I was listening to a very good podcast about the Anthon Manuscript on Mormon.ish. They had a linguist, Trent Pehrson, talk about the problems with the supposed characters transcribed from the gold plates. I won’t go into the details, but highly recommend this, as he takes a very academic approach to the manuscript.
I’d like to discuss him talking in the end about his upbringing in the Church. From the podcast
Part of the reason why I frame the way I was trained from birth as a form of slavery is because I was robbed first of all of informed consent, but more importantly of the fact that I always had the right and the obligation to test and explore the claims that I was given from birth. And if you imagine a culture where people are doing what humans have to do, they taking what they were given by their parents, doing their best to pass it down to their children, so their children can have it to, and survive as least as well as their parents, if we package that with the mandate that you have a right and an obligation to test any of this, you can question it, you can refine it, you can throw the stuff out that doesn’t seem to work. You can ask why we do this, what makes this important, what makes this functional, and if you don’t find good answers you can let it go, you can replace it with something else. But I was given the mandate opposite of that, I was told this is the only way to do it, the only the safe way, these are the right things, and everything else if wrong. You are going to come to a sticky end if you don’t do it this way. You’ll be punished if you don’t do it this way. You’ll be blessed and rewarded if you do it this way.
He then went on and placed the blame for this.
The tragedy of that is my parents are not the responsible for that, and neither are their parents, or their parents. It is the original creators of this, that as a part of it, insidiously made it that self sealed system of faith believing that takes an existential crises to escape, so you don’t want to escape.
In my opinion “slavery” is probably too harsh a word, although I’m sure there are some of you out there that were raised in very strict house, and could argue in favor of the word. I do think that he hit the nail on the head on who is to blame for this. It is not the parents, but the institution that drills into the parents that it is their duty to save their children, and to do this you need to make sure they stay on the covenant path TM even if it means taking away their free agency to do it. I don’t see anything in the following scripture that would justify not letting children choose for themselves
And again, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of the baptisms and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the head of the parents.
Doctrine and Covenants 68: 25
The parents are only in condemnation if they do not teach them. After they have been taught, then the child should have the right to test and explore the claims to find out if it is true.
Your thoughts?
Wheat & Tares 
Short answer: As a teenage convert, I can’t speak from direct personal experience on the kid end of things, just on the parental side. I think two prime factors are (1) the personality and parenting approach of the parents, and (2) whether you are raised in the Mormon Corridor (Utah, southern Idaho, parts of Arizona) or out in “the World” where there is a lot more diversity.
I think the linguist’s take reflects being raised in the Mormon Corridors with “stay in the boat” parents. If you are raised in the Church but outside the MC and with more easy-going parents, it’s an entirely different experience.
I was raised as a 6th generation member in the heart of the system, less than 10 miles from the church office building. That photograph could be me in 1974, during our primary class, acting like a robot, more than a typical 3-year-old. I may respond with another post being raised in the church in that era and our current regrets of raising our children at the church and now seeing all the harm it caused them and still affects them to this moment. I got away, but the journey as those discussing in this blog, is a rough passage.
What gets me, is who is driving the bus? Who is really creating this system and who is the chief decision-maker of the institution? Where does this culture come from? Who can change it?
McKay was going to overturn the Priesthood ban in 1962 and some of the Q15, thwarted the chief leader who “speaks with God”. Once Kimball finally overturned the ban, McConkie and Packer went about changing the narrative of the history to create faith promoting stories, aka Paul Dunn style. Kimball was furious but stayed quiet from telling the church body the real truth. Now we have a culture of only faith promoting stories, not history.
Or in 2005 Hinckley addressed nepotism when his son was called as a G.A. He did not come out publicly but shares a tone that we need to be careful of this ongoing practice. Guess what, nepotism is ongoing and was strengthened.
Or as John Dehlin has shared about his lunches with Holland and how members are not ready for “such and such change” and how the Q15 hands are tied sometimes because of the church body culture. The constant washing of hands by “leadership”, keeping the appearance of revelation.
Or the classic, Nelson moment of God revealing the POX and then had it rescinded. Creating a nebulous definition of policy vs. doctrine. Leading to just follow the “brethren” and cementing the obedience only culture.
Bishop Bill, have you TM “Covenant Path”? That could be Oak’s legacy, to TM all LDS vernacular, so it is not corrupted by the world and create a new revenue stream.
