My parents joined in the 1960s when the church had more social and community aspects. They were sealed in the temple and later I was the only one born in the covenant.

As I grew up in the church, my older siblings decided that the church was not for them. My Mom, who was doing her very best to impress the other Stepford wives, was furious. There was lots of fighting and strife over my older siblings and their decision to fall away from the church. My Dad did not kick them to the curb and continued to love his children.

I was told by misguided primary teachers that my family would not be eternal. That my whole family would be harshly judged and that my Dad as a father would lose eternal custody. I took this very seriously as a frightened 10 year old. There were problems in my home and trying to live Mormonism only made home life worth. It was my Mom who was always putting Family Home Evening or not letting anyone eat until prayers were said. My Dad worked the evenings and did not deal with family squabbles.

In the 1980s, the church began to change its direction. It slowly eliminated the social and semi-fun programs. A new bishop came to my ward at the request of a stake president who thought the ward had run amok with levity and mirth. It took a new direction and my goofy Dad and his jokes didn't fit in.

Let's be honest: Have you ever heard of a person being released from the thankless job as EQ secretary?

My Dad was told to shape up or get out. He stopped attending for about 5 years.

As I went through the brainwashing, I began to despise my Dad. There were many times that I resented my family. It's true that I wish my family was more Mormon. ***cough cough*** That's how I felt due to the intense immersion in church ideology. Part of that stemmed to continual interviews in which church leaders advised me that I should stay away from my Dad because he would eventually lead me away from the church. And that was true to a certain extent. I was ordained to the offices of teacher and priest because my Dad was not "worthy" to do so.

I always felt different for not fitting in. For those five years, I was the ym's quorum ward project, especially around x-mas time. After dark, a group of them would leave a basket of junk on the front porch. For awhile, my family thought we were being pranked as we heard objects being thrown at the side of the house (turns out they were oranges and tangerines).

My Dad returned to activity when the bishop was released. I still shutter to think how the church tried so hard to convince me that my Dad was such an evil influence.

that the church didn't directly turn me against my dad. I did worry about him as he drank coffee and alcohol. He didn't go to church all that often. He went to priesthood meeting on Sundays (back when it was early Sunday) and then went to the farm to irrigate as he was a school teacher and over FFA, so he worked summers for the school district, and so his water rights were on weekends.

BUT the teachings about coffee, etc., made me start worrying at age 5 about our family being together forever. I was going to make sure we were and so I was the most devout. I was also concerned about losing my own family after I got married. Well that didn't work now, did it?

Being the devout one and I had 3 siblings go inactive in their teens, I worried endlessly about them, too, and then I had to save my gay boyfriend/husband.

I think it is criminal what they do to kids who have family members (especially our parents) who aren't the perfect little example of being mormon. What a huge burden they put on kids.

Also, a lot of my parents' arguments were over my dad not going to church. They always argued on Sundays, ALWAYS. I wonder how well they would have gotten along had they not been mormon.

cl2notloggedin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> I think it is criminal what they do to kids who
> have family members (especially our parents) who
> aren't the perfect little example of being mormon.
> What a huge burden they put on kids.
>

I couldn't agree more.

I am a terrible liar and church leaders were asking me troubling questions about little details about my family. I recall my stuttering when trying to "honestly" answer some of these questions.

1-How often do you pray as a family?

2-What do you enjoy most about reading scriptures with your parents?

3-What has your father taught you about the importance of the BoM?

I think I nearly collapsed in the chair. How was I supposed to tell the bishop that we only prayed in the car before going on vacation so our plans weren't needlessly interrupted?

What endearing Mormon home moment was I supposed to share of my delusional home throwing scriptures at my older siblings during botched family home evening meetings?

Finally, I had no idea what to tell him about my Dad's disdain for reading the BoM. He thought JS was a lazy bum who invented a religion because JS didn't want to work. He didn't care for the stories in the BoM.

As a child, I really had no idea how to be honest and truthful during these interviews. Especially, since the church taught that bishops could tell (spiritual discernment) when you were lying.

We were raised in the hippy era--or he was at the tail end. He wanted to have long hair. My dad didn't think he should, so after my brother got a haircut that my dad didn't like, my dad cut it shorter (he has shears to do so and had cut his hair for a long time). My brother took off with a friend that night and he was caught in SLC. They sent the bishop down to pick them up. The bishop asked him questions like you just mentioned.

Then when I was getting my TR from my cousin--the worst cousin on my dad's side as far as being extreme mormon--he asked about family quarreling etc. I told him that we only quarreled a little. I had been living away from home for along time, just moved home before I got married. It wasn't my cousin's business and I was angry.

