I've written extensively about growing up Mormon with a narcissistic father. One of my chief complaints was the way he denied me any money throughout high school. He sent three thousand a year plus to the church. This was in the seventies. I could have purchased a school lunch for coins. My friends spent 25 cents a day to eat at a local general store. I wanted to fit in so I stole my lunches there until I was caught. The police let me go with no charges. But I couldn't hang around the sons of truck drivers anymore--they were too expensive for me.

I started hanging around with kids who were poor and had abusive fathers. For this, Dad gave me hell. Why couldn't I be penniless and hang with wealthier kids? He pushed me into his corner so badly, that I broke down and cried, "what do I have to do?" The answer was simple, believe and worship. I was told to violate my own conscience for coin. That's the Mormon answer. When I saw recently that they had 100 billion dollars hid up, I was furious. My lunch money is in there. I'm glad my father is dead. The death of the Mormon church would be the best thing I could witness now. I know it won't happen, but I also know which side I'm on.

Smaug had nothing on TSCC.

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To find our long-forgotten gold

Any exmos out there with a ring that makes you invisible?

Now I’m really mad.

How old were you during this period?

Twelve until I got work just before I turned eighteen. My father made a premium salary--three times the average. At twelve I confessed my disbelief, and he cut me off. After eighteen I was fully disowned and got nothing. He died wealthy and sonless. Three boys he had. Fucked us all up.

Our money is in there, too. We, as poor BYU students in the early '70s, couldn't afford to buy special formula for our baby that had milk allergies.

It's been interesting to see the reactions to the hundred billion on the exmo boards. I don't think anything has affected me so hard since I left, or even since I quit believing, long before I resigned my membership. Not even sitting outside during weddings.

We find ourselves thinking of the things we gave up to pay, the horrible guilt when we couldn't. Many of us saw our parents struggle, give money to the church instead of helping their kids get on their feet, and even as we speak, see our families still running on this absurd treadmill. People struggle to pay the 10% plus other donations they're pressured for. All while working second jobs to pay for missions, giving up what little family time they have to clean toilets on Saturdays, and going into debt at the end of the year to square up with the cult while wanting to provide their kids with a Christmas.

It takes me back to when we were living in married-student housng at BYU. It was December. Our credit cards were almost at the limit. But tithing settlement was the next week. I lost so much sleep and cried so many tears about having to go in and be declared non-full tithe payers. We had a choice of what to do with that littlbe bit of available credit that we had--pay tithing or buy Christmas. The guilt won out, we paid the tithing. The next day we got a letter in the mail that the limit on our credit cards had been raised. I cried and cried and prayed and thanked gawdalmighty for the "blessing." The blessing of being able to go into more debt--never considering that the letter would have been mailed the prior week or that they do that to everyone who is maxing out but still makes their payments. No, it was God!

They are sitting, SITTING on a hundred billion!

It's criminal! And they are able to convince people that it's God. God wants it this way. God is the ultimate ruthless, perverse brute. They can't help it. They're just doing what God tells them to do. And it's all going to be for your good in the afterlife. And if it isn't, well, the rest of the sheep will never know, so what have they got to lose?

You should really write a letter to Nelson, and perhaps the editorial page of the SL Tribune. Tell Nelson that the church took your lunch money as a child, but is more than happy to be sitting on a $100 billion investment fund. He will probably never see that letter, but some minion will. And perhaps that minion will question a thing or two.

I wrote about this to Dan Peterson, and he called me a spoiled crybaby. Nice guy, eh?

Writing to Dan Peterson is even worse than writing to the Q15. The Q15 will not even read it. Peterson, by contrast, will respond with his usual rubbish.

The whole enterprise is corrupt. There is no dialogue, no empathy.

Dan peterson is utterly soulless. I have some very ugly emails from him. Empathy and compassion are lacking from that one who is supposedly a corporation apologist. He represents the true ugly side of this organization.