I most agree that parents aren’t to blame for perpetuating the unhealthy system. However they are full grown adults who supposedly can think for themselves. Yeah, total indoctrination is difficult to leave but they are supposed to be the adult in the room.
As my wife and I reflect on our parenting of four kids over the last 30 years, we believe that we did a pretty good job generally. Definitely not without challenges and mistakes but we feel pretty good about our efforts. And part of this is based on feedback from the kids themselves now that they are adults.
The one area that all six of us aren’t quite settled on is how we handled raising them in an active LDS environment. We weren’t super all star Mormons but we were pretty deliberate about it. We were in Church 50 Sundays per year minus vacations. All four kids attended seminary but not YM and YW. We did family prayer but not family scripture study. Do you get a sense of how we were?
We havent quite figured out whether we made a major error by perpetuating a false religion in our home or whether we should be credited for doing a solid job of adhering to what we thought was the truth. We still go back and fourth on this all the time. My wife and I do and the kids do too. Example: we wouldn’t allow our 2nd daughter to get a tattoo when she was a senior in high school because “the prophet said so”. Seems like a very cringy mentality today but it saved my daughter from making an ugly mistake (my opinion).
Sorry for the long message but one final thought: as much as i regret outsourcing some of our parenting to the Church, I’m also grateful for the help. We will never know how the kids would have turned out without a system of perceived right and wrong to assist. As much as I resent the Church for leading us down a false path (false validity), I’m thankful for the help along the way (positive utility).
I don’t think slavery is the correct term either (for many of us), but I’m struggling to come up with a more accurate term. For those of us raised in the church, it was like being in a continuous high pressure sales meeting for 18 years. Yes, you supposedly had your agency to choose for yourself, but it was drilled into a deep layer of your subconscious that there really wasn’t any other choice and weren’t you blessed to have this precious knowledge that others didn’t possess! The layers of guilt/pressure – not only are you letting down your parents and family, but also your ancestors who sacrificed incredibly so you could have the “gospel” – penetrated incredibly deep. Growing up I didn’t even consider I had a choice. Yes, we’re familiar with the exhortation to parents to teach their children the doctrines, but the unspoken part is the expectation that these same children don’t let their eternal families down.
Since leaving the church, I’ve been surprised many times by things I’ve learned that weren’t shared when I was a member. That list is long and many of you have touched on various aspects in other posts and comments, but one big surprise realization was just how effective the church has employed the BITE ( Behavior, Information, Thought, and Emotional Control) model to mold the members. Before the comments, I fully acknowledge that there are those that believe the church is a cult and those that don’t. To me, it is more cult-like than not, and certainly (in my experience) it has employed those tactics to varying degrees. As an organization that proclaims to be the “true” church of Christ, it was disillusioning to realize just how manipulated I was for decades. I don’t find that particularly Christlike.
When I was first daring to see faults in the church, I noticed how willing parents and leaders were to take away free agency. Comments by leaders along the line of, “I wish I could keep the YW just as pure when they leave YW as they are when they are first Beehives.” Yes, let’s keep them from making any mistakes. Sounds like Satan’s plan. And parents discussing how to punish children who make different choices. Kid doesn’t want to go to Seminary? Ground him until he changes his mind. They want to participate in a sport that prevents them attending Young Men’s? Absolutely forbid it. They hate their primary teacher? Take away their iPad. They do not want to be baptized? Prevent them from playing with their nonmember friends who must be a bad influence. The consequences of not choosing the church path were not real consequences, but imposed punishments for daring to have a different opinion, and often much harsher than I thought was appropriate. The parents never questioned that the child might have a reason, such as maybe the primary teacher really was mean or liked to pick on that child. They never questioned why the child might not want to be baptized, only punished the child. Once, another parent questioned what about the child’s free agency and the response was they get free agency when they are no longer living under the parent’s roof.
How many of us believe that education for our children is optional? Or a number of other things–like good health? Or or good manners? Do we take away their agency if we don’t leave much room for them to escape these things? Surely what we’re talking about here isn’t just about violating the agency of children.
Mormon culture is one of the worst places to raise kids, but it considerably beats what is in second place!
I tried to help my kids navigate the “path” without too much pain. Yes, it cost me a bit when I told one zealot Bishop we would not be going on the handcart trip and later told that same Bishop the manner in which he was interviewing my daughter was inappropriate and abusive. I didn’t force my kids to attend YM/YW, especially when academic studies too precedence. Our religious instruction occurred around the dinner table. I regret being too forceful with a son in reading the BoM before some silly youth conference. The Spirit chastised me thoroughly for that. I taught my children that spirituality cannot be contained in a single institution and that God has inspired far more non-LDS than LDS.
