My FIL is TBM and used to build chapels, temples and historical buildings for the LDS religion. He is the one that decided the name for the road one of the temples is on. Once again, he is very TBM.
My step son got a girl pg and she had a baby girl over a year ago. Our youngest granddaughter is very cute.
My FIL will not talk about, ask or even look at pictures of this sweet baby because her parents did not marry.
I am struggling with this shunning. How can a TBM shun a child?
My parents have shunned my legitimate children for 30 years now. My kids wouldn't know their grandparents if they saw them. They have no interest in seeing them at this point. Neither one of them invited the GP's to their graduations or their weddings. When they have children, they won't be sending announcements to their GP's. Why would they?
that is so sad! I wouldn't say my TBM parents shun my daughter, but they clearly favor their other TBM grandchildren over her. All we can do is love them ourselves as much as possible to make up for it!
Wow that's messed up. My family is mostly TBM, but there are some inactive/jack Mormons in our clan. I don't feel like they have ever been shunned at all, thankfully. Except there was the time that my dickwad uncle told my dad to get his filthy smoker hands off his bible! I've always hated that uncle. He's the biggest condescending dick ever. My dad was just asking about a bible story, and trying to look something up, and my uncle got all defensive , and threatened. Like, how dare this inactive sinner try to show me, a FAITHFUL Mormon, anything I don't already know. I got way ticked over that and sent him a nasty letter, calling him out.
WOW!! So sorry! But yes I have heard of this attidude. When I was in YYW, I heard this horrible story of a girl that got pg.out of wedlock,& they said the spirit child was so desparate the she take any body! EVEN Then I found this disturbing. Years later,when my son got his HS sweet heart Pg.I was told my ex & his new wife said they would never love that child becuz it was born out of wedlock! My son was very upset about this.I pointed out to him alot of famous people were illagitemate; da vinci,Q.Elisabeth
The Bible teaches that Christ was descended from an illegitimate birth (via Lot) and that Mary was not married to Joseph at the time of conception of Christ. Are the TBMs who shun their own flesh and blood following Christ? I know of non-Mormons who have shown even greater love for the child born out of wedlock because that child needs more, not less, love.
Actually, Christ was not a bastard because it is apparent that Joseph did marry Mary and was espoused prior to his birth. The Bible indicates that he considered putting her aside quietly, which indicates they were married. Jesse Jackson actually claimed that he was like Jesus because he was a bastard.
Shunning a child out of wedlock is very old. It certainly is not limited to LDS folks that engage in it. Even being the child of a divorced parent held a huge stigma when I was a girl.
The Stigma of the Bastard Child has been with us for a long time.
Hopefully, in this day and age, there is much more acceptance of everyone.
They miss out on so much when people cannot accept everyone.
I grew up the child of a very short hastened marriage conducted by a minister relative out of state. Never knew my bio father.
From what I have since learned, I was not deprived, I was saved!
It appears that my families efforts to shelter me from what could have been in my life, turned out to be very wise. I never felt abandoned. Quite the opposite.
I was raised by my mother, her teenage brother (later went into the Coast Guard - it was war time) and her parents. Agreement on how to raise me was often in conflict, and I was often in the middle of a mess, but I survived by being independent and feisty! Still works!!
So if someone is shunning a child, it might be a "good thing" as they don't need that kind of rejection in their life.
Consider the child fortunate. That wee girl will grow up free of having a relationship with a small-minded knuckledragger. The FIL and his shunning is ironically doing her a big favour.
(I realise that your FIL might have good qualities but I'm basing my reply on the info given!)
Every so often someone will write here about trying to reconcile with TBM parents so their children will know their grandparents. What kind of blessing is it to know judgmental, manipulative, small minded relatives?
Shunning is not following the commands of a god but a chicken shlt way for adults to be total a$$ holes to those that cannot defend themselves. Any parent or grandparent that shuns a child is the lowest form of life other than being a GA.
Somehow your FIL feels feels that his grandson's behavior reflects on him. Many TBMs are very invested in their "family name" and reputation. It's a hive-mind thing. Also, the very religious often have strong feelings about "purity" and "contagion" as well. Often it is temperament, something akin to scrupulosity.
Perhaps FIL will be dead long before his great-granddaughter is aware of him. It would be much better if he would accept her.
My grandmother, a bishops wife,a temple ordinance worker, sweet lady and adamant church goer told my sister when she was pregnant at age 17 that she did nothing wrong, she only did it at the wrong time.
That's very sad. I'm glad my mom isn't like that. If I were to get pregnant right now at my age of fifteen, she'd of course be upset but she would not miss out on the chance to be in her grandchild's life. Thank god my mom is actually an amazing person despite her stupid religion.
What horse$hit!...and how NON-Christian!!....the hypocrisy practiced by self righteous Mormons and other self-identified Christians makes me want to puke!! I speak to this topic because I am a bastard...and proud of it! I was born to a 15 year old girl in 1948 and put up for adoption. I was extremely lucky to have been adopted by wonderful parents. But...there are some family members who thought it necessary on occasion to bring up the fact that I was adopted. F'king idiots...
Others here struggle with the same (just ask NormaRae about her particular experience). What is especially weird is when a grand parent will not acknowledge or care about a grand child because the child has left the church. Or in the case of at least one person here, the great-grandmother and great-grandfather who don't acknowledge the great-grandchild because it is descended from the child who left the church. This is a particularly evil pettiness and anti-Christian.
My TBM dad and stepmom shunned my daughter when she had a son out of wedlock. Then when she got married all of a sudden her son was "legitimate" and all is well. On the other hand, my other daughter and her wife have two children. My dad will not acknowledge the relationship, my daughter in law or the children.
That's okay. I don't want my grandchildren around these close minded and judgmental people anyway.
Sounds like all that work of striving to be a TBM didn't pay off. Love is the most basic lesson there is. If he didn't learn love, then everything else was a fruitless effort.
but each of her 3 children all had a baby out of "wedlock" when they were 19. She definitely rose to the occasion. She adores those kids.
When my aunt's granddaughter got pregnant and not married, the uncle (a SP) wanted her to give the baby up for adoption. She kept the baby. That child was the apple of my uncle's eye. He had to eat his words.
1. NO ONE is unworthy to be loved on account of the circumstances of their birth! Like they had any control over that!
2. My husband was conceived "out of wedlock" and adopted. His parents raised a wonderful person. Anyone who dares to say that The Best Man Ever™ is "unworthy to be loved" will have ME to deal with and I'll make 'em hurt in places they didn't know they had.
3. The people who snottily make remarks like this about innocent children (and innocent grown-ups too)are seriously close to being "unworthy to be loved" themselves... and I will tell them so (after I make them hurt).