I'll bet he hasn't gone without too many lunches.

Do you still have his response? Can you share it?

No, that was a couple of computers ago.

My experiences don't compare with Don's abusive father, but I feel the church cheated me over and over. My Mom controlled the my family's budget, and the damn church never went without. It got everything that was asked: time, money and consideration. I skipped many school lunches because my family didn't have it to buy a hot lunch. My Mom gave what little left to the church. She would buy treats for her primary class, but sent me to school without lunch.

I needed to buy a protractor and compass for a 7th grade math class. I took home a teacher prepared supply list that required the use of such tools. She did not check the box that indicated that Messy would not be able to buy such items. I wish she would have because I got a daily berating from the teacher. I was the only student that couldn't afford a 4 dollar set (before the dollar store era). I started taking home failure notices and my Mom exploded.

-Do you think I am made of money? It will have to wait until I get paid at the end of the month. I just made a donation to the ward christmas dinner. Then there's scouting and book of mormon fund. And the bishop asked for a young men's donation. I don't have it.

So I failed the grading period. How do you measure angles without the correct tools? You don't. I had to repeat the course the following year. I fell behind. The needs of the church were more important than mine.

My Mom worked for various dentists. Most were not members of the church. She always received a discount for dental care. She would start orthodontic treatment for me (I have terrible occlusion even today). I would suffer with braces for 1-2 years. As my treatment was concluding, she would start pushing missionary work [church told her to share the gospel] on these dentists. They would tell my Mom that they could never join the church because Smith wasn't a prophet to them. My Mom would then quit her job because she claimed that she couldn't work in a dental office that was hostile to her faith. Yes, I would have the braces removed before the treatment was completed because my Mom refused to finish paying. The last time I had my treatment suspended was because she wanted to buy me a $400 set of scriptures (which were later stolen at church).

Oh, that sounds terrible. I'm sorry, Messygoop.

As a teacher, I've spent a minor fortune on school supplies and teaching materials for my students. I estimate over the course of my career it amounted to somewhere between $15-20K. I got some of that back on taxes, but not nearly enough. In the beginning of my career, I gladly provided what was needed. As the years wore on and I went without for my own needs, I got increasingly resentful.

I'm not excusing your teacher, but I understand where she was coming from. I have had parents who will not provide their children with notebooks, pencils, and crayons, but who will send them to school with a cell phone that is far nicer than the one I carry.

Younger teachers now use Donors Choose, and if anyone is looking for a place to put your charitable dollars, I would recommend it.

It's a shame that your mother did not prioritize your needs.

That's awful, and I empathize with you. That rotten church takes advantage of people.

No child can win when parents are conditioned/commanded to harken to the leaders of the church. The church puts its monetary needs above everyone's else. I was brainwashed to think that this organization would help when members are in need, but that's not the case. The church discriminates whom they help.

I want to see their empire crumble and collapse. That's in part why I freely share my traumatic experiences.

My own complaint along these same lines would be:

Never having winter boots or gloves as a kid. Having to buy my own clothes from an after school job on a farm starting in 7th grade in the late 70's. Like really, socks, shoes, jeans, coat etc.

Every time going to MIA had an event that needed money, I had to come up with it myself. Between 7th grade and 12th grade, I got $20 from my parents. And no money after that.

I worked for the bishop on his large farm. My parents told me that when the bishop talked to them about giving me a job, he said that it, "Would help the family out."

So based on that sentence, I had to give my parents 10% of my money earned there for the next four years. Plus I had to pay tithing. And an extra 15% to a mission fund. During the summer I'd work all day, all summer, except Sunday. But I'd lose 35% of my pay before paying for my own necessities.

But the one that annoyed me the most was having to pay for seminary. I didn't want to go, but had to. And I had to pay the registration fee for the classes I didn't want to take in the first place.

That rich church was taking money that a hard working kid needed to buy clothes and such. Not just his parents money.

