Today was an interesting day.

I went with my nevermo sil to the space needle for lunch before she hopped on a plane to go back home.

It just so happens it was the 50th anniversary of the space needle. The lines were a bit longer than usual.

I had something happen than I couldn't have predicted in a million years. It seemed like an event sent just to me to validate all i've been going through after I left the church. I'm not sure I have the words to really describe the events that took place. I'll try, but add more drama to it if you can, because mere words just can't tell the story.

There were about 300 people in line to get on the elevators that go up to the top. Standing in line behind us was a lady that was probably in her mid 30's, but looked more like early 50's. She had no make-up, jewelry or any adornments of any kind. Her hair was a scraggly mess. Her clothes looked old, dated and well worn. She had 5 kids with her. They were about ages 5 to 10. They were out of control.

The kids were fighting with each other, hanging on the cords that controlled the lines. One of them pulled it over and brought about 5 posts down that were holding the line in place. They were mostly ignoring everything that mom was saying to them. She was running at the mouth with non-stop warnings, and threats, but did nothing else to get a grip on the situation.

She ran into me about 10 times with her bag on wheels, until I finally asked her to please stop it! If looks could kill I would be dead.

Then, she started in giving her children a lecture on the evils of caffeine. It was all I could do to not burst out laughing. The things she was saying (so everyone could hear) were crazy. Next came an explanation of how alcohol makes people into very bad people. I was just stunned at what was coming out of this woman's mouth. She was doing it loud enough, and in a tone that made it clear she wanted everyone to know all of her wisdom on the topic.

By this time I was pretty sure this crazy was a mormon. It was very obvious to me. I was blown away by her big mouth, arrogance, and complete fail as a responsible parent. I couldn't believe what I was hearing and seeing.

As we stood in line her kids became more and more restless. She threatened to spank them "in public". Her little boy begged her not to do that. I felt so sorry for him. He was clearly humiliated. Then she started saying that she was going to call their dad to come and get them. He, would have no problem with that, and no problem beating their butt for causing him such an inconvenience. Those were her words, not mine. She made that announcement and threat at least 10 times. It became obvious that she wasn't going to follow through.

Then,,,,,her phone rang. OMG. TMI. It was a job interview! She announced to the entire crowd that she hated public schools. She herself, home schooled her children. She would never subject them to the lies and obscene teachings of public school! She HATED the public schools and the people who ran them! She then gave her entire resume (BYU educated) of her life as a public school teacher (in Utah).

FINALLY we got on the elevator. She was still telling her life story to us. Her kids were full on out of control. They were yelling and screaming. The elevator operator was beside herself. When we were almost to the top one of the kids reached behind her and hit the button that opens the door! She caught it thank God! And Mom? She was totally oblivious. Still on the phone. Not a word to her kids about anything. They opened the door of the elevator at 9/10ths of the way to the top of the space needle for gods sake! Not a peep from her.

When we got to the top sil and I went the opposite direction of TBM mom and her brood. We went straight to a wonderful lunch, complete with coffee and a bottle of red wine. What an incredible validating day I had.

I ascended the Space Needle when it was brand new. Fortunately, the only Mormon kid I knew there was me, and I was well behaved. I need to go to Seattle again someday....

I was there in 1962. A wonderful memory. Today brought it all back. Except for the part about the mormon invasion.

The brunch with a bottle of wine was a wonderful end to a great week I had with my sil that I just adore. I don't think she quite understood my angst about the people in line behind us. Somehow that crazy mom and her poor kids pushed all my ex mormon buttons. I tried to be cool. It's a good thing I was there with her and not her brother (my DH exmo) he would have lost it.

The space Needle is a great place. We sat there and ate great food and drank vino while the room literally went full circle 4 times. The view is incredible.

To top it off there was a Dale Chihuly display there that was just amazing. He's a wonderful artist.

I did, too. My grandmother lived just north of Seattle and we went to the World's Fair. One of my very early memories.

I was feeling sorry for the woman up until she started ranting about the evils of caffeine and alcohol and public schools.

Glad you had a nice lunch, with some nice coffee and alcohol to round out the lunch nicely.

