The parents being gone all the time topic mentioned here:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,216644

reminded me of a thought that's been bothering me for awhile about "blessings" or "being blessed".

Do Mormons (or other religions, I've seen it in others too) actually create circumstances in which they need help intentionally so they will be blessed by service from others? Crediting God for blessing them when in fact if they'd thought more about their problem they would have been fine on their own?

An example that comes to mind is--the young married couple here:
http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,216483,216483#msg-216483

But it can be as simple as expecting people at church to be babysitters while you do your calling. Sort of a it takes a village to raise a child point of view. I've clearly seen some mothers way over their head and rather be a parent they are expecting people from church to rush in and save the day.

I've never seen it so clearly until I said no to watching a friend's kid she was expecting me to take care of for free while she worked with no regard to what my plans were (this was done multiple times and I finally had enough), in our very heated email conversation she mentioned how horribly sad I must feel to miss the opportunity to serve others--like it was an expectation/duty that I was going to help whether I wanted to or not. Needless to say, we are no longer friends.

Do Mormons live life with the expectation or entitlement that they will receive all the help they need no matter what their circumstances? Even if it means burdening other people? And then call it a blessing from God? When if they'd just planned better or said no every once in awhile they wouldn't need outside help?

What I mean is different than being down on your luck and needing help or needing help in a pinch--what I mean is consistently using other people to get what you want intentionally and calling it a blessing from God.

I used to have a home teacher with two children, one under 10 and the other a young teenager, from a previous marriage. He married a woman in my ward who was basically an empty-nester. Her own children were college-aged, so she was done. He lost his job and went back to school, while this woman worked AND played mother to his children. He had the audacity during his HT visit to thank Gawd for all that He had done to help him through school and through his unemployment, and to find a new job. He made no mention of his second wife and how much she had helped him and became a mother for his children. It was Gawd that helped him. My mouth was on the floor.

He's no longer my home teacher. I made sure of that.

That is a perfect example! Let's not credit the PEOPLE that are going out of their way so you get what you want, God did it all.

feel entitled, too, but I had it happen to me a lot as a mormon. I had one VT who decided that while she volunteered at school an hour a week, I would babysit her son. She didn't ask--she just assumed. She was my VT for the first 3 years I lived in the ward--and I found out later why--Nobody else wanted her. The beginning of the next school year, she showed up at my door on her "usual day" for me to babysit and I said I couldn't babysit and she said, "Oh, remember I was coming to VT today."

Then I was the VT for a woman who had bunion surgery on both feet. She had a 3-year-old child and when I took her dinner--just before I was supposed to leave for a campout with the YM and YW, I found her there alone with her 3-year-old. Her husband and 4 older children had left her there (they were all old enough to babysit--he was much younger than them). She told me I had to stay. I told her I couldn't. Then at the campout, her daughter told me they would need meals for at least 2 weeks until she recovered. (No, I didn't take them any more meals.)

I could go on and on about experiences like this.

I always want to say "Maybe God isn't blessing you because you are righteous - maybe he just is throwing you a bone because he feels sorry for you because you are being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous cult."

I know that when we were in school and had kids, my "blessings" came from my nevermo father who, not being a tithe payer, was able to help us out with loans and a number of outright gifts to help us when cars broke down or the last semester when DH didn't get his grant because he had too many credit hours by that time. Funny, how the blessings came from those smart enough to not get duped by Mormonism.

So funny you posted this as this is yet ANOTHER thing that sent me down the path of leaving the church. I was at work ( i work for an elderly woman) and we were watching her favorite soap opera-Days of Our Lives. I never watch it but when I am at work twice a week and this woman is a mother of someone in the ward.

Anyway a character on the show Victor Kiriakas made a profound rebuttal to Chloe. She was talking about how God has blessed her so much with the son she was longing for and a husband that loved her and how everything was going so wonderful for her and the blessings just kept coming.

Victor replied to her "who do you think you are that you are so great that God has decided to hand out blessing specifically to you. Do you really think he makes a choice on who to give them to? Does this mean that this person that is suffering this atrocity is suffering it merely because they don't deserve it but that he is listening to your petty desires and decides to bestow blessings on you who has done nothing for any one else or nothing to deserve it?"

