I’m a single mom of three teens and was asked to feed the missionaries this week. They proposed a 20 year old man come with the missionaries to dinner (to get around the ridiculous rule that the missionaries can’t be alone with me). I politely said something to the effect that it felt uncomfortable to have a male chaperone in my own home and that I wasn’t agreeable to what would feel like a supervised visit. I offered to bring them snacks and water on the porch if they weren’t allowed in my house. Does anyone else find being supervised by a male half their age in the own home condescending?
A well known fact of life is that we tend to overreact to the wrong risks. For example, a few years, near Fort Worth, a full sized tiger escaped and attacked a guy working on the grounds. Suddenly people were more worried about tiger attacks than automobile accidents.
Hikers on the Appalachian Trail often get asked about bears and how they plan to deal with them — especially in protecting their food. While any hiker should be situationally aware, and you should not take foolish risks, the biggest threat to your food is mice and chipmunks (both often referred to as “the little bears.”). [Note, bears are something that you need to be careful about, but much easier to protect against than mice and other rodents.]
There is even a good paper from Harvard about the overreaction to the wrong risks. To quote from the abstract:
” Such risks, which usually involve high consequences, tend to have low probabilities, since life today is no longer nasty, brutish and short. In the face of a low-probability fearsome risk, people often exaggerate the benefits of preventive, risk-reducing, or ameliorative measures. In both personal life and politics, the result is damaging overreactions to risks. We offer evidence for the phenomenon of probability neglect, failing to distinguish between high and low-probability risks. Action bias is a likely result. “
In the short note I shared to start this post you can see that in play. There is the fear of the risk of an inappropriate relationship developing between a missionary and a mother of teenagers. That is a reaction to a “fearsome risk” (to quote the Harvard paper) or a “headline risk” to quote a popular risk response team’s discussion.
It is similar to how it might be if in response to the tiger attack I had dug a tiger pit or two in my yard. Of course, a tiger pit carries its own dangers.
In the example above, where an adult woman required three people to chaperone each other for a visit, there is the fearsome risk that some inappropriate relationship might develop if it is only two missionaries who are normalized to each other’s behavior. The more common risk is the risk of hurting feelings, diminishing relationships and all the fall-out that comes from infantilizing adult women. Those risks include reduced commitment, reduced involvement and reduced engagement.
Insurance companies often balance risks and it often takes the form of deep analysis and surprising recognition of the cost — and risk — of every type of risk avoidance. For example, it is obvious that if they drive slowly and if ambulances don’t use their sirens and lights, they get in fewer accidents. Of course that means that more people die on the way to a hospital where they could have been saved. Which risk do you avoid and which one is an acceptable cost?
While the number of headline missionary behaving badly stories is very small (though it does happen every-so-often), people feeling like they do not have a place in the LDS community is a much more common event. The avoidance of the one risk has a definite cost.
Questions for our readers:
- What examples of “fearsome risks” vs. “likely to be encountered” risks have you noticed in your life or the life of friends?
- Have you ever noticed someone overreacting to a potential risk?
- How many people have you known who have become less engaged as a result of being infantilized?
- Is there any risk avoidance that doesn’t have a cost?
- What ways might you change things if one of your goals was to encourage women to be involved, treated as adults, and engaged in the modern church?
- What other thoughts did this essay bring to mind?
Picture from Wikimedia Commons. For a link to the license, etc. click on the picture. Quote was used with permission from the author.
Wheat & Tares 
Stephen, I recall a lot of discussion on this topic in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. From what I recall, the focus was on the necessity to invest in risk management procedures and equipment for events that, why unlikely to occur, would be devastating if they did, and apparently the oil spill fell into that category. BP, seemingly prudent at the time, didn’t bother to waste money on remote-control or acoustically activated triggers for the rig’s blowout preventer (and were able to cite to a report from the Minerals Management Service to support that decision). The result was the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history.
Are the rules on missionaries not meeting by themselves with members of the opposite largely infantilizing? Sure, but I think this risk falls into the Deepwater Horizon category. An affair between a missionary and a member isn’t going to work out well for anyone and most likely will be spiritually devastating to the missionary and member, not to mention the loss of trust by ward members. Maybe I’m overselling the impact of such an event, but I see the “investment” in inconvenience and infantilization on this specific issue to be worth avoiding a really messy, if unlikely, result.
Every time I get on a plane I’m positive it will end in a fiery death. Consequently, I would much rather drive to get anywhere…it’s especially silly because I work in the area of Risk Analysis, so I’m very much aware of the dichotomy between my perceived and actual risk. Yes, I know that by driving instead of flying I actually increase my risk. But I would still rather drive.
We are creatures of emotion. Controlling those emotions to make logical decisions is sometimes difficult. In essence, I’m placing a high premium on my calm nerves which outweighs any additional risk driving adds.
