I was reading the post on blackmail and that got me to thinking of a topic my wife and I discuss a lot.

more often that not looking around me, in my family and mos that are very TBM. we noticed that more often than not parents exert lots of control over their kids, always justifying it with church reasons. you know, like 'I love you that is why I need to track your every move' type stuff.

my sis was particularly rough on her daughter all the time. what seems to happen is they raise kids that either A) can't think for themselves, or B) end up really rebellious.

My wife and I early on chose to focus on our kids learning to make their own choices in life. Talking to my 17 year old, his friends are amazed at how much freedom he has, but it makes sense to me if they are going to be making all their choices by 18, shouldn't they be making most all of them by 17? by any stretch of they typical mo teaching we gave our kids far more chances to make their own choices. In fact if it didn't put them in harms way we usually gave them the chance to chose even at a young age, we didn't protect them from the consequences though. If we warned them taking their legos to grandmas with all the kids around might result in them getting lost, they still made the choice and if they got lost and cried all the way home we dealt with that and allowed it to happen. (not always easy when you know that this was likely going to be the result)

our goal was to teach our kids to tackle the world on their terms and learn to make their own choices. even with all the talk of 'free agency' those TBMs around me seemed to be more concerned about their kids following their rules implicitly and without question.

Now I have had more than one person complement us on how our kids turned out. maybe we just got lucky or maybe not following the 'typical' mo approach to parenting was the difference.

whats your experience? does the church make you better or worse parents?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2013 11:41PM by sparkyguru.

I tried to raise my kids the same way. It seemed to really upset a lot of church members. People were always telling me I should make my kids do something, go somewhere, or be a certain way. I think their own kids used my kids as examples, and it ticked off parents.

One parent would call me every time her daughter came over, and give me a lecture on what her kid could and couldn't do while she was at my house. She was trying to assign me the job of being prison guard. I quit answering the phone. That really put her over the edge.

Another time I wouldn't make my 12 yo daughter ride for 4 hours with an elderly couple on a temple trip. The only reason she was going, was so she could be with friends. The bishop lost it. He started screaming at me to make her do what he said. Called her a spoiled brat. He did this in front of most of the ward. I immediately took off work that day, and took her and her friends on the two day trip myself. The real kicker was that his daughter was my daughters best friend. She hopped out of her dads car and got in mine when I asked who wanted to go with me. His face was purple with rage. He was one of the biggest jerks i've ever run across. I felt sorry for his 8 kids.

--lots of pressure to conform to unrealistic values and demands makes for a lot of stupid.

our SP was the same way with his kids, we found out because his daughter started dating our son. she was forced to be rebellious IMO, because she had no freedom to choose no chance to screw up and make a wrong choice.

(there is whole other story there) in the end he (the SP) broke up the dating. ironically just a couple months before from the pulpit in our ward he had called out our son and described how he had been there to help one of his kids in their time of need (she had had a car breakdown), paid him an awesome complement in front of everyone. then just months later after my son dated his daughter he forced them to breakup. Now I look at those memories and feel so sorry for his daughters, the power this guy liked to wield is kinda creepy when I think about.

The church has a way of stretching parents too thin. 8 kids so don't have much time for any individual one, or money for extra activities. Church callings. Boy scouts. And an ultra orthodox mindset.

parenting is a sub-set of Relationships; we 'know' what living Mormonism does to those, Right?

In my experience, hell yes. Bad parenting flourishes in Mormonism, because tithing and attendance are far more important than any altruistic impulse. The most important thing about Mormon child-rearing is to create a future tithe payer.

A child who experiences doubts will be scorned. A child who denies Mormonism altogether will be deprived of his father's love. In Mormonism, love = money.

There are good Mormon parents, and there are bad Mormon parents, but the church does seem to to have a gift for making parents not as good as they could have been without it.

By following LDS guidelines, parents can make some devastating choices and get pegged as "bad parents." But I believe that they are truly bad parents only if they abandon the blood ties for the church ties, which seems to happen so much among the ex-Mormons here on the board. There is no excuse in the world, not any kind of belief system whatever, that should cause a parent to turn from a child.

