political views, dealing with the sexist jokes and actions in some of the colleges there, dealing with the testimony-policing inherent in an annual ecclesiastical endorsement (even if you are living all the standards) makes it a risky proposition, especially when you will lose credits if you transfer. So, despite being half the cost of our in-state school, it was deemed too big a risk by my sons. So I do totally understand the market factors at play here. I am subsidizing the education of others’ kids who perpetuate the sexist, increasingly fundamentalist environment. My daughter wants to go there, and perhaps she will enjoy it; she might not be as bothered by that stuff, or she could get into a decent program where those factors are subdued (like I did in English). I made it through, but I would have gone elsewhere if the cost hadn’t been so low there by comparison. It is a good place to meet other young Mormons if, like me, you live(d) in a place where there were almost no other Mormons.
When it comes to Mormon Prom, having a flyer with 10x as many restrictions for the girls is just not good, any way you slice it. Why not just say “modest” and tell them to ask their parents or leaders if they have a question about what that means, and then just let them come however they are. The risk of having a few girls in shorter dresses or strapless gowns is worth it. The Mormon Prom itself is fun for these kids because there is no hookup culture (another plus for BYU), so there’s not all this negative peer pressure to drink and have sex, and the people who put them on are usually great at making it fun for the kids. Adding a sweater or maxi skirt to someone’s dress is uncalled for. These kids aren’t wearing garments. They are kids. Let’s knock off all the modesty shaming crap. There’s already peer pressure among Mormon kids to dress “modestly” without making it obvious that girls are going to be judged and shamed.
“How can you enforce a standard without somebody feeling judged?”
That’s a great question and doesn’t seem easily answered. Still, I’ll give it a clumsy attempt.
I think standards are definitely important. Without them, chaos would ensue. I think the successful enforcement of standards requires two key ingredients: meaningful standards and genuine love when standards are broken. Standards should be meaningful in that they should stick to the important stuff. The phrase, “not the hill I want to die on,” comes to mind. Then, when someone inevitably breaks the standards, we genuinely love the person and do not “other” them. The boys in your van probably would admit to your sincere care for them, which could work to temper any adverse reaction to the enforcement of community standards.
Still, your question betrays how difficult all of this really is. Focusing on people rather than rules is probably the best path forward, but is still fraught with trouble.
Great post. Thanks.
Angela C: “Why not just say “modest” and tell them to ask their parents or leaders if they have a question about what that means, and then just let them come however they are” is an argument for no collective standard (at least in dress). You’d justify Mormon Prom with other standards.. With regard to BYU, it sounds like you don’t like where the standards are set, but that you still want some standards. Assuming your hypothetical standards (whatever they may be) are adopted, how would you maintain them without people feeling judged?
Cody: I wonder… Those kids know I care about them, but it didn’t seem to help. In fact, in a way, I think the calm way I handled things might have made it even worse. If I’d yelled at them or made a big scene, at least they could have put part of the incident back on me. They could make fun about how mad I got, for example. The way I did it, there was no way anyone could think it was anything but entirely on them. Maybe speaking with sharpness and showing an increase of love afterwards would have been better (though, I’ve seen that backfire plenty too). Maybe I could have defused it a little with humor. I’m not sure. I’m still thinking about it. Years ago, I used to just yell at them or mock/bully their stupid behavior when they’d get like that, and not only did I not lose sleep over it, they didn’t seem to react as badly as those two kids did a couple weekends back. Or maybe I just wasn’t aware.
Your description of the van ride makes me twitch as it reminds me of over 100 campouts I went on with the scouts. Some were great, some not so great. My guess is that this activity didn’t wear out the boys enough for a long ride home. That was certainly a key I found on campouts.
I do like the “what the market will bear” framing and I think it has applicability even to much broader context of the church. From what I have been able to put together the top church leaders put out a statement to church leaders on oral sex that was more than a bunch of the membership was willing to go along with and it was quickly rescinded (not “undone”, but rescinded) .
I don’t have much more to offer than what Martin and the other comments that have been made. But on the BYU honor code – I really wish they would move to back to the students being in charge of it (which is where it started). Put it in the hands of student elected student representatives.
The main questions should be:
Who can legitimately judge others?
What things do they get to legitimately judge and when?
How harshly are they able to legitimately judge such things?
When is it illegitimate to NOT judge others?
Anybody who makes blanket, categorical statements out of these nuanced issues is almost certainly contradicting him/herself by judging other people because they judge other people. Such people are either woefully naive (like the kids in OP) and/or morally suspect.
