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.
Wheat & Tares 
My experience is that many LDS families try to show unconditional love but don’t know how because they’ve not experienced it firsthand. My wife and I both have somewhat recognizable family names and we both got mixed messages about love and legacy. LDS love wishes to be labeled as unconditional…but withholding available information and asserting a correct way to believe is conditional and reveals fear-based love.
I was the adopted oldest child and the only boy. My dad would tell me things like he was meant to have a firstborn son (I always wondered what my sisters thought about that) and that I had to carry the family name. He emphasized how to become a “real man.” My parents love me tremendously but when I left the church they didn’t sleep well for months to the point of my mother being hospitalized. Later when I reminded them about RMN’s empty chairs talk and *the whole point* of the temple ceremony – ie that God himself considers only some people worthy – they now apparently believe that LDS doctrine doesn’t teach God will separate families eternally.
Related comment – it might be interesting to research if adoptees in high demand religions are more likely to stay or leave. My hypothesis is that LDS adoptees are more influenced by Legacy and/or people pleasing frameworks than the average child because adoptees are given extra doses of identity.
Thank you for this piece, Hawkgirl.
That first story immediately brought to mind a phrase repeated by many—my own mother included: “Remember who you are.” Translated, it meant: honor the last name that doesn’t belong only to you but to dozens who came before you. What you do reflects on that name, so behave accordingly. While I understand the intent is to motivate good behavior, I think this approach produces far more pretending than honesty.
In April 2024, Jack N. Gerard gave a conference talk titled “Integrity: A Christlike Attribute.” The timing was suspect, given recent SEC violations, but one section in particular knocked me off the couch. He recounted an interview with Elder Uchtdorf during a stake reorganization:
“Has there been anything in your life that, if brought to the attention of the public, would be an embarrassment to you or the Church?”
I’ve always liked Elder Uchtdorf, and I understand he was following institutional protocol—but I was still flabbergasted by the question.
Is there anything in your past that, if known publicly, would embarrass the Church? Yes, “you” are mentioned as well, but let’s be honest: this isn’t primarily about personal care or protection. Good God. That’s what went through my mind. Is this really the church’s operating logic? In a community that proclaims Jesus as Savior, are we dealing in forgiveness—or in the relentless maintenance of appearances?
If the honest answer to that question is “no,” then the entire message about integrity collapses under its own weight. The implication is unmistakable: what matters most is not a person’s flourishing, healing, or growth, but whether they pose a reputational risk. Not How are you? Not How is life right now? Not Does this calling fit your actual circumstances? Just: Should we be worried about being associated with you?
That message is loud and clear—we care more about the appearance of goodness than about people themselves.
Legacy parenting operates the same way. Identity is located not within the person, but in how they reflect on others. Mistakes are met with disappointment and warnings about embarrassment. I grew up in this environment, and I learned early that what I thought or felt didn’t really matter. What mattered was how I appeared—and how others felt about me.
The assumptions behind our beliefs are so interesting…
Trevor, I’m the parent of adopted children, so see things from a different perspective. My experience has led me to believe that adoptive parents might have an easier time accepting our children’s individuality because we don’t really expect our children to be like us. I haven’t looked to see if there is any research on the subject, however. In the context of this post, I can only say that we are active in the church (though nuanced in belief), while our children are 100% gone. We’re a very close, loving, and supportive family.
Todd, I had always assumed that remember who you are referred to being a child of God. I don’t know if that materially changes anything.
I do think the church pushes the legacy stuff. The whole focus on family is too legacy based. My family is (some of) who I love. The end. They are not my ticket to the CK, or my identity, or anything else the church tries to make me believe they are. I have friends that I love as much as family.
That stupid lesson about your “family name is your most valuable possession” is one way. Yes, I had that lesson and thought it was stupid. No, my *maiden* name was never my most valuable possession and if it is, just how do men expect women to just give up their own? That was my main thought during that stupid lesson, was have they EVER thought about this from a female perspective?
One thing about pushing legacy bugs a lot of Mormons, especially outside of Utah is the pride in Utah Pioneers. Well, OK, it bugs me too and those ARE my ancestors. But I just think it is SO wrong to glorify starvation and freezing to death. I hate with a purple passion the whole Trek idea. My ancestors were not proud of what they suffered, but ashamed of the poverty that had them too poor to buy so much as a horse to get them SAFELY to Utah. Some of them were very bitter that the church asked that of them. Yet, it is my maiden name great g g grandfather whose journal is used to quote from as those kids pull fake handcarts. (No, he was not with Martin/ Willie companies, but in the company one week in front of those two, yes, they had lots of deaths and yes some froze to death and yes, they walked through snow and yes they had toes amputated, and yes they were essentially out of food from Fort Laramie on. But that week made a difference.)