For being pro-family, the mormon church (and other churches/organizations) do a poor job of supporting parents and families.

Choice and accountability are so important, and the mormon church supports neither. A person doesn't really have a choice to attend each week. Callings can be refused, but only with a good excuse. You may not even have the choice whether or not you are supposed to clean the church.

Real choice allows people to say no. It allows people to disagree. Instead, in mormonism, people passively refuse to do things (member missionary work). They can't debate the request, they can't refuse, so they just don't do it. Again, not all mormons are like this, and not all mormon families are like this, but many are.

Accountability makes sure that because someone has made a choice, that they stick by that choice. They take responsibility for themselves and their feelings. A great example is if a teenager chooses a class or an extra-curricular activity, and makes a commitment. They either have to continue to take the class, or quit. But they have to follow through - not just passively stop going, or sabotage the proceeds.

For me, this was scorned in seminary and our ward (I actually quit seminary and studied release time with my dad). How many teenagers were forced to go to church or seminary and had bad attitudes or were disruptive? Granted, it's part of being a teenager...but if you're forced to do something, it's a lot different than if you _choose_ to do it, and then accept the consequences.

Finally, my parents left a great deal of the relationship building, moral, ethical foundations to mormonism. They would disagree with this, but it was encouraged by leaders, etc. Actual parenting is work. It's not just taking your kid to church each week and having home evening. And my parents were very young parents...barely keeping their heads above water (for many reasons). Again, my parents were/aren't the typical mormon parents, but these stories are not unusual.

I am not a parent, but was raised until age 7-8ish by two TBM parents, then after that a TBM mom and an atheist dad. They are still married; currently they appear to have arrived at yet another "truce", probably due to a combination of habit and their advancing age and feelings of vulnerability (understandable). Nevertheless, their relationship is still extremely dysfunctional and unhappy in so many ways.

I'm the second oldest of my parents' 6 kids as well as their oldest daughter.

The question of what makes one a "bad parent" is clear cut when there is visible neglect and/or abuse. Without a doubt the destructive, groupthink nature of most of mormon doctrine and its cultural imperatives certainly add to the risk factor of parents harming their children - whether they realize it or not. If a parent does little to equip their kids with the critical thinking skills and flexibility that seem to be necessary for a life filled with meaning and purpose, or in the case of mormonism actively discourages or threatens the development of such things, I think most here could agree that mormonism contributes to a high risk of causing bad parenting.

Are there plenty of seemingly well-adjusted adult mormons who grew up in mormonism? Sure - as long as they exist within the framework of the dominant culture they grew up in. In my opinion they're the exception rather than the rule by a large margin.

My heart breaks for people whose parents abused them emotionally, physically or both -- whether it was in the service of the destructive fiction that is TSCC or due to other contributing factors. Harming innocents who have nowhere to turn for help but the source of their abuse is the very definition of immorality.

I'm 43 now, but the older I get the more I think I understand I probably would have benefited from more individual time and attention from my parents given my temperament, which 'negatives' tend to be impulsivity + over-sensitivity. But they got married while still in college and immediately began doing what TSCC said they needed to do: have a big family.

If my mom'd had her way, she would've had 12 kids - probably some girlhood notion about 12 as a number for apostles, tribes of Israel, or some such nonsense. If my dad hadn't left the church when I was 7-8 and stayed TBM I think they very well might have gotten to 10 or more kids.

Given the financial difficulties they already struggled with (and continue to struggle with at nearing 70), I shudder to think what being the oldest girl of 12 kids might have been like.

I was a 'second mother' to my younger siblings, even becoming a source of solidarity and comfort to my 11.5 months older brother. The stress and worry of watching out for them/protecting them emotionally (while really having no idea what I was doing...), and trying to promote family peace while my parents fought over religion took its toll.