I would like to divide your article into two sections. The first about the 10 crazy deacons . The second about a pretty substantial discussion on judgmentalism and standards. The second part of the article raises some great questions and I need to think further about it.
For your own sanity, amusement and as therapy, I want to respond to the first part at this time. I have been driving non-LDS scouts to camping activities every month for ~15 years. What you describe is pretty much normal behavior for boys that age. I have given up on doing much about it. The only thing that works is if you have some older boys in the group (not all deacons) and they have the respect of the younger boys and they decide to take matters into their own hands.
Jumper cables are a bad idea, they can end up around fingers or worse, on noses and ears. You are lucky they didn’t fire the flare out the window. My scouts use cigarette lighters not matches. I have had kids set things on fire in my van and I discovered that all of the fabrics in it seem to be inflammable. Once this clever scout lit his paper cup half full of coke on fire while he calmly explained this was a perfectly safe fire, it would self extinguish as soon as it burned down to the fluid level and he was right.. One kid threw a string of a dozen M-80 firecrackers in my glove box with fuses of slightly variable lengths so that they went off in quick succession sounding like automatic gun fire. The last two blew the door open covering him with black powder and tiny fragments of paper.
Once when it was cold an older scout, with a warm coat opened the window and everyone was freezing and screaming and threatening to kill him. He made a deal, if they all could not say one word for 2 minutes he would roll up the window. They could not keep their little traps shut for 2 minutes even if their lives depended upon it and the longer it went on the more they laughed and the more they punched each other for breaking silence and the more they shivered and screamed. And the more I chuckled quietly to myself since I had the van heater pointed at me.
We were driving down a dirt road really slow because the car in front was new and they didn’t want to chip it up. This large athletic scout with long hair had a 8 ft walking stick he had whittled into a spear. He jumped out of my moving van and began chasing the car down in from of us threatening it with his spear. This looked like a scene out of a movie: Sasquatch attacks a car of scouts. I guess they got the hint and sped up a bit but I made him run about 5 more miles before I slowed down and let him back in the van.
Once a scout would not put on his seat belt. I stopped the car and said I would not go until he put the seat belt on and he utterly refused. (Try not to get into power struggles with teenagers, especially ones where you could lose). After a while the older scouts tied him up in the car and then put his seat belt on him while we all patiently waited on the side of the road. What a great and unforgettable lesson on the importance of wearing seatbelts.
I have made scouts walk a mile down the road in front of my van if they do anything that directly affects the steering of the vehicle (such as hitting me with roll of duct tape) and it seldom does any good. You know they are going to get into their camping gear, so I always put my pack on the bottom. They can throw their own gear around and are usually too lazy to get to the bottom of anything. It makes their parents really get after them when the trip home from the church is delayed, while they have to sort out all of their cargo they have thrown around, along with their litter and I make sure any forbidden items are discovered. Usually smut or cigarettes or girl’s underwear. (Better than tattling on them).
I can’t count the number of times I have stopped for gas and the scouts have been messing around in the store and got kicked out or rather they don’t come out when it is time to go and I leave them .Some kids have been left multiple times and they know I get a kick out of watching them run down the road trying to catch me and they still don’t learn their lesson. One time I swung back around so the scout ran through a ditch which was full of water and he fell and got soaking wet.
We went to a camp that had a camp dog, a big collie named Boon. When we left the scouts kidnapped Boon and stashed him away in the back of the minivan. Their excuse, I was making them follow a map to direct us home and they put Boon up in front with his paws on the dash board and he was going to be our GPS system. Ok. So when the dog looked left I turned left and when he looked right, I turned right. After a while we got on a dirt road that ended at a really deep river in the middle of nowhere. I got out to see if we could cross it and so did some of the scouts. Suckers, I proceeded to throw them in the river and Boon went in after them to join the fun. (If older scouts had been there I would have gotten the same treatment). We had to ride several miles with a big wet friendly dog jumping all over the scouts to get Boon back home and we finally arrived home only a few hours late and almost dry.
I had a scout whose mother was from Syria and he would shout Arabic expressions out the window at rednecks in rural Georgia. One time it attracted gunfire. Rural Southerners can shoot straight, drunk or sober, and they make a distinction between shooting at you (harmless) and shooting you (deadly). Once a scout brought a revolver and pulled it out and started shooting at trees. I stopped and felt like I had to take it away from him and that could have gone down differently. He was not allowed to camp with us for a year without his father pretty much on top of him all the time.