The church and program structure really helped instill good values, assisted with work ethic and provided a scaffolding of meaning for kids in their spiritually formative years. But I reminded my kids in those years that the vast majority of what the church did was temporary. Change seems to be a constant in this life. Change also implied that the people and the church were imperfect. So my advice is to push back against extreme thinking as you raise your kids.
So can the Mormon religious tradition be useful and edifying? I’d say yes. Can it be harmful? Oh yeah… So keep your eyes open and your wits about you.
I tried to raise my girls in the church. But I found that many times how I viewed the gospel was different than how others viewed it. For instance, I encourage my girls to do good in school, prepare for college and a career, and to be strong and independent in their thoughts. So they dreamed of their careers. They also wanted families but they wanted to make sure they were taken care of by themselves first. That didn’t seem to go over very well with the young woman’s leader or her daughters. My daughters found themselves having to defend themselves for their choices. They were “active” until they went to college but they went after their career goals, getting first a bachelor’s and then a master’s degree before they got into their career and got married. Ultimately, they did have children but they also had great positions in their jobs and a good knowledge of themselves and who they wanted to be. The young woman’s leader’s daughters ended up getting married, having children, and putting their husbands through college before they went back to school and eventually got their degrees and even master’s degrees. The difference now is that my daughters make well into six figures while they make much less. My daughter’s children are just starting elementary school but are at the top of their classes and very motivated to learn. Her daughters have kids coming home from missions, getting married, and trying to figure out where to live and get an education.
I guess I have pointed out what the church seems to want with people and their children and my kids were not that because they ended up thinking for themselves and leaving the church. My girls have strong social justice ideals, are concerned about their communities, and are thrilled is Kamala running for President. Her girls don’t know what’s going on with the news, and vote the way their husbands tell them to which is the same way the groupthink of the ward dictates.
I’ve found as this has played out that I’ve had a harder and harder time going to church because of constantly being challenged for what I think, even if I can support it with the scriptures. It’s really hard for me to remember how in my youth I was taught that God was God of the whole earth and all people but to find out as an adult that it’s perfectly OK in the minds of many in my ward to shut out so many groups of people with our theology and judgments. I raised my girls to be what I thought would be the best for them thinking they would still be involved in the church and it would make our world a better place. I discovered that as they learned, so did I, how the world is much bigger than the narrow way we look at it at church.
I’m quite interested in this notion that Church culture beats anything else, despite how bad it is. Maybe it’s just my experience living in several non-Christian majority regions of the world and/or associating with lots of academics agnostic/atheist types, but I’m not sold on that one.
When it comes to raising kids I’ve always found the Golden Rule and empathy the most effective tools.
are: Mormon culture.
The photo says it all.
My children quit Church before I did. I sure tried, though! We had homemade scripture cards we recited and the Gospel Art picture kit that we went through regularly. In the car, we listened to a “scripture scouts” CD that I bought at Deseret Book that taught scripture stories to kids. I taught them to pray every night before bed. We went to Church every week. As they got older, like nine or ten, they were just done. Church became a fight. I finally caved and let them quit. Less than a year later, I quit too.
Since then, I have heard my kids say they are agnostic. They don’t know who Nephi is (all those scripture stories in their early years! how do they not know!). Every so often I tell them a pioneer story because it’s their family heritage. The whole idea of sin and a Savior puzzles them. Despite all those hours and efforts that I put in to teach them, their sweet little souls must have been teflon coated, because nothing stuck. It mystifies me.
I’ve told them about this blog, like when I’m working on a post. Sometimes we talk about when I was a Mormon, and it’s just part of Mom’s history that they hear about. It never occurs to them that they used to be Mormons too.
Whenever I start down the path of criticizing TBM parents too harshly, even in my own mind, I always remind myself of the Pakistani parents in The Big Sick or of Jewish or Catholic parents who use guilt to motivate their kids, and I have to conclude that the real issue is control and conditional love, not the content of the indoctrination. All cultures and all religions do some indoctrination, even if they also teach critical thinking (I’m not claiming they all teach critical thinking, just that some do both). Wherever culture exists, wherever there are social norms, kids will pick up on these things and in some cases, depending on the child and depending on the parent, they will feel pressured to conform in an undue manner.