But anyway, funny story. To change the mood I just left. My parents were not legacy based at all and neither were we. But one of my children’s spouses was raised with legacy based parenting and taught to be oh so proud of her pioneer ancestor ancestors. This daughter in law tries to build up legacy type pride in HER legacy, by telling her children about her parents, grandparents and mostly stories of HER Mormon pioneers. This never much bothered me. Children should be taught a certain amount of pride in heritage. And it is my son’s job to teach about his side of the family if he wants.
This led to a rather bizarre experience one Thanksgiving, when interacting with my grandchildren. See, I have ancestors who were on the Mayflower, as in real pilgrims who are given credit for starting Thanksgiving. So, the kids were talking about Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving and how the Pilgrims nearly starved. I thought to mention that they have two ancestors who were ACTUAL Pilgrims on the Mayflower and survived the first starving winter in New England. This was the first my Daughter in Law ever heard on my pilgrim ancestors as I am not that much into “wow look at my ancestors”. I do not belong to any of the prestigious “Daughters of the Utah Pioneers” or “Mayflower descendants” groups that I could join or brag about my ancestors. But since the kids were talking about Pilgrims anyway, I brought it up. Now, my daughter in law is one who DOES brag about her ancestors, like I said, raised by legacy parents. So, anyway, my daughter in law had a really strange negative reaction to me telling her kids they have Mayflower ancestors. Like as if she did not want them to be related to me, let alone my Pilgrim ancestors. For someone who brags about her Mormon Pioneer ancestors, I just thought it crazy to react negatively. Shouldn’t the children be just as proud of their father’s ancestors as they are of their mother’s? But her reaction was like she was jealous because her kids had “better” ancestors than she did. WTH?
Needless to say, I have never mentioned Pilgrims to my grandchildren again. Nor did I point out that “oh, that guy just quoted on TV about the handcart companies, my great something grandfather.”
Part II, in addition to my other comments. The LDS tradition is deeply invested in Legacy. Consider:
1. The doctrine of being adopted into the house of Israel.
2. Patriarchal blessings have a lineage.
3. Priesthood holders trace their lineage to Jesus.
4. Temple sealings bind families back through time.
5. Joseph Smith sealed men and women to him to cement their legacy (yeah whatever for the men, for the women I think he wanted something additional)
6. Every Christmas we hear about Christ’s earthly and heavenly lineage. Yes, Legacy is deeply baked into Christianity and probably humans in general but some ideas are uniquely Mormon.
@PWS, I’m certain you have a lovely family. I dearly love my adoptive family, too, and don’t get along well with my bio families who I met later in life. I just wish as a kid I hadn’t been pressured to conform so intensely; it sounds like you were quite supportive of your kids. Adoption comes in many flavors from closed (mine) to open, to aunts, uncles, grandparents, and foster parents adopting the child, or interracial or foreign adoptions. Comments along the lines of “God intended you this family” or “you’re blessed to be here” or “your blood is literally transformed to biologically match your adoptive family” (yes it’s an antiquated LDS doctrine and yes I was taught this) add layers of Legacy. Interestingly, I’m the only one out of my bio half siblings who doesn’t have a PhD, a JD, or a medical degree, and I gave up my spiritual heritage to I’m just out of luck, lol.
I never had a name for it, but I was raised with this legacy focused parenting. My parents are decades gone. Of six children, three of us have gone to the effort to actually resign. One is barely still in, and the final two are fully in (though sadly one of them died this week). The three who have resigned have not told the other 2 of our church status, and we live far enough apart that it isn’t apparent. The first one to “go inactive” was a big disappointment to our parents. Even on his deathbed my father had to lament that the youngest son was never brought back. The church has taught (and it’s been heard) that no success in the world can compensate for failure in the home. When we speak of failure in the home, it’s understood this doesn’t mean your child failed to launch, or is not a worldly success, it means your child left the church. When the worst thing that can happen to a family is a child leaving the church, it is no surprise that legacy parenting is alive and well. For me, that deep rooted mentality causes an insecurity about sharing my status with my remaining fully active sibling. I recognize several of the feelings you mention for children of legacy focused parents in myself. Sigh.