One trip we stopped at a Kentucky Fried Chicken and 3 scouts disappeared. A few minutes later the police arrived. They were arrested for smoking pot. That was not a fun call to make to their parents. I also told the police in front of them to throw the book at them, I had no sympathy for them smoking pot while wearing the scout uniform or while not. The scouts were taken to a county detention center maybe an hour’s drive from home in a rural county where they were not amused by the stunt.
Some scouts didn’t bring enough food and the others were selfish so they went hungry for about 24 hours. We stopped at a Zaxby’s and they wolfed down 2-3 meals each. I “baptized” their phones because of the nude selfies of girlfriends that were being shown around at lunch.( If you put a scout’s cell phone in container of water and then dry it out slowly over a few days, it USUALLY still works), They turned on AM radio in the van and found a really rambunctious minister preaching who sounded like he was foaming at the mouth. They started ridiculing him and laughing so hard that one of them threw up and that started the rest of them barfing. All seven of them vomited several times. It was too cold to roll the windows down and that was one miserable last hour ride home. My pack being on the bottom was not affected and somehow they didn’t barf on me. I turned my van over to the senior patrol leader and he determined who and how to clean it. And it was cleaned.
I have only scratched the surface. But you know, sometimes they quiet down and then open up to you and ask questions and you tell them important things that they remember forever. And it is all worth it. I hope these stories speak to judgmentalism indirectly and maybe even to the need for standards. If not read and delete.
EXCELLENT topic, and one where I feel like I have something to add.
“What should the church do to keep standard violators coming back?” I think this highlights that standards are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. When we come in contact with a standard, we look for the motive. Sometimes our interpretation of a standard is flawed. Conversely, sometimes a standard poorly serves the end for which it was designed. Not only WHAT the standard is, but HOW and WHEN the standard is enforced also communicate the intent behind the standard.
Put another way, standards are an implementation of an ideal. The ideal could be corrupt. The implementation could be flawed. The interpretation of those affected could be inaccurate. Assuming we have a “good” ideal, we need to look really hard at how we apply the standards and when we should shift them to match someone’s needs.
Complicated! To answer the quoted question, I think there’s a general solution that applies to anyone looking to maintain an ideal, be it a global church or a van 🙂 Firstly, identify your ideals clearly. Second, choose standards that are a best general fit. Thirdly, bend/break/customize your standards when they fail to serve the ideal in a particular situation.
BYU’s policies are hard to extract from the church’s, and I actually think some of the church’s deeply-held views of sex/sexuality are detrimental to their members and society. So in MY opinion, there would need to a shift in standards to match improved ideals.
The van? I think a pretty good ideal to maintain when engaging in the most dangerous activity of your day (driving) is safety: when my kids get loud enough (or throw crap? seriously?), I react and try to remind them that when I’m distracted, people DIE. Dad of the year here, I know. My implementation is hardly perfect all the time, but with kids finding the right way to get into their head and heart is always a moving target because they’re always growing. Can’t help there, good luck 🙂
I’ll add here that you can never control 100% how someone will interpret your actions or enforcement of a standard. The more you know a person, the better you can help them see the ideal beyond the standard. That being said, there are situations where you can’t shoulder the responsibility for someone else’s reaction. I only say that out of completeness, though: I think we all can do a LOT better at improving our communication skills, myself included 🙂
Mike, that was amazing. You should do a post.
Mike… I’m… I don’t even know what to say. You are one dedicated scouter.
awanderingwarlock, I really like your input. When you talk about bending/breaking/customizing your standard for a certain situation, I think that’s what the church has attempted by giving Bishop/SPs wide latitude when it comes to church discipline. The standards are pretty much the same for everybody, but the way they’re enforced could change dramatically with the individual. The same transgression by a high councilman which could get him excommunicated, when committed by a teen might not result in much discipline at all. But this can also lead to a complaint of leadership roulette. I know our bishop was contacted by a youth in an adjacent ward, because she felt her bishop had just made her feel terrible, and she knew that she’d had a friend see him and that he’d really helped her. You can kind of get away with this approach within the church, because it’s all supposed to be confidential.
