Posted by:
Breeze
(
)
Date: February 19, 2017 08:40PM
Someone mentioned "uneducated" people....
My TBM father was a college professor, and my RS President mother was a college graduate. Upper middle class.
Most of my "misbehavior" was forgetting things--I was a spacey kid, and would lose track of time, and wander off. I would leave my shoes outside, and forget to do my chores. My mind and heart were always elsewhere. I did very well in school, however. My mother would call me names, like "slob", "skinny little nothing" and "G--damned brat." When I did something she didn't like--or didn't do what she ordered me to do quickly and expertly enough--she would tell me I was going to be punished, and she would send me to my room. There, I would wait, sometimes for hours, until my father came home. For some reason--some pact between my parents--my father's duty was to administer the punishment. He would pull down my pants and spank me, with his hard, rough hands. He could crush an apple with those hands. It hurt! I had and have extremely low self-esteem, which led me to marry unsuitable men. Both my husbands were Mormons from BYU. The first one beat me. The second one cheated on me.
A lot of times, I would be spanked for kicking my older brother. It was the only way I could defend myself. My brother usually went unpunished, because he was 6 years older than I, and very large, and very violent and destructive. My parents were afraid of him, and he was allowed to beat me, whenever he felt like it. He sometimes would torture me right in front of my parents, and I would scream for help, but they would say, "You know we can't control your brother." I got the message that I was not worth rescuing.
On Sundays, they would put me in a pretty dress, and I would go sit on that church bench next to my brother, and we would all smile. It was all about appearances. Some of the people would comment that I looked like I had rickets, and my mother should take me to see a doctor. I was very thin, with dark circles under my eyes, from lack of sleep. I got sent to bed without any dinner so many times, that I would get stomach aches, that would last almost all night. My parents thought I was making it up, for sympathy. I see pictures of me, and I cry.
We can only hope that, now, people are more aware of child abuse, and more likely to step in.
Mormon abuse is alive and well, however. If a boy was late or absent from priesthood meetings, the leaders (grown men) would go into the boy's house, and throw him out of his bed, and force him to get into their car, and take them to meeting. During the process, the boys usually fell to the floor from the bed, and the men kicked the boys on the floor. The men pushed and shoved the boys around the room, forcing them to get dressed. My boys were literally butt-kicked up the stairs, and into the car. This happened to my own sons, several times, over a period of two years! The deacons and priests were threatened not to tell. It was several years later, when my boys finally told me--and I was so upset that I said, "You kids never have to go to that church again!" And we didn't! We resigned together. This was SOP, and happened to almost all the boys, at one time or another. They thought it was funny. My boys said that the kicking and shoving really hurt, and they were sore the next day, too. My youngest boy was horrified, to be wakened out of a sound sleep, by a strange man yelling in his face! We were new in the ward. He never got over it.
A primary teacher used to spank children in his class. He taught for many years, and was still teaching when we left, 9 years ago.
My sanctimonious SIL used to berate us for not being religious enough, because our family sometimes would go to a restaurant or a movie on Sundays. She was a high-strung, impatient woman, and would scream at her little girl, and yank her arm, for her to "hurry-up". At church, no one thought this was odd, at all. I used to make my SIL stop, whenever she did that in my presence. The daughter (my niece) grew up with a deformed elbow, and it was the arm that was constantly being pulled by her mother. Of course, no one mentioned it.
Mormons are strict, authoritarian parents.
My GA relative would say, "It's more important for you to respect me than to love me."