I believe in the power of legacies. It would be wrong to say that the stories of my ancestors (and not just the Mormon pioneer branch) didn’t shape me. I also think that we owe our parents and our ancestors a debt. But it’s not the debt legacy-parenting insists on.
Our parents, grandparents, co-congregants, etc. can and probably should share their legacies with us when we are children. I want to pass on to my children what I’ve learned that I feel is good and valuable. And that does include some of the stories of their pioneer forebearers–without lionizing foolishness. Anna is right; there’s too much of that.
But after a certain point, what we all have to understand is that legacies are chosen. And we, the parents, aren’t the ones who’ll do the choosing.
My daughters are both young, but both reached eight years old and decided for many good, thoughtful reasons that they do not want to be baptized. I am so proud of them. They are becoming such thoughtful, interesting people. But it would be wrong to say that I don’t have hopes for them beyond “I see who you are and how you’re growing.”
I would be disappointed (mostly in myself) if my children grew up to be (routinely) unkind.
I would be disappointed if they grew up to be incurious or callous.
I would be disappointed (again, mostly in myself) if they found themselves dramatically ill-fitted for survival and some degree of thriving in adult life.
The most important legacy I’m trying to pass to my children is one of kindness, curiosity, and resilience. If they reject that later, I’ll be sad.
As @Trevor pointed out, the whole “Legacy” outlook is deeply ingrained in Mormonism, the Church has a very Legacy Parent relationship with its members.
I tend to think most Mormons raise with a “Legacy” outlook, at least when it comes to Church. Deep down, most devout Mormons are not comfortable if their children do not stay devout/orthodox Mormons (I have had enough experiences that I now basically assume anyone who acts fine about so-and-so leaving is lying, as soon as the “chill” parent is in a safe space ((only around other orthodox Mormons)), do they let their true feelings be known). Part of this is natural instinct, but a lot of it is driven by the Church’s teachings (Nelson’s “sad heaven” being just one of the more recent examples). Honestly, it feels like Mormons are really not comfortable with the whole concept of Free Agency (Bednar is the most obvious leader who seems to be uncomfortable with it, honestly, his eventual presidency is going to be fascinating as an interested outside).
PWS – Yes, good call out on that. I suppose many times it was not just “remember who you are”, but “remember the family name you represent”.
“The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of its parents” Carl Jung
Jung meant that when parents do not live out their own vocation, desires, or inner calling, those unmet lives are often unconsciously placed upon their children as expectation, pressure, or destiny.
I have spent some time examining the years my two oldest boys were in Jr High and High School. I spent enormous amounts of time with both of them pursuing athletic achievements. My oldest played basketball, I loved helping him, watching him grow and excel, but I also, if I’m honest had some of my own failings wrapped up in his success. I’m grateful today that we have a wonderful friendship together. I look back on those hours and hours together differently now. Although I’m sure I made him feel that my admiration for him was connected to his performance, we have talked about those times and relish that time together.
Although I think Legacy parenting is a really poor long-term relationship strategy, I also recognize that Western culture has swung the pendulum so far to the “individual” that we risk betraying the other half of differentiation. We all have a need to belong to ourselves and to another (community, etc). I believe the church strangely does not navigate this well at all. They suffocate the individual through group think and demands to conform, while simultaneously eliminating the best parts of community. At the end of the day, I don’t believe that relationships are bound by religious acts, shared beliefs or rule keeping (per se), but on trust, honesty, and mutual care for one another. My youngest daughter no longer has any interest in attending church and I’m not the least bit concerned about empty chairs, because my relationship with her is not about institutional affiliation, it’s about love.
Todd S: You nailed it so perfectly–what matters most when reputational risk (and the fear of loss of status by association) is the driving force in the parental relationship is appearances. It’s why parents with pregnant daughters (including rape victims) used to send them away and lie about the child or the absence. It’s also why Reddit is full of secret PIMO church members who are just waiting for grandma/mom to die before living their preferred life.
Anna: I had that exact same thought when I heard that “family name is your most important possession”: If it’s so important, then why do most Mormon women give it away like it’s nothing when they marry? It’s apparently of zero value to women. What they really mean is that men are the only actual people.
I too am a Mayflower descendent, but basically who gives a crap–a lot of people from back east are. Contrarily, I have zero pioneer ancestors as both my parents are converts, and when the pedigreed family in my home ward used to try to rally us to do activities for Pioneer Day I always thought it was bizarre on two fronts: 1) it’s the Founders’ Day for another state that I had never lived in, and 2) they were basically telling us to celebrate THEIR heritage that we didn’t share.