Where the Church bears significant responsibility for the bad outcomes is when it behaves in an exploitative manner and models bad parenting advice, that one should coerce or reject one’s children based on their relationship to the church. When my parents refused to pay for college anywhere but BYU, even though I wanted to go where all my friends were going (Penn State), that was coercive, but there was also a financial component associated. Penn State, even with in state tuition, was much much higher, and frankly I wasn’t going to get a scholarship to cover the costs. So even that parenting choice which seems coercive on the surface was also pragmatic.
The church really needs to rethink some of its coercive tactics, but in the last 20-30 years, they’ve only ratcheted them up. Specifics: making callings contingent on having a current TR (which means current on paying tithing and declaring leaders to be prophets, seers, and revelators), the pressure on mission service, the pressure on parents to keep their kids on the *shudder* “Covenant Path.” These are all problematic. At some point, I realized that not only was I an unpaid shill for the Church, but I was paying to be an unpaid shill for the Church, even regarding things I didn’t agree with.
The Church needs to give as much as they require, and they’ve been dialing that down so much in the last decade, and talking more stick than carrot, that it’s no wonder so many are fleeing. When parents are terrified of their kids leaving, that’s different than finding joy in something together as a family. The former leads to some extremely bad parenting skills. The latter allows kids to grow up and make their own choices while still maintaining a relationship. Why do people fall for the idea that the family they’ve systematically destroyed through fear and control is going to be eternal?
I am going to totally agree with Hawkgirl that it isn’t the form religion takes, but the tactics that parents and leaders use to teach the religion that is the problem. And unfortunately, the Mormon church currently models the worst kind with the teachings of R M Nelson, who openly says that God’s love for his children is conditional on their obedience and Oaks who openly teaches that parents love for their children should be conditional on their kids being straight.
My lesbian daughter’s parents in law followed Oak’s advice and would not even allow their daughter’s wife to visit in their home or meet her siblings because that would be “condoning” the relationship. The parents were not interested in seeing them married, so we drove them to California when it first became legal for them to marry and her side of the family was not even represented. So, 20 years later, my daughter in law is actually closer to me than she is her own mother.
I think the church has gotten worse since I was a child with authoritarian tactics. I cannot imagine David O McKay telling members that God’s love is conditioned on obedience. When I was a kid, the first law of Heaven was love and now it is obedience. The pressure to go on a mission was less on my brothers than it is today and there was some recognition that there are valid reasons not to go. The church recognized that they needed a youth program that was actually enjoyable, at least for the young men, the girls they just didn’t care if we came or not. They recognized that primary had to be fun or the children would not come to a week day meeting that was an effort for parents to get them to, so primary was fun. My brothers and I had to walk a mile after school to get to primary and two miles home, but we went because we wanted to go. Social needs were recognized for adults and there were often two social get togethers a church per month rather than the current two per year. But now it is all obligation, obedience, duty, and shame if you admit it is boring as watching grass grow, or you don’t want to scrub toilets and clean windows. There is no positive reason to go, only negative reasons if you fail to. It is all negative and the church needs the first lesson in Skinner’s behavior modification that people work much harder and happily for a reward than they do to avoid a punishment. Especially when the punishment is feeling shame only if you believe them that you should feel shame.
I know many people feel some residual angst about their religious upbringings, and often justifiably so, but before we use really strong words to condemn one specific religious system (slavery? really?), it’s best to look at the big picture. All of the control tactics in your religious upbringing got used in a whole lot of other people’s religious upbringings. Mormons aren’t the only ones who think theirs is the only way to heaven and you better get your kids to stay in the boat. Mormons aren’t the only ones with leaders who say such things over the pulpit. This all happens everywhere. The lack of informed consent angle doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Children are taught a culture by their environment. That culture contains religious and non-religious aspects. They don’t consent to any of it, it’s simply part of being a child in this world, that you don’t get to choose the environment you grow up in. Some of us learn to question things as adults. I questioned my faith. I questioned the politics I got from my parents. I questioned other aspects of the culture I inherited. Some of those beliefs I’ve held onto and others I’ve rejected. Was I “enslaved” by being indoctrinated into views that I don’t hold anymore? No. The place where Mormonism, and probably many other religious, fall short is in not teaching grown adults to think for themselves. Most of the correlated church curriculum is probably fine for young kids, but then it stops progressing somewhere in the teens, and then the adults continue to get an early teen curriculum fed to them for the rest of their lives. We should worry most about the adults who never learn to question, not the kids.