Especially the public school thing--it is hard to imagine how much arrogance this ignorant woman had, to think she and her rude litter of kids are better than everyone else, and too good for the public schools. Those children are doomed to by dysfunctional. Mormons like her don't think it is important to become socialized or to behave normally. They want to stand out as "a peculiar people." Mormons are the only group I know that think it is a compliment to be called "peculiar." If you could have crawled into her mind, she was probably thinking that everyone was staring at her because her children were so outstanding--in a good way--a forever family, so lively, so cute, and the mother so fertile! She might tell her story of her trip up the Space Needle in testimony meeting--how everyone was listening so attentively to her phone conversation, and how she took that opportunity in a crowd, to let people know the evils of caffeine, bla-bla....

I'm miffed about this, too, because I have known so many Mormon women who behave just like the Space Needle woman. They are so extreme, that I sometimes wonder if there are undercurrents of abuse there. Well, it is a cult.

When she whispered a long diatribe to her little son, and he begged her to not spank him in public, my heart broke for him.

Then she stepped it up and threatened to call their dad to come and pick them up (for all to hear) it was all I could do to keep silent. Maybe I shouldn't have. Those poor kids are hostage to her and her insanity 24/7. How on earth are they going to be ok?

I really had an intense dislike for her after 15 minutes. I had to endure her shit for about 30 min. I can't imagine having to listen to her non stop self righteous prattle every single day from birth til........?

She would have just blamed the kids if you'd said something. Somewhere along the line that woman got hit with a stupid-stick.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/09/2012 12:37AM by robertb.

the stupid stick. Good description!

I couldn't do anything to help those kids.

If only I had been able to come up with something to put her in her place. I couldn't think of anything.

If anything it was like a blast from the past. A past that I can't fix.

Still, I wanted to send a message to those kids. Mama seemed beyond hope.

If I were the person on the other end of that phone, I would have been horrified. She came across as insane.

If anyone here still prays, pray for the kids. They need all the help they can get. They were out of control, but their only hope is people who reach out to them and give them hope outside of the insanity of mormonism. They were so small, and their mother is so mental. All in all, it left me feeling so sad for those little kids who were constantly fed a line of bull shit, while being simultaneously threatened with being abused. So, so sad.

Thinking some more about this woman's behavior and her preaching, I bet she felt embarrassed by her inability to deal with her kids, so she went to preaching to save her self-esteem. It rings a bell with me: When I was a Mormon and found myself at fault for something, I went to expounding on this or that to save my self-esteem. It's a defense to save face. "I may be doing a crappy job at parenting, but I at least *I* know how awful coffee and alcohol are!"

Were you wearing some Starbuck's Attire, Mia? :-)

No, but I was wearing white shorts :) A pure evil in Momo land. My sil (nevermo) was dressed even more Mo appropriate than I.

I had just bought a pop up book of Alice in Wonderland, and The wizard of Oz. I had these books under my arm. I wonder.....

...at least 5 times.

Oh, what fun it would have been, when she started trying to school you and everyone else on the evils of caffeine and alcohol, to turn it around on her with some loud conversation of your own. Something like, say, "You'll never guess what I learned about Joseph Smith and teenage girls the other day!......"

If there hadn't been such a huge crowd, in such a non religious city, I may have considered.

The acoustics are amazing in that place. I didn't want to come across as being associated with her in any way.

I tried my damn best to ignore her and not look at her. God forbid anyone think I knew her, or had any thing to say about her insanity. I think she did an excellent job of turning people against moism.

I dropped by the "Lards" Mall today on my way to a concert and saw SO MANY moms like you just described. Let's just say I was glad to get out of there.

LOVE the space needle but sorry your trip was interrupted. It makes me sad and also mad to see people like that acting out in public. It's annoying yet it also makes me glad that I'm not like that whatsoever.

THis should be on NY state license plates,

NY, been kicking mormons out longer than anyone!!

Moms and kids like that in public places reaffirm my decision not to breed.

And what is up with coming to our city and preaching the evils of coffee? Doesn't she know we're the coffee capital? LOL, that is a quick way to make everyone around you hate you.

I applaud your ability to not react. I don't think I would have been able to keep my mouth shut.

BadSheep Wrote:
> Doesn't she know
> we're the coffee capital?>

ya seriously? That's the last place you'd expect to find caffeine haters. What a dumb@ss (tbm mom not you of course) I love Seattle btw, haven't been there since 1997 or so but I've always loved it there (and it's coffee on every corner +)

Meh... bad and distracted moms with no social skills come in all religions. She happened to be a Mormon one.