Funnily enough, in my own family, the Church introduced this concept of children as legacy when my parents got baptized. They already had 4 daughters and were done having children, having had a vasectomy. The missionaries told them they needed a son to “carry on the family name,” and they bought it, getting the vasectomy reversed. It’s the only reason I was born into my family of origin, although they only had one son, then two more daughters. They were so entrenched in the idea of sons by what they were taught at church that they didn’t even have a “girl” name picked out for me. They had to come up with one at the last minute in the hospital.
I was talking to my nephew who repeated some family lore he must have heard from his mom growing up, that my Dad was really set on having a son to teach engineering to and pass on his skills. I sort of busted that myth by pointing out that they came to the idea that they needed a son pretty late in the game, and also that my dad literally sat me down to teach me how nuclear power worked when I was 13, so it wasn’t gender-specific. He just liked teaching his kids what he knew. I really don’t think it was my Dad’s idea to be a legacy parent. I think it was a church teaching that my mom adopted to justify all the additional child-bearing that resulted.
This reminds me of a meme I once saw about Indian parents who said something to the effect of, “You can be anything you want to be! You can be a doctor, or an engineer, or a lawyer… or a doctor.”
I have nothing to add to the present day applications of this. My first thought upon reading the OP was how this might help understand some of what goes on in the Hebrew Bible. Perhaps it is just because our SS curriculum this weak is focused on an introduction to the Hebrew Bible, but it seems to me that much of what happens to the early, patriarchal families could be wrapped up in the legacies that the patriarchs were expecting. Perhaps especially when we get to Abraham who was promised a legacy that would last throughout Earth’s history and a legacy we strongly promote today (how often did Pres. Nelson invoke “the blessings of Abraham” or “Abrahamic covenant” in his ministry?).
@Todd S
The whole “remember who you are” saying was kind of an inside joke in my family. My dad had a great sense of humor and would say it sarcastically, but with a twist: “Remember who you are—and don’t let it get you down!” I think it was his way of adding a bit of levity to the intense pressure that often comes baked into the idea of legacy.
As an aside, the entire legacy theme is strongly connected to President George Albert Smith’s well-known “What Have You Done with My Name?” dream. I distinctly remember several general conference talks that reinforced that message. In addition, President Hinckley gave a number of talks that echoed similar ideas through phrases like “an unbroken chain” or “don’t be the weak link.”
This was the best piece I read here in W&T all year and it’s Dec 31. Thank you so much. I intend to read and Ponder this and start sharing it with others. (The Church taught me how). Truly an excellent piece
East-side Salt Lake, where my wife is from, seems to be very legacy based. People know and recognize others by their last names. They note where people went to high school and how they’re interconnected. Being from Provo, against which they have a stigma, I found this very annoying. The first few years of our marriage we lived in Holladay. Our ward was half legacy people and half outsiders. The legacy people were hived together like a clique. You could interact with them, but you could never enter their in-group especially if you were from Provo. Many of the East-side Salt Lakers know and recognize this. My wife has trauma from the unwritten and unspoken expectations of her legacy family, which she loves but prefers a healthy distance from. My wife’s brother lives in East Milcreek. Always name-dropping and talking about this person from that family and if we know or remember this family and how they just bought a home in this neighborhood. I get so annoyed that I can barely feign caring. Sometimes I wonder if they’re accidentally marrying their cousins. My wife and I now live on the West side of Salt Lake County. No legacy networks here, which I find quite relieving. But many of the legacy folks on the East side feel it is their destiny to remain there. In Holladay I knew a couple who had six kids who lived in a two-bedroom apartment who were waiting for their house to be built right in Holladay. There had many delays, including a termite infestation. But they were determined to stay put. The legacy cultures feel so insular, exclusive, and closed-minded.
First, to respond to an earlier comment: “… they didn’t even have a “girl” name picked out for me. They had to come up with one at the last minute in the hospital.” It’s a little unusual, but I think Hawkgrrrl is a fine name, especially on short notice.
Here’s a mixed take: Parents can be both legacy and autonomy focused. Let’s say a child is a good swimmer in early lessons and does swim club as a kid. Then maybe in high school does swim team or water polo (big in California). Parent gives support and encouragement, possibly rooted in their own youthful swim achievements, perhaps hoping Junior achieves more than Parent ever did. Then at their junior year in high school, Junior says, “I’m sick of swimming. That’s it, I’m done. I’m doing cross country this year.”