FHE was mom nagging dad to have it every now and then. He'd YELL for us all to come upstairs. I'd play the piano every damn time and then someone would read the lesson out of the manual. We'd all mumble under our breath. Such a wonderful experience. We never read scriptures as a family. I know my dad read them more when he was older. I gave him a set. I gave both my parents a set. They'd never had a set before that. My mom had a paperback. I was going to save this damn family SOMEHOW!!!

There is no way in hell they should be putting kids in this situation, LET ALONE sexual questions. I didn't know what masturbation was until I was 25--get that one. I was that naive. And yet the bishop started asking me at 12 if I masturbated. I knew by how he asked that it was bad so I said no hoping it was the correct answer. He was a pervert.

They do SO MUCH DAMAGE to the kids. At least I had my kids out from 8 through 21 or so. My daugher went back at 21.

and I'd love to show some of these stories to my brothers. They took the worst from my dad as he was much stricter with him than we females. My dad farmed and taught agricultural mechanics and was over the FFA. We spent TONS of time on the farm working. My brothers did a lot more farm work than the girls did. We lived in Brigham City and the farm was 20 miles away in Corinne.

My dad was our rock. When he died you could almost feel the strength go out of the universe. He was NOT a TBM. He never wanted to be anything in mormonism. He hated being called as even a clerk. He talked about how they all gossiped in the meetings. He liked being the one who checked to see if the church was locked at night (he'd usually be out for a drive about that time anyway--he went for a drive every night). He liked teaching the Blazers. He hated HT, but the people I knew who he home taught who were a part member family, LOVED HIM as he was their friend and never talked religion. We admit he loved his dogs more than us, but we are all fine with that!!!

Reading these histories about dads just blows my mind.

Interesting. It was the opposite for me. Parents joined in the 1940's, 5 of 6 kids BIC, me being the last one. Temple married after the first kid. We were a model convert family and well liked in the ward.

I loathed my dad because of his total immersion in the church and I hated being told we were going to be a family...FOR~E~VER!! I recognized my church indoctrination at a very early age.

I didn't know my dad much. He died a couple of months ago. He was so involved in church, volunteer activities, and singing groups and finding other things to do than hang out with me when he was home that I never really knew him.

The church says a father needs to be in the home but doesn't do anything to encourage it.

Elder Berry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The church says a father needs to be in the home
> but doesn't do anything to encourage it.

Quite the opposite. The church demands that fathers not be in the home or with their children.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGHZCNTR_m4

The zealous MORmON convert and MORmON enforcement agent that also happened to be my male parent (so unfortunately for me) was trying to become ward bishop .....and SP and GA after that as well. There are a lot of stories that I could tell about his hopeless pursuit of MORmON leadership glory, including an ("THE") epic blunder that guaranteed that he would NEVER be able to get to the Bishop position that he wanted so badly, although the spiteful local MORmONS right where he was raised and converted were most likely NEVER going to allow that to happen in the first place anyway, just to spite their convert and dash his MORMON aspirations/ hopes. My male parent was such a hopelessly deluded MORmON that he SO mistakenly felt that he still had a chance for ward bishop after his epic blunder in the remaining 40 years of his MORmON life. He was so mistaken and WRONG.

The MORmONS say/ claim that they badly want converts, but it must be so that the OG MORmONS can have others (lowly pathetic converts) to be better than and to endlessly trash because that is how the OG MORmONS acted with my male parent and with my convert that I managed to get for them. The MORmONS treated "my" convert like a demolition derby car, one that they did NOT like at that. Funny thing, that poor treatment of converts is so pat/ingrained with the nasty vicious hateful MORmONS that is exactly how my convert male parent treated "my" own convert from my full time mission some 25 years later from his own "conversion". .....Great job, MORmONS!!!.....

