Just had a baby. Husband is TBM goes every week, pays too much tithing (grrrr) holds a calling, whole nine yards. Me, inactive 1 year plus. Here's something I thought interesting. No one came by, brought any food, did nothing. Looks like my husbands time and money isn't enough to warrant 1 dinner from the kind and thoughtful mormons. The only credit ill give them is had they shown up i wouldnt have wanted to chit chat. Ill give them that. But its another level of dissapointment witg the lds church.

Many Mormons are very "no money-no honey" usually. I have a better phrase for that from the old days but I suppose you aren't supposed to use that anymore.

So, considering hubby is a tithe payer and contributor, they should have at least brought him dinner. No? :)


Congratulations on the new baby. How exciting!

Whatever help they offer comes with strings and is usually only given to people in with the highest church standings. That means high tithe paying families with two active parents who look and act out their mormon parts to perfection.

Enjoy your darling new baby and get as much rest as possible.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/2017 01:41PM by Cheryl.

They are tired from cleaning the chapel.

Even in the pre-chapel cleaning days, I often didn't get any meals after babies and illness. They were temperamental about it. But nowadays, the church is so demanding of its members (they much bow down and serve the church) that some of the old neighborly kindnesses are going to the wayside. I left two years ago and don't want anything from them anyway (except back tithing, but that will never happen).

Another consideration is that so many young people have either left the church or become totally inactive, that those who are left don't have the energy after everything else. Most women aren't homemakers anymore, and after job and church demands wear them out, they want a little leisure. But a few bigwigs will be catered to.

Even when both ex and I were active, callings, there every Sunday, nobody brought food for either one of my children' s births. Of course, we were converts and all around peons. No need to impress us.

Kindness, Honesty, & Respect aren't/weren't part of Joe &/or the (claimed) "restoration".

Also, they don't fit into tech need for temples (tithing bait) either.

Plain enough?

In 1975 when we had our first baby, we were poor. I was a young airman attending at my tech school at Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo, TX. I had to attend class, DW was at home trying to learn how to nurse the baby. Our daughter threw up everything she took in, and DW didn't know what to do. It was made even more difficult because she had a good amount of depression and a breast abscess. My commander was an LDS Capt. or Maj. named Blau. His wife was RS president. When DW turned to her and asked for a bit of help, Sis. Blau just bluntly said, "Sorry, we don't do that here. We can't be helping the wife of every young enlisted guy here." DW is still active, but still really hurt and angry over that these many years later. Within the last week she recalled that moment again, and how hurt she was, and maintains that Sister Blau was a bitch to do that.

I remember being active when our first was born. My wife was quite smart about it and had planned several freezer meals and we prepared them ahead for some hard times. They came in quite handy.
We got one visit from the relief society and that was it. It was a zip lock bag of salad and local grocery store deli soup. Almost like an after thought. It ended up being a bigger inconvenience than help. They stayed longer than we both would have liked and gawked at our newborn baby. After they left we never heard anything from them or saw them either. Its almost like they are agenda driven or something?



I hope you are getting enough rest and baby is in good health. Congratulations!

Not much "relief"..... that "relief society". :(

Maybe they don't accept you because you're not active. But why would that matter? Your husband pays a lot in tithing money. Shouldn't they even think about reaching out to his family? There was a woman in the family ward I visit who had a baby. Everyone was encouraged to sign up to bring a meal by.

Some are....and some are just good people regardless. I know both kinds.

It seems like if you're not from pioneer ancestry or upper middle class enough, they don't really want to have anything to do with you even if you pay tithing. The only outsiders they care about are "investigators" who are dropped when they convert, since converts are actually second class citizens.

It really depends on who is in charge, i.e. RS presidency, VT's assigned to you, etc. When I was a TBM several years ago (20), my TBM wife lost a baby in the 8-mo of pregnancy. It was a very difficult time. We only wanted privacy - even as TBM's. She, nor I, wanted anyone coming to our home. We were very active. My wife's MIL contacted the local ward to organize dinners, and then the RS presidency contacted me. I told her how much we appreciated the thoughtfulness, but please do not send any dinner, visitors, etc to our home. I ensured that this was what my wife at the time wanted. I am a good cook, and I had already organized and made meals. Didn't matter - they sent the entire presidency to our door w/ a banquet. My MIL let them in.

Mormons are very boundary-less, invasive, and pompous. They love to spy, intrude, gather info, brag about their efforts - and they use you as fodder in their testiphonies, etc. In this case, I think you fell through the cracks - I am guessing.

We did get 1 meal. The day after I brought the babies home from the hospital, they tested high for bilirubin and I was supposed to return them to the hospital as they thought with my C-section and preeclampsia/toxemia, that it would be easier on me for them to be under lights at the hospital.

Just as we were about to leave, my VT showed up to VT without making an appt. They wouldn't leave. Then after they finally left, the R.S. brought dinner, which like someone else said above, an afterthought kind of dinner. Even though we protested that we needed to take the babies to the hospital, the women "talked us into" eating the dinner they brought while they held the babies. The babies didn't like that much and we ended up holding them while we ate. Then they FINALLY LEFT and we took the babies to the hospital.

After that, every time the RS president saw me, she'd tell me how sorry she was they didn't do more for us.