Now initially Parent probably encourages Junior to continue swimming, given that Junior is a very good swimmer and not so good at running. Maybe the coach chimes in as well. Maybe Parent says hey you might get a swim scholarship if you continue. That’s Legacy Parent. But the kid digs in, quits the team, runs to middling results for a couple of years, goes to college. Parent moves on from encouraging kid to continue swimming to encouraging kid in their last year of high school, college choices, moving into the dorm, and so forth. Parent shifts from legacy encouragement to autonomy support. I’ll bet a lot of us have done something like this.
And — different scenario — you might have one Legacy Parent and one Autonomy Parent. Another mixed experience. But I like the Legacy/Autonomy contrast. It helps a parent understand their role, for better or worse.
Dave B.,
I think most of us do a little of both–a good thing, IMO. Though I wonder if we might be taking for granted the legacy-ish attitude that most parents have vis-a-vis going to school and eating vegetables and doing chores and a host of other things.
“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’.”
——
Good Lord! This depresses and induces anxiety in me. …
Being caring, competent, loving parents — and knowledgeable about factual child-development science — should matter most when deciding to procreate. Therefore, parental failure seems to occur as soon as the solid decision is made to have a child even though the parent-in-waiting cannot be truly caring, competent, loving and knowledgeable. A physically and mentally sound future should be every child’s fundamental right, especially when considering the very troubled world into which they never asked to enter — particularly one in which the parents too often stop loving each other, frequently fight and eventually divorce.
As liberal democracies, we cannot prevent anyone from bearing children, not even the plainly incompetent and reckless procreators. We can, however, educate all young people for the most important job ever, even those high-school teens who plan to remain childless. If nothing else, such child-development curriculum could offer students an idea/clue as to whether they’re emotionally suited for the immense responsibility and strains of parenthood. … Given what’s at stake, they at least should be equipped with such valuable science-based knowledge!
In the book Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology and How You Can Heal, the author writes that even “well-meaning and loving parents can unintentionally do harm to a child if they are not well informed about human development” (pg.24). … I’ve talked to parents of dysfunctional/unhappy grown children who assert they’d have reared their cerebrally developing kids much more knowledgeably about child development science. Given what’s at stake, they at least should be equipped with such valuable science-based knowledge.
Regardless, many couples will intentionally conceive regardless of not being sufficiently educated about child-development science to ensure parenting in a psychologically functional/healthy manner. It’s not that they necessarily are ‘bad parents’; rather, many seem to perceive thus treat human procreative ‘rights’ as though they (potential parents) will somehow, in blind anticipation, be innately inclined to sufficiently understand and appropriately nurture their children’s naturally developing minds and needs.
Although society cannot prevent anyone from bearing children, it can educate all young people for the most important job ever, even those intending to remain childless.
When I asked a Canadian teachers’ union official whether there was any mandatory child-development science curriculum taught in high-schools, he immediately replied there was not. And when I asked the reason for its absence and whether it may be due to the subject matter being too controversial, he replied with a simple “Yes”.
This strongly suggests there are philosophical thus political obstacles to teaching students even such crucial life skills as healthy parenting through understanding child development. What bewilders me, though, is how teaching such curriculum would be considered more controversial thus a non-starter than teaching sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) curriculum, as is already taught here?
… In the movie K-PAX, the visiting extraterrestrial Prot says to the clinical psychiatrist interviewing him: “On K-PAX, everyone’s children’s wellbeing matters to everyone, as everyone takes part in rearing everyone else’s offspring.” I’ve always found this concept appealing. It reminded me of the African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.”
At the risk of being deemed Godless or socialist thus evil, I strongly feel that the wellbeing and health of all children needs to be of genuine importance to us all.
I think there’s plenty of both types of parenting in the church. The legacy-focused approach seems to be a particular problem the more well connected your family is to church leaders. As other commenters have pointed out, there have been specific messages in the past over the pulpit that seem to promote the legacy-focused thinking. The G. A. Smith dream, talks on the “return with honor” theme, and perhaps even the “better dead than unchaste” rhetoric fits in this category. I haven’t heard these kinds of messages much lately, though. I think in this era where many more families are wrestling with how to react to family members leaving the church, the leadership are slowly getting more sensitive to that. But nobody yet has come up with a really compelling message to counter the old thinking, and I think it is needed. (This is a persistent pattern in the church generally: they will readily stop talking about old ways of thinking, but don’t do anything to actively counter the old thinking lest they admit that their thinking has changed.)