My male parent never made it past ward high priest group leader in his quest for MORmON leadership glory ......but he was a full on MORmON @$$ hole long before "THE" church was done with him that I finally learned to despise mostly because he despised me so much because I dared to question his beloved "THE" church after the full (FOOL) time mission that I served for the MORmON @$$ hole. He was such a @$$ hole that I am amazed that my siblings still have any affection for him at all. Of course, they never made the HUGE mistake of questioning "THE" church either. The clencher was when my male parent told me that I "needed" to go see the bishop to get excommunicated since I arrived at the point where I thought "THE" MORmON church was a load of crap. That as I knew full well that he would READILY commit suicide before EVER allowing himself to be subjected to such humiliation. That totally confirmed to me how much that he really had ZERO affection for me and really detested me, which is exactly how I ended up feeling about him, for a great MORmON outcome. I pointed out to him how much that "need" of "mine" to be excommed seemed to be just like the pressing "need" to have me to go on a FOOL time MORmON mission which was really all about making sure that he looked good as a MORmON parent to his fellow ward members that he was trying to impress, while I scuttled my own interests to get it done, and NEVER really recovered from it. THANKS "dad"/MORmON ASSHOLE !!!! I hope that MORmON "Heaven" is just like an endlessly repeating "ground hog day" scenario for you, one where you frantically attempt to avoid getting excommed and fail, so you blow off your own head everyday out of sheer frustration and intolerable shame and bitter despair. It's what you really deserve as the real MORmON that you really are. I have ZERO interest in any kind of MORmON heaven where POS like Bruce McConkie or Mark E. Petersen or Gordon BS Hinckley or Glenn R. Stubbs or their MORmON clones are in charge, or in being with my MORmON family members in any subsequent existence. In fact, I would readily commit suicide to avoid such a place.

messygoop Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Let's be honest: Have you ever heard of a person
> being released from the thankless job as EQ
> secretary?

Not to be disagreeable, but since you asked, yes, I have heard it, I mean, it does happen, just like with all church callings....eventually.....

>
> My Dad was told to shape up or get out. He stopped
> attending for about 5 years.

If/ as he went back, that was his big mistake.

the fact that I still attended "THE" church after having been through the screw job and mind fuck of going on a FOOL time mission was/is MY fault, and I dearly paid for that HUGE mistake of mine. ....I'd NEVER allow that to happen again.

> As I went through the brainwashing, I began to
> despise my Dad.

Me too !!! IF ONLY I had done it years EARLIER!!!!

> There were many times that I
> resented my family.


> It's true that I wish my
> family was more Mormon. ***cough cough*** That's
> how I felt due to the intense immersion in church
> ideology. Part of that stemmed to continual
> interviews in which church leaders advised me that
> I should stay away from my Dad because he would
> eventually lead me away from the church.

WOW!!! that would be such a lucky circumstance!!! I had to "rely" on my convert to point out to me what a pile of CRAP that the MORmON church really is!!!

> And that
> was true to a certain extent. I was ordained to
> the offices of teacher and priest because my Dad
> was not "worthy" to do so.
>
> I always felt different for not fitting in. For
> those five years, I was the ym's quorum ward
> project, especially around x-mas time. After dark,
> a group of them would leave a basket of junk on
> the front porch. For awhile, my family thought we
> were being pranked as we heard objects being
> thrown at the side of the house (turns out they
> were oranges and tangerines).

honestly there are worse things than having citrus left outside your house, especially over beneficent intentions

.....like having your MORmON male parent threaten to kill you ....as inspired by the good old (pre 1990) MORmON temple ceremony...... because you are not living up to his lofty MORmON expectations

> My Dad returned to activity when the bishop was
> released. I still shutter to think how the church
> tried so hard to convince me that my Dad was such
> an evil influence.


my MORmON male parent was an evil influence !!!! the kind that makes satan obsolete, one that I was SO much better off without!!! and the MORmON church played a large role in that "conversion"

IF ONLY I had managed to dump his foul MORmON ass MUCH SOONER !!!

I grew up in a home with a nevermo mom and an inactive dad.

Home teachers/visiting teachers talked them into sending me and my brother to church.

Every Sunday a ward family would stop at our house to pick us up and take us to Priesthood, Sunday School and Sacrament. We were their “project”. Doing this chore surely put them closer to the CK.

Thing we were told about our parents, our chances of being CK eligible, not a forever family, etc, etc. tends to make you either pitiful or pissed off. I chose the latter.

The church and it’s minions took it as a challenge to belittle and shame us. It was exhausting to try to maintain a scrap of dignity.

I led many a deacon down the path toward perdition. I took heat for that, too.

And they expected me to embrace their crap AND go on a mission.

Thanks, no.

I ended up meeting a hot mormon girl the summer after my freshman year. She was going to go to BYU. SHE and only she was the reason I ended up there. I came from a poor ward and was one of the only wardmembers that wanted or could scrape up the dough to go to the WYE. Despite my checkered past and being a poor missionary prospect, they couldn’t sign my application quick enough.

I guess there were extra credit points for the bishop getting any wardmember admitted to BYU.

I loathed the church and BYU. Cute girls have super powers.
(We broke up about 4 weeks into my first semester). I wanted to ski on Sunday and for some reason she didn’t.

The ward I attended was hell. BYU was hell with a big mountain next to it.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2021 10:04PM by csuprovograd.