I am a single (gay) man and encountered a similar situation in a ward with sister missionaries, which is laughable considering the circumstances. My solution was simple: don’t feed the missionaries! There are much more important things in the world to worry about and I’m sure my salvation doesn’t hinge on something so trivial. Raman noodles are easy to cook in the microwave!
I served when there was no such rule. Sometimes we were teaching older single women. Had we been required to bring another male member of the Church with us, (a) we would not have been teaching at all as there were too few such men and they were already overburdened, and (b) it would have amounted to an announcement that the Church does not trust its own missionaries, so, of course, there is no reason why the investigator should trust them. I have wondered sometimes in the current climate whether it might not be better to stop sending missionaries that are not trusted.
But in one city where I served there was an area that missionaries were instructed not to go because the residents had in some years been at least heckling if not threatening violence against missionaries as a result of a public scandal involving a missionary and an older married woman who had lived in that area.
I’m very glad I am not in councils that must make such policy decisions.
I think the people making these rules are simply blind to the cost because they aren’t witnesses to the daily small costs of them, which are cumulatively large. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen women express resentment of these types of rules (myself included). Any one incident like the one you use in your post is small but it all adds up. I also think we are training young men to think of and interact with women in ways that damage them. They pay a price socially and professionally.
The good news is that it’s much easier to turn down feeding the missionaries because your home is an inappropriate environment, i.e. no adult man is available to babysit you. Haha. Not only is it the woman who usually cooks the meal, but it’s also the woman who is deemed untrustworthy. Yup, I’m passing along the sign up sheet.
“Note, bears are something that you need to be careful about, but much easier to protect against than mice and other rodents”
This is not central to the topic, but this statement seems to misunderstand the reasons for protecting food from bears. As I understand it, the concern is that a bear that gets food from humans (whether the humans intentionally feed them or just leave food out) becomes accustomed to seeing humans as a source of food, increasing bear-human encounters, and ultimately frequently results in the bear being shot and killed. This has lead to the saying, “a fed bear is a dead bear.”
However, relevant to the OP, in double checking my facts here I found that not everyone agrees with this assessment.
https://www.bearstudy.org/website/updates/daily-updates/847-is-a-fed-bear-a-dead-bear.html
In my mission we had the rule about not meeting with opposite sex without another same sex person present, but we usually ignored the rule for elderly folks. There were many widowed women members who would have been really confused if we told them all of a sudden that we couldn’t meet with them without another male.
This risk control seems to be a factor in keeping women out of leadership positions. Why can women not be executive secretaries, Sunday school presidents and councilors it secretaries, ward clerks, etc.? The official answer would probably be that these positions must be held by a priesthood holder (I suspect many people disagree with that, but not most active members). But I think a big factor is that leadership does not want mixed gender presidencies and bishoprics. Eventually, someone will do something naughty, and the mixed gender situation would be blamed. The cost of leaving 50 percent of the talent at home is not considered.
For one glorious month I was the beneficiary of this rule. At the beginning of the month, we had a threesome of elders serving in our ward, so finally all the widows in the ward could sign up to feed the missionaries. Shortly after the calendar was full, one elder was transferred, leaving with the normal two. I was a widower living by myself, and so was the obvious choice to be the missionaries’ chaperone. I wound up going out with them to dinner appointments about twice a week that month, and most of those widows were good cooks.
It didn’t matter that there may have been some hope of matchmaking behind this, these were still meals I did not have to cook, and meals I did not have to eat by myself. I still think it’s a stupid rule. Many of these sisters were old enough to be grandmothers to these missionaries.
It isn’t just the rule about no two (two!) missionaries being alone with a female. There has long been a culture of superstition and borderline paranoia in the mission department that has led to this insane rule creation. If these guys were leading the church, we would be living like the FLDS do.
I think “Not a Cougar” above WAY underestimates the feelings of women who get sick and tired of being treated like harlots. It is not the one time hurt feelings, but the repeated insult after insult after insult. I think this under estimating the damage to female feelings is extremely common among men, who naturally see the world from a male perspective.
Seeing the missionary situation from a male perspective, most adult men are attracted to younger women, often much younger. Just look at rich men who have trophy wives thirty years younger than they are. But most women are not attracted to much younger men. So, reversing the genders of the case above, a single male with teen aged children would find sister missionaries attractive. So, yup, dangerous situation. But the woman with teen aged children is going to see the boy missionaries as little kids. Sorry, I know they want to think of themselves as men, but they are still little kids. So, to think a woman in her late 30s or 40s is going to try to seduce an 18 year old child is really pretty silly. Yes, it could happen, but to suggest it *will* if they are not chaperoned by a third male is silly. The 40 year old woman is much more likely to go after the older chaperone if he is closer to her own age, so aren’t they introducing a greater risk by having a “chaperone” closer to her own age? And that chaperone will be around longer because he is a member of the ward, to give her more time to develop a friendship. And isn’t the whole point of missionary companions is that they chaperone each other?
“What other thoughts did this essay bring to mind?”