However, trying to bend/break/customize enforcement in a public setting is extremely difficult. Treating people differently threatens the whole perception of a standard in the first place, because it seems so unfair. Why should one girl get to wear X when another girl gets held back for wearing Y? Should it matter that the X-wearing girl is an investigator and the Y-wearing girl’s mom is the RS pres,? What message would everyone at the dance get when they see the girl wearing X, especially when they had to really work to find something that met the standard? Would the other attendees shame the X-wearing girl, not knowing the rationale? What would happen if the situation was reversed? Obviously, a great number of people don’t agree with dress standards at all — I’m only giving this as an example of how much trouble flexible standards can cause.
Martin’s mention of “investigator” is 100% on point. When we enforce standards without knowing what’s going on, we can do a lot of harm.
When I was a missionary in Germany, one extremely snowy Sunday an investigator came to church with her 14-year-old daughter and her daughter’s friend. After church, they played in the fresh snow a bit, right outside the ward house. The bishop of the other ward in that building (an American ward) saw them throwing snowballs at each other and told them that that wasn’t appropriate behavior for a Sunday. Not appropriate to say to investigators, although I’m sure he assumed they were members. Not appropriate to say to members either, if he didn’t know them…His ward had canceled church because of the snow, and I’m fairly certain most of the teenagers in his ward were engaging in similar activities during the time they’d normally be in church.
People who don’t know what’s going on shouldn’t be enforcing standards.
I find your comments with regard to “what the market will embrace” interesting as they refer to youth. As a teen I was often ‘compelled’ by my parents to attend church-sponsored youth events, and I wonder to what extent the rules enforced at Mormon Prom/BYU/girls’ camp/etc are reflective of what parents and other influential adults will accept rather than youth themselves. For my part, I moved across the country to attend (non-BYU) college and buy sleeveless shirts as soon as I could post-high school.
Thanks, Martin. There’s a certain compromise in creating shared standards. The more people it affects, the more likely it’s going to unfairly rule some extenuating circumstance the wrong way. People have vastly different backgrounds and biases.
I think the leadership roulette complaint is inevitable. If leaders are given no individual authority then what’s the point of needing a human to perform that task; then there’s not even the option of customizing standards to meet the needs of an individual. If we do give individual authority then inevitably there will be those who are inept or indecent in its application. I have ideas about ways to mitigate this issue, but they run contrary to the concept of divine ordinance…and a small part of why I’m not active.
The dress code one is a fun challenge. The perception of a common standard being “fair” I think is false. To be fair would, in my mind, mean that it affected everyone equally, which we know not to be the case. Different body types make adherence to certain dress code standards more difficult than others, how is that fair? Certain women have extreme difficulty abiding by the standards of wearing garments and get rashes or even infections while others don’t. Is that fair? I’m not sure if I’d use the word ‘lazy’, but standards are just the simplest way to enforce an ideal in a group. It’s certainly not the best. Exceptions to standards aren’t necessarily exceptions to the ideal. Of course some people won’t see it that way and accuse you of favoritism or bias. You can try to help them understand the ideal behind the standard, but even then they may disagree with your execution. In any event, if you’re the one in authority to enforce an ideal on a group then you’ve already accepted the responsibility for all of these things including the consequences of poor-fitting standards, so do whatever helps you sleep at night 🙂
Well, here’s a mental activity for the free market model. If you dress outside group norms, you pay a social cost. Nobody needs to type up a list. Judgmental people make up for lack of clarity in standards. And yet, that is also not ideal. If the real mission of the church is to invite people to come to Christ, why don’t we do that? Would we really want to send away a young person who was wearing something short or sleeveless? I sure wouldn’t.
Angela C, when it comes to Mormon Prom, they’re trying to establish group norms, because the norms the kids are used to from school are so different. As for the group enforcing the norm through social costs, I think that’s probably the worst possible way to go. That seems like it maximizes the sense of shame. It seems to me it would be far better to simply let the authority enforce the standard and everybody else stay out of it.
As for sending somebody away for something short or sleeveless, I heard that at the temple(s) the new instructions are not to say anything about anything anybody wears, period. Has anybody else heard this?
Martin: “when it comes to Mormon Prom, they’re trying to establish group norms, because the norms the kids are used to from school are so different.” The kids going to Mormon Prom already get this. They don’t need a list with 10x the restrictions for the girls, PLUS needing a YW leader to approve their dress, PLUS the threat of slut-shaming if they don’t comply. . . they go to Mormon Prom because it’s geared toward their Mormon norms already, norms that are more comfortable to them in many ways. Why beat up our girls like this?? I’ve had teens who’ve gone to prom and Mormon Prom, and believe me, they know the difference in both norms and expectations. It’s not like it isn’t beaten into their heads from before puberty even hits! They choose to go to Mormon Prom because they see wholesome fun as a good alternative to some of what they will encounter in regular prom.