My husband was very well liked in both wards we lived in. He had 2 back surgeries and 2 hernia surgeries while we were together. No help whatsoever.

OTOH, they'll Bend Over Backwards to kiss the area of Anyone considered to be MoRoyalty...


just saying'

Do mormon men not cook?

We had both kids at BYU. I worked full time, carried a full class load, and when babies arrived, no one brought us anything. I cooked, cleaned, worked, studied and did what had to be done and we were just fine.

What's with all the fuss over having kids and not being able to prepare food? Where is dad?

My Mother was a TBM but my father hated the church. Their children (including me) are non-religous. When my mother died, nobody called or came by. (I would have been gracious) After the funeral I noticed this white shirted POS eating a lot of food. I went over and introduced myself and asked who he was. He said he was my mother's home teacher. He called her by her legal name which nobody ever used much less heard off. I explained he must not have known her well, because she never went by that name. He looked at me like I was crazy. He kept eating though...

My experience in the church was that meals, special attention or help is usually reserved for the popular people in the ward or the people who specifically ask for it.

To be fair, hardly anyone these days really needs meals prepared for them. Grocery stores offer fairly tasty frozen meals and restaurant take-out is also available in most areas. But it is a nice gesture when someone remembers you after an important life event like a new baby or surgery. And it feels a little crummy when it seems like others are receiving attention for those life events, but you're not.

I've had several babies and a couple of surgeries over the years and I think someone from church brought me dinner once. I was completely active during those years, but I wasn't ever a popular ward member. I never asked for special treatment or help and none was offered. In fact, the week after my first baby was born, someone from my ward called me to ask me to take dinner to someone else who had just had a baby.

Just enjoy your beautiful new baby and forget about those Mormons.

when our kids were born and we lived next door!

She was too busy going to church and other more important things.

So how can you expect a stranger to do it?

both knee joints replaced at the same time. The doctors originally thought I would be in the regular hospital for 3 days, and then about 4 more in a rehab hospital. However, because I had had "bad" knees for most of my life, I was quite familiar with crutches, walkers, tricks for getting into and out of bed, etc. - the stuff they would have taught me in rehab, so they turned me loose directly from the surgical hospital. I was on crutches.

My VT brought over a casserole (I don't remember what was in it, but it was good.) Nobody else even called or sent a card. And I was still quite active at that time. It hurt.

I get it...they are boorish. At the same time, there are two reasons to be glad that they haven't come: 1) it would come at too high a price, and 2) perhaps it will help your husband see their true colors.

Many congrats on the new baby. The best advice I had as a new Mum came from my midwife.....no one ever died of an unmade bed or an unironed shirt.

Take time to enjoy being with your baby.

Congratulations on your new baby! I've experienced both caring and non-caring mormons. My dad had told me that when I was 3 months old, my mom was down in bed and unable to help care for me. He asked the RS president for help from the RS ladies because he had to keep going to work, and the only help would've been his 75 year old mother. The RS prez told him that no one could be bothered and that he would have to find someone else. My 75 year old grandmother came and helped my mom. OTOH, when we moved to a different ward/neigborhood, it turned out to be for the best because when my DH and I were having our babies, people were very kind and helpful. Dinners were brought in with enough meals to last a week. This was done for anyone that needed them, whether it was because of new babies, or other reasons. I kinda wish we hadn't moved from that ward, but if we had stayed, we probably would've still been TBM's because most everyone was nice.

Congratulations on your new baby!

Enjoy the quiet times, the bonding times. This is a special series of moments that you will savor forever!

I was glad to not have a lot of visitors. Especially, my TBM in-laws wanted to feed my new babies. My MIL said she was too ill to do anything else--no cooking, no helping around the house, so that all she could do was be in charge of feeding the baby, so I could do all the chores. She wanted me to sterilize the bottles and mix the formula, etc. She did this with all of her daughter's children. She absolutely did not want me to breast feed, but I stood up to her. My pregnancies and deliveries were difficult, and all I wanted to do is rest, and get the baby to eat, and enjoy this new little person.

My mother stayed with me for the first two weeks, and she acted as the door-guard, to ward off unannounced and unwanted visitors from the ward. She would say the the baby and I were asleep. It was flu season, and we were phobic about germs. Some Mormon women came over with their children, because they wanted the children to experience a newborn baby. My mother said it was "doctor's orders" to keep the baby away from kids, until the baby was older, and flu season was over. After my mother went back home, my in-laws came over, and took the baby out of his crib, while I was asleep. I woke up and went downstairs, and they had all the runny-nosed grandchildren there, passing around my baby like he was a teddy bear, not supporting his head, not being careful.

I immediately hired a neighbor's college-student daughter to come over in the afternoons to supposedly help me with housework, laundry, cooking, etc. Actually, all I asked her to do is study, and answer the door. The in-laws could come over when my husband was home.

Do you REALLY want those dinners, that are often made by people's kids, or "thrown together", that you or your husband could make just as well--and germ-free? I know a few women who use expired ingredients. (I have seen too much)

Be glad they are leaving you alone. If someone asks you to cook dinner for someone, just say, "No." I cooked 10-times more dinners than I received, and I didn't have much money at the time. People in our ward could have easily ordered expensive take-out every night.

I froze meals ahead of time, which was a life-saver for me and my mother--especially when I had other children to take care of.
What a fun time it is! I'm happy for you!