I've often wondered if this contributed to my never having had much interest in having children. I'd already had a prolonged dose of what it's like to feel totally responsible for others' lives, their security, their happiness, etc. I always prided myself on how responsible I tried to be - but I can't deny that when I left my parents house and also left TSCC it seemed like the whole world had opened up and the freedom available to me was limitless.

At the very least, the messages I got growing up were these: it was extremely important to behave myself and to be obedient, that I was also pretty and smart, but that it was important to behave and work hard, that I was intelligent as well as beautiful, and that I could have whatever I wanted if I worked hard enough....plus followed the church's rules. Which is it, already?!

Beauty and intelligence were welded together - inseparable, so I couldn't easily detach intelligence as a 'good' all by itself without physical attractiveness - all of it anchored by a heavy expectation of being a good (obedient, righteous, cheerful) girl.

No wonder at age 17 I let a strange man who had chatted my ears off riding the UTA bus from Farmington to SLC get off the bus right as I did then take hold of my hand for a few minutes as if we were dating. I felt terribly embarrassed that I would have to 'be mean' to him by both extracting my hand and then lying that I was meeting my parents around the corner - all so that a strange man in his 40s would stop giving unwanted attention to a 17 year old girl like me. I felt unable to stand up for myself and guilty about doing so.

Many years later, my parents were horrified when I related the above story to them. Neither intended for the messages I internalized to result in a perceived inability to protect and stand up for myself but that's precisely what happens with mixed messages: one is always a little stronger than the other.

Despite their failings, my parents did what they could to instill messages of self-reliance, critical thinking, standing up for myself, etc. The mormon messages of looking and acting "good" were equally powerful if not more so due to cultural reinforcement and my deciding as a little kid to be on my mom's "side" in my parents' religious wars -- of which I honestly understood little for a very long time.

I still feel grateful to have had one ex-mo parent in residence to act as a foil to the other's TBMism. Regardless of their parenting faults, that paradigm seemed to force a balance where deep down, I always knew I had a choice. And the older I get yet again, the more gratitude I have for that stroke of luck.

My deepest sympathies to all children of the past and today who were, and continue to be, harmed due to the rigid, controlling, abusive or simply downright confusing parenting messages that arise from mormonism's destructive influence.

IMHO, the Dogmatism (Black/White) 'thinking' that is a part of the Mormon Equation contributes DIRECTLY to what frogdog said above...

those things are actually counter-productive in raising healthy individuals.

Mormonism ISN'T about finding Balance in your life's journey, it's about top-down Obedience.
anyone who strays is subject to being ignored/dis-credited if not formally disciplined.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2013 11:38AM by guynoirprivateeye.

good question sparkyguru...

let me ask the half dozen lds "mothers who know" on my street that are being treated for depression and anxiety for that answer.

I wish I were kidding

I think the "you chose us as your parents in the pre-existence" mentality is extremely damaging. It is an excuse for virtually every kind of abuse that children can suffer at the hands of their parents. Being told that you asked for it and god agreed... its hard for me to think of something worse to tell a kid.


I don't think the mindset alone causes abuse but it certainly makes it easier to excuse and ignore, and perhaps makes regular parents reluctant to apologize when they screw up or critically think about their parenting.

In my case, I think yes. My mother believes men and women can not truly communicate, so all men must be negotiated with or tricked like the enemy she perceives them to be.
This is definitely encouraged by the church, she calls me up to invite me to church lessons on "communication" where they will be instructed on "how men think differently", or the Fascinating Womanhood, or "how to get what you need from marriage". A collection of bullshit topics.

She doesn't parent WITH my dad, she thought it was us girls "working around him".
Since I think and act just like my dad, she has never understood me and is unwilling to treat me like a unique person. Church says one size fits all, I just better well conform!

There was a lot of the extortion-blackmail going on like was related in the other thread. My things were always searched, nothing was ever mine. They always threatened to take my door away, and to a growing girl, privacy is absolutely necessary!
My younger sister, seeing where my resistance got me, was always quick to roll over and surrender. Therefore I was always being held up to her example. "Be more like your sister!"