@ Zwingli said: (I have had enough experiences that I now basically assume anyone who acts fine about so-and-so leaving is lying, as soon as the “chill” parent is in a safe space ((only around other orthodox Mormons))
My first thought was that my experience would be that there is some truth to this, but it’s not my perception. But then I realized that the adjective orthodox is doing some heavy lifting in that comment. I think we are genuinely okay with all of our children leaving the Church in that it has not damaged our relationship with those children in any way. Additionally, I completely understand the reasons they chose to leave. On the other hand, I will acknowledge that I have always had my own struggles with the Church, and that I have become less orthodox as we have aged and (I hope) grown. My husband just loves both the church and our children, and manages to make that work for him without conflict.
All that said, I don’t know many people who even give lip service to being okay that their family members have left church activity or membership.
Thanks for a really interesting post, Hawkgrrrl. I agree with you and many previous commenters about the Church definitely leaning on a legacy-focused parenting approach, especially for people whose families have been in the Church for generations. I have some hope, though, that with Q12 members now being called not just from the original polygamous families, that the tone will change, although I realize it will be slow. I agree with Quentin that it seems like the change is already happening.
Kind of tangentially, I wonder how well legacy-focused parenting vs. autonomy-focused parenting maps onto the cross-cultural social scientists’ favorite cultural difference, collective vs. individualistic. I’ve never lived, or even visited, a more collectivist culture, but the US is famously individualism on steroids, so it makes sense that we’d chafe at being prodded to think of ourselves as only of value as a representative of a family. Todd brought this up above, and I think he makes a great point that even as we’re individuals, we need to belong to communities too, but it’s unfortunate that the Church seems to be often failing even in that, taking away our autonomy, but providing less and less community in exchange.
Very thought provoking.
As a parent of adult children, it’s fascinating to reflect back, to contemplate the present, and watch those adults grow and learn and continue to evolve into their mature selves. And it’s simultaneously painful (think about the little soliloquy from Jim Hopper in the recent Stranger Things season five finale, that “one of the joys of being a parent is that you’ll have a constant reminder your whole live that every choice you’ve made has been wrong!”) and also joyful (watching them surprise you with moments of maturity and grace; remembering with fondness so many good/useful/formative things you facilitated that turned out to be great).
One thought I have in reading the post and comments is that the dichotomy presented is useful in understanding archetypes, and the “legacy” approach seems so obviously problematic and the “autonomy” approach so empowering and wonderful, particularly in the way they’re being discussed. But… I wonder.
Clearly, taken too far, the whole sad heaven and “sins be upon the parents” and undue pressure baked into a heavy-handed legacy approach seem like problems. Absolutely.
Yet I wonder if it’s easy to — in my view — take this assessment too far. In other words, does ANY articulation of expectations violate “good parenting” norms? That seems hardly viable.
In other words, I’m not so certain that SOME sense of pressure, or wanting to not disappoint my parents (in my own growing up), or live up to “standards” being imposed on a young person, isn’t in fact a good/useful thing. Is it really the case that total free-range autonomy-focused parenting is always the way to go? I’m just not sure. Actually, I’ll say it stronger: I AM fairly sure that swinging the pendulum all the way to the autonomy side ISN’T the optimal way to go.
Instead, I think that figuring out how to strike this balance, how to navigate the tension between autonomy and legacy, is one way of contemplating and navigating the core dilemma of parenting. Again: full-blown legacy-style projection seems quite unhealthy. But likewise, a full choose-your-own adventure approach seems irresponsible as well.
It reminds me of the growing movement among GenZ to cut off their parents to eliminate toxicity etc… I mean sure, the world contains actual toxic parents who were dysfunctional. But TikTok seems to be pushing the notion among GenZ that ANY non-autonomy-oriented parenting was somehow toxic, and tbh I find that specious and unproductive. Kinda like the movement within mormon circles that decries all mormon missions as being toxic (passports under lock and key! gasp!) — I mean, I know missions CAN be traumatic etc, but it also turns out that oftentimes they aren’t.
So anyhow, I wonder. It’s easy to jump on the bandwagon of believing that any “legacy” approaches (or hints thereof), e.g. comments of “remember who you are” etc, are somehow dysfunctional or improper. But I dunno. Do we really believe that any injunction for young people to live up to some exogenous or family-oriented standards improperly impinge on kids’ sovereignty and autonomy?