Posted by:
zliska
(
)
Date: January 22, 2025 05:33PM
An issue I would like to discuss is the apparent widespread physical and sexual abuse of LDS children by their parents. This is embarrassing to me, as I was subjected to brutal physical abuse by my father, beginning in elementary school. I remember that one of my elementary school teachers sent me to the school nurse after she noticed that both my eyes were black and blue. I had been crying uncontrollably after being physically punished by my father. I explained to the nurse that everything was OK, and she allowed me to return to class. A very dutiful child, I would ride my bicycle two miles from school to my father’s factory, sweep it, clean the restrooms, then ride three miles home every day after school. During the winter, I rode home in the dark. When I was sixteen, my parents had me drive 30 miles, on a Friday after school, to a rental house that they owned in a nearby city, and paint the entire inside of the house with a paint roller and brush over the weekend. By Sunday afternoon, I was so covered with paint that I washed my hair in the bathroom sink using paint thinner. I can’t even remember exactly what triggered my mother to frequently call my father at work, and demand that he come home and discipline me. Maybe my crimes were sassing her or showing disrespect. I remember having to shower during gym with welts all over my buttocks after my father whipped me with an electrical cord. He was absolutely brutal, and I was terrified of him. He subsequently moved his business 150 miles from our home. My mother would frequently call him and have him come home to discipline me. By the time he reached home, he was beyond furious. I lived in the attic of our house. There was a pull-down stairway for access. My father owned a .405 Winchester lever-action big game rifle and 20 rounds of ammunition that were kept in the attic. I remember one time, as he was coming up the stairs to beat me, I loaded several rounds into the magazine, but didn’t have the heart to point the gun at him. As I grew older, I began to recognize the stunning hypocrisy of my parents’ behavior. Although they supposedly believed in a kind and loving God, my parents were anything but kind and loving to me. It is likely that this inconsistency between beliefs and behavior prompted me, beginning in my early teen years, to question the religious beliefs that were imposed on me from childhood. In my father’s defense, I must say that he never sexually abused me or my siblings. Other Mormon children have not been so lucky. Keith Brown, an LDS Church member and father of the Five Browns Piano Ensemble, is currently serving a sentence of 10 years to life in the Utah State Penitentiary for having sexually abused his two oldest daughters over a period of more than a dozen years. Keith Brown grew up in the LDS Church during an era when the mission of Joseph Smith, Jr. was of greater importance than the teachings and mission of Jesus Christ. Maybe the lives of Keith and his daughters would have turned out differently had they belonged to a more Christ-centered religion.