Several years ago, a man in our ward was teaching Young Men. He asked them what was their most important possession–a ridiculously broad question. Of course, they threw out various ideas from the material to the spiritual, and with every mistaken answer, the teacher grew more frustrated until finally he excoriated the boys: “NO! It’s your family name! That’s your most important possession!” It was a bizarre take, mostly unconvincing to the kids in the class, but certainly important to this well-pedigreed Mormon male.

Just a week ago I was listening to an interesting podcast in which the person being interviewed talked about parents’ reactions to their children coming out (as queer or trans–although the same would apply in a Mormon context to a child declaring non-belief). In the support group the interviewee was describing, both parents and their children were present. Some parents expressed total acceptance, curiosity, deferment to the child’s experience, and support for their child. Other parents focused on how the experience affected them: their shattered hopes, dreams, and expectations, their grief. Both groups expressed some worry for their child in terms of safety or social acceptance, but only the legacy-focused parents worried about their own reputational loss and a fear that they would be seen as a bad parent or a failure.

Both of these stories illustrate a specific form of parenting, legacy-based parenting. Here’s what “legacy parenting” looks like:

Legacy-focused parents

  • Experience children as representations of themselves
  • Feel their success, reputation, or worth is reflected in the child
  • See parenting as producing outcomes
  • Often say (explicitly or implicitly):
    “You carry my name, my values, my sacrifice.”

Autonomy-supportive parents

  • Experience children as separate persons
  • See themselves as guides, not owners
  • Understand parenting as nurturing a process
  • Implicit message:
    “You belong to yourself, and I’m here to support you.”

The “sad heaven” talk in which church members are cautioned against “empty chairs” in the celestial kingdom is designed to create psychological anxiety in parents, to foster a controlling attitude toward their offspring, and to foster a fear of social judgment from others in the membership. By contrast, members are often socially rewarded for their children achieving Mormon milestones: missionary service (including honorable completion), temple marriage, and blessing children are among those milestones that legacy-parents can leverage to gain social status in the church. By contrast, a child who fails to accomplish those things is seen as a black mark against one’s parenting.

Being a child of legacy-focused parents is not the same. If your parents are legacy-focused, they love you in a different way–they love you when you comply with their vision for you, and they may disapprove or distance themselves if you don’t conform to their mold. Here’s how parental love is manifest in the two models:

Legacy-focused

  • Love is conditional on:
    • obedience
    • achievement
    • alignment with family values
  • Approval rises and falls with performance
  • Praise often sounds like:
    “I’m proud of you because you did what we value.”

Autonomy-supportive

  • Love is unconditional and stable
  • Approval is separate from performance
  • Praise sounds like:
    “I see who you are and how you’re growing.”

Result:

  • Legacy-focused kids often feel evaluated
  • Autonomy-supported kids feel seen

Because of these expectations, a child raised by legacy-focused parents asks themself “Who do I need to be to be loved?” (or similarly, “who do I need to pretend to be to be loved?”) Their identity is given to them rather than explored by them. As a result, they grow up addicted to people-pleasing behaviors, perfectionism, and may have a fragile self-worth or feel anxious. They are unable to understand their own wishes, to trust themself, to develop independent resilience or psychological flexibility.

All parents exert more control with a younger child than they do with a child who is a teen or one who has become an adult, but a legacy-focused parent will continue to try to exert control over the choices of their adult children through manipulation or disapproval, telling themselves they are giving “moral guidance” or seeing their adult child as “rebellious” for choosing a different path than the parent wishes. They struggle with any assertion of boundaries the adult child may do.

This is because to a legacy-focused parent, differentiation (which is a normal, healthy, and necessary part of growing up) feels like rejection and causes them to feel shame or guilt as a parent. Parents who respect their child’s autonomy remain emotionally present even when their child’s values differ from their own.

If you live in a legacy-parented home, you may feel tension around differences. Emotional safety is conditional on compliance with parents’ wishes, and children often feel obligated to monitor their parents’ moods in order to feel safe. Legacy-focused parents are often just doing what they learned from their own parents because they also have unresolved parental wounds from their childhood. They may also be responding to cultural or religious pressures or even anxiety around their own mortality (and feared irrelevance).

My guess is that most Mormon parents at some level respond to the pressures of church leaders and church teachings to try to exert control over their children and operate as legacy-parents. Children of those parents often feel:

  • anxiety or depression
  • difficulty knowing what they want
  • fear of disappointing others
  • estrangement or low-contact relationships
  • delayed individuation
  • burnout from “living for approval”

Even if you have fallen into this trap or were raised by parents who used legacy-focused parenting, you can move on and get past the negatives that it leads to.

  • Were you raised by legacy-focused parents? Have you been a legacy-focused parent?
  • Do you identify with any of these traits as a result?
  • Do you see the church as creating legacy-focused parents rather than autonomy-supportive parents? Give examples.

Discuss.