Posted by:
imaworkinonit
(
)
Date: March 19, 2012 12:09PM
reassure her regularly that things are going to be fine.
99.9% of the world raises their kids without Mormonism, and believe it or not, many of them end up being responsible and moral people. It might be helpful to read books about raising moral kids (Children's Book of Virtues, and others), if she feels like she needs some parental guidance and confidence that she can do it.
She may not believe the church is true as a whole, but she still needs to challange ALL of her assumptions and fears that were planted there by the church. And the ideas that you can't have a happy family or that your kids will become druggies and juvenile delinquents without the church are pretty pervasive. She needs to deprogram herself, not just doctrinally, but emotionally.
So why, exactly, must kids be raised with magical thinking and false prophets and be showered weekly with guilt and fear to become moral? She needs to continually remind herself that the church is false. There is no mormon mojo for raising kids. Mormons have just as many problems or more than anyone else. They may be able to cover it up better, but that's worse than facing the issues.
Another thing: The Sunday shopping guilt. I had that, too, even AFTER I stopped believing in God. Guilt is a conditioned response. It's not rational, and it's not based in the thinking part of your brain. I had to challenge the guilt reaction NUMEROUS times before I tamed it.
Example:
Old conditioned response: "I'm feeling guilty for shopping on Sunday. Maybe something BAD is going to happen to me."
Challenging my thinking: "But wait, I don't even believe in God. If there is no God, it doesn't MATTER if I shop on Sunday"
Old thinking: "But what if you are WRONG and there IS a God and he's going to be pissed that you aren't following his rules?"
Challenging my thinking "Well, if there IS a God, why would He really CARE what day I shop, anyway? And if He DID care, would that be a reasonable expectation? Considering I've never seen him, and I heard 2nd hand from a bunch of liars and a book of myths (the Bible) what He expects from me, is the idea that He ever said that even believable?"
Reprogramming my emotional response: "I LOVE shopping on Sunday. There are NO lines, no crowds, great parking, and I always run into exmo friends at the stores".