No! I am me!
You cannot change your childrens' personality, but you can correct their actions. No, she wanted me to be reserved, shy, feminine, overly concerned with everyone else above myself, in other words, dysfunctional just like her.

Besides, if my sister was the older one, our roles would have merely been reversed. When we were children, my sister agreed that our parents were in the wrong many times in their treatment of me, but since she never received the punishments I did, she doesn't remember any of this now and thinks they are the wisest things since the dalai lama.
Me, I probably have PTSD from some of their "punishments".



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2013 02:43PM by WinksWinks.

I can defenitly empathize with you, I am the oldest as well, my first sister and my last sister are rebels like me (my first sister was recently punished for kissing someone) but the middle sister is exactly like that, her survival response is to completely imitate (inlcuding being manipulative of other siblings) and comply with my mom, which my mother openly praises her for

She also compares us to her, she is the perfect child of our family

What you're writing about - the second oldest sister - that is classic dysfunctional family stuff. Of course, I'm just on the internet and don't really know your family. But I am familiar with the tendency of dysfunctional families to have a perfect child and a scapegoat. Instead of seeing all children as both capable of poor choices and good choices - the children are painted with one brush. It takes a lot of strength to buck that role, and also to confront one's parents/family about that role.

I would consider my parents to be very emotionally abusive to all of their children

I have only recently learned many things that I feel I should have learned a lot earlier in my life but didn't because since birth my parents have tried to mould me into someone I am not-the sad part is I tried too fit that mould for a long time to and felt like a failure when I couldn't



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2013 01:50PM by nsgallup.

So good to hear you that you get it at such a young age. LDS tries its best to jam everyone into the same mold. Wish I had figured that out at your age!

You are well on your way to becoming your own person. Any news from the military recruiters yet?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2013 02:11PM by iflewover.

They called my home phone while I was at school, I called them back on my cell, left a message

Yes! It's huge that you can get enough perspective to see this already. You will go far in life if you are this perceptive at your age.

I hope you connect with your recruiter soon. As a minor, unfortunately, they may be obligated to call your parents number right now. They do have to work within the laws of the land, which puts you still under the control of idiots.


I'm sorry, I have to laugh every time this one person posts on your threads with his/her "good advice" for you, scolding you to obey your parents. Years ago, this person revealed an estrangement from his/her child, so IMO the advice is suspect at best. :D

Be assured, you are on a good trajectory. You will be free of your parents soon, and while the 20s are still hard times for many people, I think you will come into your own much sooner than many your age will.
It isn't always easy to be 17/18 even with GOOD parents, hang in there, you're doing great, it just won't manifest in your life for a little while.

The thing is I have responded with well reasoned counterpoints as well as more context to these critical posts and they have never been responded to... so whatever idc :)
Thanks for the support

The feminine mystique was actually a groundbreaking book for women, discussing women's roles and what it meant to be pigeon-holed as a woman. It is complete second wave feminism, but had an important role in helping women break out of strict gender roles and recognize subtle sexism.

Fascinating womanhood is a horrid book all about how to "trap" a man and to act like a spoiled child instead of a woman. FWIW, it was never canonized by the LDS church because of all the problems in the book. But it was certainly distributed (and still is) among many LDS women. It is seen as a bible of sorts for many fundamentalist LDS (polygamists). Women are supposed to keep sweet. I have a copy and will post some "choice" bs quotes.

Would love to hear those :)

Yes! You are correct! I was thinking... Begins with a F, what was the piece of crap? That's probably it. Woops!

I've learned volumes about how smothering a lot of TBM parents are. Church above all. Fucking stupid! I was not raised that way. Thankfully.

Ron Burr

They can be passive aggressive or secretive and devious.

I was stubborn and sometimes sneaky as a mormon child. I've seen many kids who don't dare communicate openly and turn very passive-aggressive.

Oh man, yeah. I still struggle with communicating like a sane person. Everything was talked AROUND in my family.

