Between wives I attended a Singles Ward in Mesa, Arizona. The bishop of the ward allowed almost any single person under 40 and some up to 50 to attend his ward. The chapel was always filled and they even had a primary for all the children that came.

One Sunday the bishop announced that it was important for everyone that was a parent to stay after for a very important meeting with the new SP. In the meeting the new SP said he had been inspired that EVERYONE with children were to start attending their assigned family ward and not the singles ward. The single ward was going to follow church policy and be for 18 to 30 year old's that had NEVER married and had NO children.

I was really surprised at the number of women that started crying and asking if they could continue to attend the singles ward. They said they were not welcomed in RS in the family wards and their children were mistreated by the married women in primary. Several of the women said they had no where else to go to worship. The SP left the meeting and the bishop was all alone to deal with the fallout. I was such a TBM at the time that I actually supported the SP until I witness the GREAT hurt and pain this man had caused so many people with his uninspired non christ like logic. I so much wanted someone to tell them they could attend.

There were other problems because of this policy. The primary had been staffed by older never married that had no kids females. For many of them, this was their only church calling and the only opportunity to associate with children. These women looked forward to being with the kids each Sunday and now they were not with them and had no opportunity to serve. The Elders Quorum dropped from 3 groups to almost 1. The chapel went from standing room only to almost half filled.

I know for a fact that many of the women and their children never attended their "family wards".

Looking backwards I believe those women and their children were lucky to have been forced out of TSCC but back then, it just seemed so cruel and not what Jesus would have done. TSCC has a long history of hurting the weak especially single women with children unless your a widow and TSM can HT you (alone).

Is there anything TSCC does that is Christ Like?

That blows!

Isn't the whole point of a Singles Ward is to meet other single TBMs in the hopes they would marry? I know divorced women would be frowned upon in the Family wards because wives have esteem issues and think divorced women would be after their righteous priesthood holders.

This example shows the incredible LACK of understanding that the church has toward singles. I don't care if you're 18 or 50. The church has no use for you unless you're married and producing babies.

If they were caring and concerned about singles they would be asking them what they needed, and how they would like to be grouped or classified.

Obviously an 18 yo single just out of HS has different needs than a 30 yo divorcee with kids. Then there are the even older never married singles who have different perspectives and needs.

Just because you're single doesn't mean you're all alike. I've never understood the church's reasoning of putting all singles together. I had outgrown their singles groups by the time I was 21. I had no desire to hang out with highschool graduates, or 40 yo divorcees. The mormon singles scene was creepy.

Ya, I went to singles wards for almost 10 yrs, too creepy for me too. I ended up marrying agood Catholic girl, way younger, but without a lot of baggage and issues.
7years later now we are still happily married.

That stinks because that is how I met DH. I was in a singles ward in the Salt Lake Valley and there was this cute guy holding an even cuter toddler. DH was so good with this baby - who I later found out was his nephew. His divorced sister became one of my few friends in that ward and I was impressed immediately with what a good guy DH was to attend with his sister each Sunday and help her with her child. Most of the guys in that ward were just OK and the women were all mid-twenties but acting like 70-year-old old maids. Faded, depressed, desperately sad. I had nothing in common with any of them so DH and his little sister were like a light to that congregation. If they'd been sidelined into a family ward, we never would have met. The church is shooting themselves in the foot by forcing divorced people with kids to go to family wards if they choose not to - isn't their goal to get people married and producing morgbots? If so, they should be where they can meet, regardless of their past marriages and children.

I was kicked out of a Singles Ward. At that time I thought the bishop was a jerk and I thought karma bit him when his daughter from that same ward married an RM guy also from the ward in the temple. Went on to have two kids and later divorced. Apparently this guy wasn't the nicest to her.

Anyway, bishop SoRighteous calls me into his office and tells me he understands I have a daughter, very nicely asks about her and me and details of our lives. Then he says I should go to my family ward. I told him I did go to my family ward first and then came to the singles, leaving the child his grandparents. He wanted me out but he couldn't kick me out, my records were at the family ward. I was just a visitor. Most people were visitors who came for the socializing and the after church pot-lucks. My family ward bishop was kinder, he said just visit when you want.