Let’s take another example. We assign youth talks all the time, but we don’t write the talks for them. They know more or less what they can and should say at the pulpit based on their years of experience in church culture. If they fret about it, they turn to trusted leaders for advice. We don’t tell them “send you talk to your leader for approval” which erodes confidence and drives away accountability. We don’t give the girls a specific long list of 10 things not to do and the boys one minor thing not to do. We don’t have to tell them how a talk differs from giving a speech in a public speaking class at school or presenting an argument in debate. They understand these things already.
What happened to teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves.
Geoff -Aus.
This, to me, is the entire issue in 25 words or less..!!
I’m also trying to think what would actually happen if a woman attended a Mormon dance in an outfit that was tasteful but “in violation of standards.” She might get a few more requests to dance? Maybe a couple guys might develop fixations, stare a little too long? I can’t really imagine a calamity so awful that requires us to protect the Saints by enforcing a dress code.
Two additional points: 1) I said “tasteful.” We’ve all seen the occasional woman in a truly trashy outfit, and again, what happens? They get stared at and some rude comments might fly around. If the assumption here is that they might be victimized somehow, that’s a completely separate conversation that needs to be had with the men in attendance.
2) Something I never hear in these conversations is that, uh, modesty never stopped a man in his licentious tracks and turned him to Jesus. Most of my first Mormon girlfriend’s body was hidden from outside view between her birth and her honeymoon, but that sure doesn’t mean I didn’t find her attractive or, uh, daydream about her. Shucks, one could argue that my initial interest in the Gospel and eventual conversion had at least some genesis in my sexual attraction to her. And as I told her once, “You’re smart and funny and athletic and gorgeous. I’d find you hot even if you wore a hijab.” If straight men are visual creatures who find women attractive, they’re going to find a way to do that unless you enforce total separation of the sexes.
(#2 continued) Or you could always teach men to behave with respect and rationality, and to fear consequences for unacceptable.
Angela C., I’m NOT defending the Mormon Prom poster. I think it’s totally over-the-top. You’ve made it clear you don’t feel dress standards are necessary, period. Fine. But you also said that you believe there should be SOME standards (at least for BYU). Either I’m missing your point, or your arguments are basically about where the standards are set. That only moves the problem. The more lax the standards, the fewer people they affect, but they’re still affected in the same way. Or maybe you just write them off as gross violators so it doesn’t matter?
Geoff-Aus, LDS_Aussie, that’s a total cop-out, and you know it. Teaching people correct principles and letting them govern themselves is great when they go off and do their own thing. It’s when they come together (such as in my van — those boys all knew the correct principles) that it becomes a problem.
I attended BYU for two years before transferring to Utah State. I never got caught violating the honor code, I just lied to my church leaders about my worthyness, much like a large number of other students. We didn’t like the standards and just found a way around them.
JR–Did you include the above paragraph in your resume (a brief account of a person’s education, qualifications, and previous experience, typically sent with a job application)?
Definitely not Jared. Did you include all of your less than stellar moments of your life in your resume? Thanks for judging.
“However, if you believe collective standards should exist (which you do, if you have personal standards and want to associate in groups of people who share them), the question is, how can those standards be maintained without somebody feeling judged?”
They can’t. Nor should they.
The only way to maintain standards is to enforce them in some fashion. And that invariably entails making a judgment, which inevitably carries the potential of offending/shaming the person whose conduct has been judged and found wanting.
Now, whether some of our standards are excessive, harmful, pharisaical, or just plain silly is a separate question worthy of debate. But once an organization decides to adopt and enforce standards, someone has to use their authority to enforce them, even at the risk of giving offense, or else it was pointless to adopt them in the first place.
JR—I wrote the above more out of my sense of humor than that part of me that judges. You’re right, I wouldn’t put my less than stellar moments in my resume either. I’ve had many, but thankfully I’ve learned from them. I’ve lived a long time and I’m pleased to report I have far more stellar than less than stellar moments nowadays. Even my wife and children, who know me best, would agree.
I’ll bet you have learned a lot in your years from your less than stellar moments. I think most of us do.
Jared, sorry I missed the humor. You’re right, I’ve learned from my lessor moments and have many more stellar moments to be proud of in my life. Thanks for the clarification 😊
How we enforce the standards is important. Think of D &C 121. As a older male I would never comment, enforce a dress standard directly for a women of any age. I might have another woman approach her and suggest that some of the men around her were uncomfortable with her dress if it was a major issue.