In our family Mormonism was the core that we operated from. My husband was a naturally, kind, caring person. His understanding of Mormonism , (The Gospel), made him an even better father in some ways. He lived by example that was always consistent.

We raised the children in the LDS Church, up until they wanted to make their own choices. And they did. (Including me, leaving the LDS Church in the late 90's, resigning my membership in 2002 after the kids had left the nest.)

He/we always gave the children support and encouraged their education. Their father never tried to change their mind about their religious choices. He never compared one of them to other ones, and neither did I.

At one point, I understood clearly that I could not force my children to believe in Mormonism or anything else. It was a conscious decision to never, ever force them in any way. Sometimes I had to back way off and just let things be.

As a couple, being such opposites in interests, education, personality, etc, we had our problems. But supporting our children's choices and encouraging them, and helping financially when we could/can was a joint decision. Getting through some of the "trouble years" with some of them was extremely difficult and we didn't always agree on how to handle all of it.
He had more patience than I did! :-)

We realized that loaning money, for instance, put stress on a relationship with our children. He decided and I concurred, that if we would gift money (when we could) and never loan money again to the children. We wiped out all of the loans.

One thing we have in common: what you see is what you get. We both have a strong worth ethic - when we say we will do something, we do it.

In my marriage, being a Mormon helped to make both of us very conscientious. There were years of what I called: "putting out fires" of all sorts.

The result? We have children that do the best they can to be helpful and supportive to me and each other, especially during this time of grief. There were a lot of bumps in the road, but we are getting there!

Life with a bunch of kids is a huge challenge. They don't come with a manual. Much of the time, we both found the answers and the strength we needed to get through those times in a multitude of areas, one was the support of each other.

In conclusion, I can attest to the same kind of fathering, and support and love I have witnessed in many of the LDS families I know - kids that grew up with our kids. We didn't all do things the same way, some of us tried things that backfired and didn't work, but the end result is families with adult children and grand children that are loving and supportive.

I could never make a blanket statement about Mormonism -- on any subject. People are all so different in how they interpret The Gospel and how they live it. In my experience, it makes a difference where you live also.

Yes, I have seen some very strange parenting in LDS homes also. Some families split up, some are estranged, etc.

I'm so very grateful that we "hung in there"! :-)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2013 02:16PM by SusieQ#1.

I've observed many TBM parents who abdicated their parental role to TSCC secure in the belief that all is well as long as the kids are attending on Sunday, participating in activities, attending seminary, etc.

My son's best friend was the youngest of devout TBM family (Dad was bishop, Mom had several callings at a time). All of his older siblings have strugged with drugs, teen pregnancy, dropped out of HS, etc. His parents see my kids (raised non-Mormon) all doing well (college, good jobs, good relationships) and wonder "how could this be?"

TSCC encourages binary, black-white thinking. I've observed many teens who have bought into the belief that Mormons don't drink, do drugs, have sex, smoke, etc. Later when they begin to think perhaps they don't want to be Mormon they swing to other extreme and begin to drink, drug, have sex, smoke, etc. There is no understanding that there is a middle ground. This reinforces the TBM notion that your life falls apart without TSCC; that there is no safety outside of TSCC.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2013 02:19PM by caedmon.

All of my dads kids from his first marriage are on drugs or alcoholics to this day.

My mums kids from her first marriage have all tried drugs.

My sister and I have done drugs and became alcoholics at one point in both our lives.

Out of 13 children only one is active in the church (who also went through a druggy/alcohol stage for many years, is only back at church because it saved his life and now he's completely addicted to the church/brainwashed)

My parents don't ever blame themselves or their parenting skills for us being the way we are or how we've been, they don''t see the church being a part of the problem at all. If the church was sooooo true how come 12 of us don't go?

I look back on my teenage years and I wasn't "rebellious" I was a normal teenager doing teenage things yet you can't say that to my parents. They are right we are all wrong.

Does the morg make bad parents? lets just say that when my parents die, I'm not going to their funerals.

Its sad but I feel the same way about my parents