After reading your post, this makes so much sense. Someone at the SLC brethern quarters must have heard that single wards, which included pretty much anyone not married, were actually fun compared to others. They must have heard of the well attended pot-lucks in the gym and the friendships. So one day the announcement came that the ward was to be closed. A few years later they opened a YSA ward, NEVER MARRIED singles 18-30 with no children. Those who were divorced or had a child were to go to the SA activities with the 80 year olds, even if they were 22.

Of course, there is no official announcement, it is all on a need to know basis. I was RS president at the time when all YSAx were being forced to attend the YSA ward. I mentioned to the bishop that a certain young woman could attend too, she was 20-21 and had a two year old child. The bishop told me that he didn't think she could attend because she had a child. I said that was ridiculous and he just moved on to the next subject. Of course she couldn't attend, they only want the girls that will attract and retain RMs. This YW was very good looking and was lucky enough to stop attending church altogether within the year.

Even this is about control, controlling who the RMs meet, date and eventually marry.

I attended those ward singles meetings. BYU, dental school, etc. Got back to my hometown singles ward again. I looked around and thought to myself, here I am again. What? I've got a nice neverMo girl that likes me and here I am trying to find a nice Mormon girl to please the parents. Screw this. I got up and left in the middle of the meeting. I called her up that day, set up a date (she was living far away in No. Cal.), and proposed a few days later. Still married going on 27 years. It's been rocky, but I've got three great kids who are surprisingly well mannered, talented, smart and Christian (in spite of me, haha). The oldest one who was exposed most of her life to the church is the most worrisome. Imagine that. Anyway, the singles ward is no great shakes. Maybe it's good the SP drove them out.

Real churches don't tell their members which congregation they need to be in. Control control control.

I lost one of my very best (UU) Church friends to cancer a few weeks ago. Last night another couple of single women friends and I were meeting to plan the reception after her upcoming memorial service and one of them said, "what would this church do without all us single women? We run the thing."

And it is true. Especially the women part. Even our minister is female. But we singles are the get-things-done people. We're Board members, committee chairs, the ones who come up with good ideas for activities, and more. SO so so different from when I was a divorced single woman with kids in the mormon church. I might as well have been invisible. All I was to them was someone who didn't (and couldn't) contribute to the important stuff and who still had to be counted.

And for a long time it was still hard for me to tell men that I needed them to do something or to disagree with one who was just being stupid. There was still an underlying "bow to the penis" mentality. Trust me, that mentality is long gone. As is any rememberance of why I ever did that in the first place.

I remember one girl in my YSA that came to church only a few times a year. One week she came and she came with a baby. No one knew she had been pregnant. She was one of those girls who never show until their 9th month. And I remember hearing the second councilor tell her she couldn't come and had to go to her family ward. I remember being so mad that I yelled at him saying that she was single and that she had every right to be there.

Lol can you picture a little thing like me (4'9" and 80lbs) telling a man who was 6' what to do and how to treat women?

I later found out that the bishop said anyone was allowed to come and join their ward. After that we gained a lot of over 30 year olds. Though I didn't stay long after that. I was so mad at how the men in that ward treated women that I went searching for a new singles ward.

What is the rationale for this? I don't get it. Wouldn't they WANT all the singles together so that they can find their "eternal spouse?" Why would church leaders want to make it HARDER to get married?

years. He had a "hemorrhagic" stroke at age 42. After he had been through multiple surgeries and was finally doing better, he decided to buy himself a suit and scriptures and go to a singles ward in Ogden, Utah. (He was living in Brigham City.)

The bishop called him in after he had attended for a few months and told him he needed to go to his family ward.

He has never set foot in an LDS meeting since. He is 60.

nearly 19 years ago when I was divorced and not yet re-married, I attended a singles ward. At that time there were two kinds of singles wards, one for young singles and an "over 30's" ward. The oldsters had no restrtictions about children, but knowing these controlling farts, I'm sure they do about younger singles.