Anyway I am probably not paraphrasing it right but it makes me cringe anytime a TBM would get up and talk about their blessings. To think so would mean that God has chosen to NOT bless certain people. in favor of blessing others. Why would he do that?

To me it creates that visualization that some of the TBMs can be blessed with a perfect birthday party but a child who is getting abused doesn't get any blessings? Huh? Blessings aren't something that can be handed out to people doing mediocre things. Oh wait that's right the child that is suffering abuse isn't reading the scriptures enough so they can't receive blessings. To me God has GIVEN us our minds and our conscience to make good, rational decisions that may provide us with good fortune and sometimes we just get lucky. Just another self-righteous way of thought. I HATE hearing about blessings.

I see this all the time in the church and it just drives me crazy. A friend of mine has a wife that is a VP for a large company and she makes alot of dough. He, on the other hand doesn't work at all and basically just plays golf and runs around doing gawds(bishopric) work when not engaged in self-endulgence. Which honestly I don't give a rats patoot if he works or not BUT the guy is constantly droning on about how the blessings from tithing was the "key" to his families financial success. REALLLy?? Is he serious?? He totally skims over the blaring and most obvious factor in his families "key" to financial success!! And that would be HIS WIFE!! She has worked her butt off through the years moving up the latter from position to position, all the while futhering her education by going to school WHILE she was working! This lady is an inspiration in my opinion. But for him to spin it into some "blessing" from god because of the payment of tithing? Absurd!! I am a lifer or should I say WAS a lifer in the church and the whole gawds blessings spin they put on everything is just goofy! I know plenty and I'll say that again plenty of dedicated LDSers that pay and pay and pay just waiting on the lord to pour out that blessing that they will not have room enough to recieve it. And it never comes. OH!! maybe in the next life!! Yeah right.

jessica Wrote:
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> Do Mormons (or other religions, I've seen it in
> others too) actually create circumstances in which
> they need help intentionally so they will be
> blessed by service from others?

In my experience (raised Catholic and having friends of other faiths as well growing up), I'd say no. I've never witnessed or heard of anyone doing that. I've certainly known plenty of more-or-less religious people who had difficulties and needed help from others, but I wouldn't say they intentionally caused those problems in order to receive help and "blessings."

I mean, even the happiest, most successful lives are difficult enough--at some point, everyone will be touched by illness, death, a serious problem with a child, job loss, divorce, etc.... It sounds pathological to me that anyone would seek to create circumstances in which they would need to be "blessed" with others' help.

I'm not saying those who've observed this phenomenon are wrong, just that it's hard for me to understand. Unless perhaps it's simply a form of attention-seeking, like being a "drama queen" for God? "Look, look how blessed I am!!!"

"I mean, even the happiest, most successful lives are difficult enough--at some point, everyone will be touched by illness, death, a serious problem with a child, job loss, divorce, etc.... It sounds pathological to me that anyone would seek to create circumstances in which they would need to be "blessed" with others' help."

I understand that and those are not the type of circumstances I'm talking about. Everyone needs help at some point in their lives.

The person I said no to for babysitting laid a guilt trip on me because I don't work, she has to work, their family needs the money, her boss said she could come pick him up but she'd rather not do that, she has older children that are perfectly capable of watching this child but we don't want that either (in fact would send the older ones over w/o asking me when I did take the younger one), her husband is out job hunting and can't pick him up either. It just got to where I couldn't handle it anymore and she was using emotional manipulation to get what she wanted. Our lives aren't all rosy and happy either but we manage to make things work--even with both of us working we could still work around the kids' schedules. My dh has never had an issue with picking up kids if he told his boss early enough (they don't work for the same company but have similar jobs). We don't have family to help us and they were treating us like their personal FREE babysitting service and told me I should feel bad for saying no. The expectation was because I was her VT, I should jump right up and do whatever she wanted with no regards to any family difficulties it may have caused our family, I should jump at every opportunity to serve others and she felt sorry for me because I must be feeling so horrible and sad now. To hell with that, I was happy to be rid of them.

Yes, yes and yes