Ear plugs help when traveling with scouts
An excellent post, Martin.
All standards problems are either a problem with (i) the standard (it’s poorly constructed or poorly interpreted) or (ii) the values of the people who are supposed to obey the standard. It is NOT a problem with who enforces the standard (thought that can lead to problem (i)).
Distinguishing those is sometimes difficult, but sometimes not. To put it plainly, complaining about being “forced” out of BYU because you violated the law of chastity demonstrates a values problem. The real loss – the real, lasting harm to the person – is the sin, not the loss of admission, and blindness to that loss is all the evidence that’s needed to conclude that the person, not the standard or its enforcers, need to re-evaluate things.
Also, Sparks, can you clarify why it’s not OK for a man to approach a young woman about her dress, if the discomfort of men around her is really the problem?
Comment blocked 😔
jpv, I don’t see a blocked comment in the queue… I’m not sure what would have happened.
A bit off topic about Mormon Prom:
A lily white stake north of us had a geography standard. Youth from our stake (which includes wards with up to 50% black youth as in African-Americans) could not attend any more- unofficially because the year before my daughter brought a black non-LDS friend (girl, not girlfriend) along with her little posse which also included a LDS Mexican girl whose skin was quite a bit darker than the average Latina. The black guest was modestly dressed and reportedly not dancing in a suggestive way. (She did have a larger than usual rear end, nothing short of plastic surgery could be done about that).
What I have noticed is that LDS parents are comfortable with their youth associating across racial lines.As long as everyone behaves. But when they start dating and kissing, the parents get extremely uncomfortable. When the youth shows up from college with a fiance of another race the parents have to put on the happy face then. Gone are the days when I brought a gorgeous Japanese girl home and my father told me, “we don’t need any Japs in this family.” One way to nip it in the bud is to keep the wards subtly segregated.
Judgmentalism knows no bounds.
I’m with Angela C. and Geoff-Aus. As Joseph Smith said “Teach them correct principles and let them get dressed themselves.”
Martin and Eric, I do not know where you live, so do not know the density of mormons. In Australia mormons are less than one half of one percent. If we have not taught our youth, and they have not been convinced, there will rarely be a fellow mormon to remind them.
We also live close to some of the best beaches in the world. We had a ysa activity where the yw were required to wear t shirts over their swimmers, about half the young people left and went to the beach close by, where they were the most modest people on the beach without the t shirts.
This stuff might work in Utah, but here if the young people don’t police themselves it becomes pointless to try to enforce. That our leaders do try indicates unthinking obedience, on their part.
Martin, I thought the behaviour of your scouts was just bad behaviour, and as such unacceptable.
I have lived in several places in the U.S. (never close to Utah) and have been to many water activities, and I have never witnessed a t-shirt requirement for girls at ward or stake YM-YW activities (many years as YM leader and many years as parent) — I’m willing to believe it has happened in other places, but I have never seen it. However, I have heard tell I f stake YW leaders creating such a requirement for girls camp, where no boys or men would be present. If such rules are made, almost certainly they are made by women, not men.
T shirts required here in the UK, although that might be viewed as a health and safety issue re sun exposure…but boys don’t get sunburn.
I’ve decided this post was poorly constructed for the discussion I was aiming for — I explicitly said I didn’t want it to devolve in to a discussion on dress standards (or BYU’s honor code). I blame you, Angela C! No, I shouldn’t have linked to my modesty post and I should have given other examples, like when missionaries are too disobedient and get sent home, or when a girl gets her cell phone confiscated at girls camp, or any other thing in which standards are set and somebody is punished for violating them (the chaos in the van isn’t a great example because the rules aren’t explicitly spelled out).
The “teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves” is totally a cop-out in those situations. When people decide to simply violate standards, it detracts from the experience for everybody else and can basically ruin a good thing. I mean, even a blog as liberal in its commenting policy as this one will attempt to block and ban violators of its standards.
Clearly, we need standards at times and no reasonable person could argue that’s not the case (what is criminal law, if not an enforced system of standards?) The difference between the church and other institutions/organizations is that the church wants everybody — even the violators — to feel loved and welcome. The question was how to pull that off while still enforcing standards.
I hate to tell you, but the church is the people and people don’t make violators feel loved or welcome. Just my opinion.