They take much and give so little. It's a racket.

We were raised on a farm. I didn't have to do too much until I was just out of 6th grade. Then came the long summers of hoeing beets. We'd then go home and clean the house. I hated hoeing beets. I hated farming. My grandfather used to tease me about the fact I'd end up marrying a farmer. I almost did. I was dating one when my "husband" asked me to marry him as he was afraid I'd marry the farmer. BUT I had to save my husband. The farmer is a wonderful person and was an ex-druggie. I still think he is one of the greatest people I've known. So close to marrying a farmer. I kind of felt like that was my grandfather's little joke.

I think we paid tithing on it, but I don't know. My dad and mom didn't take it out of our pay. My mother worked with us in the fields, too. We didn't live on the farm, but we worked so hard. We hauled hay and picked up potatoes (in Utah) and picked tomatoes. Out there in Corinne next to the Great SL and the mosquitoes and horseflies.

WE DID pay our fees for school and buy our books. I don't remember a seminary fee, but very well could have been. We bought our own school clothes with the money we earned. It could very well have been tithing money. BUT even then, at the end of the year, very often my parents had to take out a loan for tithing and then pay it later.

I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again since this is the time of year it happened. My mother died on December 3rd. A week or so after Christmas when I was visiting my dad, he told me that he had forgotten to pay their tithing that year and with his BAD knees, which the doctors wouldn't touch because of his heart, he ran down the bishop to pay their tithing as mom would be angry at him if he didn't get it in on time for the year up there in heaven. The bishop said it would go on the next year's tithing and my dad insisted it must go on that year's. I doubt the bishop cared about that, but said he 'd do it. After my dad told me that, I said, "But God would understand." And my dad got this look on his face of peace and he said, "You're right."

But we lived even as a not so active mormon family worried about all these little rules and regulations. We really didn't go without although my parents worried about money all the time.

WHOOPS! I just remembered. In Brigham City at the Jr. High, there was a place called the pie dump where you could go get burgers and fries for lunch. I got a job there. If you worked through your lunch, you got a free lunch (which you had barely minutes to eat). It isn't like my mom got me the job or anything, but it saved some money. When I lost the job as I had been sick for a few days (they were running a check on how well we earned for a week), I didn't dare tell my mom, so I scrounged for lunch money the rest of the year. I'd go sit in the library at lunch often. I knew it would be a burden to ask for lunch money, so I didn't.

I also babysat one night a week after school until 8 p.m. for my piano lessons.

Just to be clear, I never turned down a single hour of paid work as a teenager.

I know and love a TBM family who work so hard it makes me cry. They took in a disabled child and eventually adopted him. Another adopted son has Asberger's. They adopted a daughter who was being abused by her parents and then had two biological boys. They spent so much caring for their kids and making little. The wife is getting older and she has little education. She works cleaning people's homes and is finding it too physically demanding. But they have missions and college to pay for now.

It makes me so angry to see people like this sending hard earned, desperately needed money to such a horrible corporation. I so wish their eyes could be opened to the suffering they are enduring because of their childhood indoctrination. But they put their faith and trust in a gigantic lie.

My mother was just as tightwaddish as your father, only without the religion part. Throughout my childhood, she did everything she could to keep me from having or getting any money of my own, that I could control. I wasn't allowed to babysit or do chores for money. Many, many times I would ask for something that cost as little as five cents. The answer was always "no."

To this day, (and I'm now 72), I get an absurd pleasure from buying myself a little something that I want, but absolutely DO NOT "need." That's what she told me, always, when I asked for something: "You don't need that."

I didn't need the newest "Outlander" calendar that I just hung on my bedroom wall yesterday afternoon. But I am a passionate fan of the series, and I love not only re-reading the books, but looking at the gorgeous pictures in the calendar.

Just because I CAN.

I know exactly what you mean. Every once in a while, I buy one of those Hostess fruit pies that I used to steal when I had no money.