When we were more TBM we lived in Seattle, and even I knew not to say anything about the coffee. I always felt at home when we came back from visiting family in Utah and saw city workers driving down the street with huge smiles, toasting each other with their coffee and letting the other one take their turn at a four way stop. Lots of happy memories in Seattle. Probably why I love Starbucks so much now.

Since she was so loudly proclaiming her super-duper righteousness, I think as I walked away, I would have loudly proclaimed, "And there's the perfect example of why I am SO grateful to have escaped that stupid Mormon cult," and just kept on walking in the other direction.

She thought she was a good example? LOL!

kids fighting in public
* kids knocking stuff over
* parent babbling about their own higher standards
* parent "sharing" stupid private convo
* parent phone convo illustrating exact cause of kids' horrid public behavior
* kids misbehaving
* parent ignoring kids' bad behavior

At some point before the elevator incident I would have publicly humiliated that sorry excuse for a human and her entire rude brood. Most probably during that idiotic telephone conversation.


Note #1 to Mormons: DO NOT go off like a facking cockroach and breed more offspring than you can personally tackle at any ONE point in time.

Note #2 to Mormons: if you have not personally won at least 100 internationally known awards from independent auditing organizations for the following, DO NOT expect strangers to admire you for your A) modesty; B) sobriety; C) fecundity; D) non-supplemented energy levels; E) education; F) ability to educate others; G) child-rearing acumen; H) social acceptability

...because someday you are going to run into me, not Mia.

My mother didn't homeskool though, fortunately. It was just like that in public. My stupid brothers acting up, Mom making nonsense threats, etc. If any of the older kids attempted to step up and parent, we were swiftly dealt with, meanwhile the bad behavior from the younger children ensues. Embarrassing public lectures about the Mormon health code designed to educate everyone around us.

I visited a couple of years ago, and Mom did the same thing with her granddaughter when we were shopping for a birthday in a party store. Bad behavior, public spectacle, arrogant preachy lectures designed to educate everyone in the vicinity, etc. I was completely embarrassed.

It would only be bad behavior if it wasn't for the public lectures.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/09/2012 12:05PM by Makurosu.

As a teacher, it really annoys me when parents drop the ball in public.

About a week ago, I saw a mom in a store. She had four children ages 5 and under. Two were crying and she was having trouble keeping the other two in line while simultaneously pushing a double stroller *and* a shopping cart.

I was actually fairly sympathetic, even trying to gently redirect one wandering toddler ("Mommy's that way! Go to Mommy!") The sympathy ended once we were in the checkout lane. I was called to the register beyond where she was blocking the aisle, and I politely asked her if she could move her cart (I was prepared to wait a minute or two while she managed this.) She then got quite testy with me. My thinking was, lady, you lost the right to be testy with strangers when *you chose* to have so many young children so close together.

No garmie lines, but trust me, I checked.

That was another thing that I found interesting.

She was on the phone with someone who was asking her about her teaching credentials. She was an elementary school teacher!
If I had small kids, I would do all I could to keep my kids out of her classroom.

Apparently she had applied for a job with a private school. I can't imagine what her classroom would be like. She has no idea how to get children to comply. Threats of spanking and public humiliation, using the dad as a threat. Constant non stop chattering and telling them to stop, with out any follow up. It was a real train wreck. Her tactics are well known to NOT be effective. How can an elementary teacher be so clueless?

There's only one thing worse than that, Mia, and that's a TBM Mom who hits her kids...but on the sly. I know a TBM Mom who pinches and shoves her kids when they don't follow her orders, which she barks at them incessantly. But she tries to do it so others don't see, but as an observant person, I've seen it up close. I feel for the kids....

She was the wife of the then-bishop. One Sunday I was sitting behind this woman and her kids during sacrament meeting. During the sacrament prayer, I heard a soft "thwack" followed by an exclamation of pain. I opened my eyes to see Sister Bishop flicking her three-year old on the forehead with her index fingernail, the way someone would flick away a fly. Sounded like she was testing a melon for ripeness. The little girl had tears rolling down her cheeks. I gasped, and Sister Bishop turned around to glare at me.

I kept my eyes open and trained on them for the rest of the meeting.

hear, hear.

we have lots of ortho's in our nabe with a gaggle of kids (seven or more) under the age of ten. Some thirty year old pregnant woman dragging around six or seven kids.

of course ortho's don't knock on our door axing us to join their religion. And they are always dressed nice and polite and the kids are well behaved. At least that's what I see in public.