That we have stringent rules to protect YM from “cougars,” yet so relaxed when adult men are privately interviewing children, and young men.
Correction—I meant when interviewing young women (and young men).
Rockwell’s example of mixed-gender presidencies is a great example.
Boy Scouts has a “two-deep” leadership policy it’s fanatical about. I suspect that child molesters will ignore the policy. In the meantime, young men that could benefit from a one-on-one visit, or a simple trip for an ice cream, are left without that. (I know, grooming behavior and all that.)
Anna, sorry, but you’re wrong in thinking I’m underestimating women’s feelings on being treated as harlots. I acknowledge that such rules insultingly presume an inability to control one’s actions that isn’t reality for 99%+ of people, but I’ve also seen the devastating impact such actions have on the lives of the 1% who can’t. When an elder has an affair with a local member, it’s absolutely devastating for all directly and indirectly involved. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of stupid things about how the missionary program is run, but this isn’t one of them.
I can’t give anyone a bottom line, but I do want people to think about the factors and not ignore some.
Thank you to everyone for their comments.
While I believe Anna is right in her assertion that many women would view missionaries as children, I think she under estimates the rate of women who will be attracted to those missionaries. The internet is a sea of information, and various statistics abound regarding the percentage of women who find younger men attractive. I have no idea how accurate they are, so I won’t repeat them here other than to say they’re in double digits.
From my own past, though, I can assure you that these women who flirt with boys do exist in larger than expected quantities. In my very small mission with a few dozen missionaries, I met four middle-aged women who exhibited various levels of “questionable” behavior with missionaries. It happened three times to me, with (I believe) no provocation from myself. Two of the women were repeat offenders. One actually asked my companion (prior to becoming my companion) to have sex with her. He was emergency transferred to my area.
That being said, I still think the policy does more harm than good. If an elder wants to have sex with someone, he’ll do it. If he doesn’t, he’ll keep himself safe and run at the first sign of trouble. And I never did understand why adding a third man was supposed to make us safer…
Not A Cougar, know what else is devastating? Knowing that as an adult woman, the church doesn’t trust you.
Our stake had a new rule this summer that only members with temple recommends could work at our girls’ camp (which is one of the best camps in the church, but requires a staff of about 70 adults). Several of the semi-active/inactive 20ish-year-old women who would normally come to be water staff or rapelling staff got dis-invited/never-invited. Bad feeling was created and a bunch of us grumbled (and camp was understaffed). What a waste. And what exactly was the risk that was trying to be avoided anyway?
“Have you ever noticed someone overreacting to a potential risk?”
Anti-vaxers
Mass shooting with assault rifle vs. victim of handgun violence vs. being killed by opioids.
I don’t see how the OP applies to the rules unless she had all daughters
Lots of discussion about the elders to female, situation.
What’s y’all’s opinion on sisters visiting single men?
jpv — the OP has sons and daughters. However, none are adults and she was told that the missionaries needed to be chaperoned by an adult man to keep them safe from her. I know here and adore her like one of my daughters, but she hasn’t darkened the door of the church since this happened.
Sad side effect of “mission president roulette.”
Great write up.
On the topic of risk control, Neal Tyson kicked up quite a hornet’s nest on the issue: https://mobile.twitter.com/neiltyson/status/1158074774297468928
Current airport security measures are another overreaction to a very unlikely risk.
I think rules on missionaries visiting single members are an expression of distrust toward the missionaries, not necessarily the members.
In any case – I never liked the rule either, and must admit I didn’t always follow it on my mission and we don’t follow it too closely now. Sorry.
Sisters aren‘t allowed to visit or ride on a car with a lone man either. I don‘t feel infantilized by this, just inconvenienced. Like when they visited recently and asked if they could help with anything. I was cleaning the patio so that’s what they did … then my wife went upstairs with the baby. So the sisters said I could go take care of something else too if I wanted 😏
I must also confess I have given rides to female members of my ward and go to lunch alone with female work colleagues.
I think another example of this that comee up a lot at church is the idea that we can’t have men and women serve on callings together because of the risk they might fall in lust and have sex. So you can’t have an unrelated man and woman serve in the nursery together because of the unlikely chance that, surrounded by toddlers, they might have sex. However, you can have a man and woman serve together in the nursery if they are married, even though most other children’s organisations require 2-deep leadership of unrelated adults because it makes children safer.
My friends, relatives, and I install playgrounds in isolated areas in developing countries. If we built playgrounds that are 100% safe they would be too expensive and not much fun. Instead we build to US standards.
But people are complaining that US standards are too strict. If you look at historic playgrounds they are much more challenging (and fun?). Critics argue that the standards are making children soft. They like the challenges of older playgrounds.
There will always trade offs between cost and safety. How much risk can we afford? I for one like the old-fashioned playgrounds. Are personal injury lawyers going too far?
jpv, good question. She has daughters and sons, but they told her that she needed another “adult” man there.