After years of research my husband and I have decided that the LDS church is just not for us. We are both converts of 9 years (were married with children already). This is still "fresh", I just told my mother a few days ago who is also a convert (only blood convert in my family) of 18 years. She took it better than I expected but asked us to continue to pray about it (sometimes I think she has the same feelings). We also spoke with the Bishop about our choice to be released from our callings and our decision to not attend church and not be visited by Home Teachers and Visiting Teachers. Told them we didn't want to be "preached to". Surprisingly they were kind, came to our house but did not preach, and wanted to know what our wishes were in reference to contact and how they could help with our girls (for activities). We have a young son and two teenage daughters (one in particularly has always been "strong" in the church). We knew that this would come as a shock as we were active by all means up to the moment we finally released our feelings. This was also a surpise to our children; therefore, we made the decision to support our daughters it what decision they made in regards to their activity in the church. I told them I would still take them to seminary (we have it early morning at 6am before school starts), mutual, dances, church, and other activities. That we would go to events/meetings that parents needed to be there (Camp meetings, seminary meeting, etc) to support them but that we would not be going for ourselves. We also agreed not to take our 5 year old son anymore because he was too young to choose and we didn't want him brainwashed anymore. The only thing is the more we think about it the less we want them to continue their membership in the church. We feel that they are "brainwashed" like we were. However, every time we try to talk to our one daughter in particular she gets really upset. We are drawing a fine line between supporting our daughters and protecting them. It's only been a week so we feel that maybe we just need to give it time; it's a lot to take in especially for a teenager. These past 9 years she has known and been surrounded by LDS life; then BAM we tell her it was all lies. I can only imagine considering all most all of her friends (all of the ones she "hangs" with regularly) are LDS. We don't live in Utah but an active area of Texas (Temple is 10 minutes away and there are 15 active LDS families in our neighborhood include Stake President, RS President and Bishop. All three of these leaders have children that are REALLY good friends with my oldest daughter). Has anyone gone through this? Any suggestions? Thanks in advance

I suggest setting boundaries and being proactive with your daughters.

Boundaries - family comes first. If there is a family activity planned it takes precedence over a conflicting church activity. All church activities must have your prior approval.

Proactive - prepare them in advance for the kind of tactics TBMs may use and the comments they may hear. Make sure they understand that they are not responsible for somehow returning you to the fold. Prepare them with pithy responses to negative comments about your worthiness, or pity about their family no longer being forever.....

Welcome! That is a tough situation Finallyfreewoman. I got out before I had kids so I haven't been in your situation. My random thoughts right now are:

I applaud your decision to keep your 5 year old away from the church.

My suggestion would be that instead of leaving a void there, fill it with any kind of learning material you would approve of. I'm currently reading the Magic of Reality to my almost 7 year old and she has sucked up far more than I had ever fathomed. Check Youtube, I think they have some introductory videos about it if you're interested.

I understand that you are having second thoughts about supporting them in this church since you have learned of the truth. I also see how you came to your initial decision to support them though.

I think, a lot of times, it can be "fruitful" to step lightly at first (since they really have been through the shock of their lives) but since we as parents, have the obligation to educate our kiddos to the best of our abilities and prepare them for the world out there, there's really no way around eventually slowly sharing what we have learned with them.

Perhaps an agreement could work. Some kind of mutual agreement. You support such and such and in return, they agree to "process" reading material that you provide.

Caedmon has made a good point about setting boundaries.

Like I said, I have not been in your position ... but I do have kids.

It's a rough road ahead. I hope this board can help. There are some really wonderful people here! Good luck! :)

With teenagers you run the risk of them getting defensive and tuning you out quickly. It might be better to work around it for a while. Concentrate on teaching critical thinking skills and science. Let them discuss what happened in church and see if they can pick up the contradictions.

Build up other family activities that are more fun and attempt to crowd their schedule.

I'm in a slightly different situation where their mom still believes and so do the kids.

I've decided that the most important things are time and love. My relationship with them and knowing that I love them unconditionally is my first priority. I also believe that the more aggressively I push the more they will put walls up and the less they will ever be willing to listen.

Welcome to you finallywoman. Looking forward to hearing more of your story when you get a moment. Please take a look at my comments on this thread, they are thought-provoking.

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,633939



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2012 06:31PM by rodolfo.