Ask a Mormon

[Siloh]

Re: Ask a Mormon

SLC Punk has some in-jokes, tied to Mormon influence. They're more the sort of thing you'd get if you were familiar with the SLC area, and I lived just North of there until I was 15 or so.

Would that be the "Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb" episode?

Ah, okay.

Yeah, my dear boyfriend pointed out that the whole mockery of the Joseph Smith story was pretty offensive.

BUT the "I learned something today" portion is the point at which ridicule and ridiculousness are ceased and the end message is revealed, and at that point in the episode, the entire idea of Joseph Smith maybe making up the story is swept aside as insignificant in the face of what he and Mormonism can do for those who live by the Book of Mormon. I'm really sorry if my reference was disrespectful in any way.

It's hard to help asking about your views on this, because for every demographic I do not belong to that is highlighted in any of South Park's work, I always wonder how that demographic feels, particularly the ones mocked relatively gently and who are ultimately depicted respectfully (albeit by Trey and Matt's standards of respect).

But, that aside, this came up this morning in household conversation: how does the church of LDS view the marriage of a Mormon and a non-Mormon, particularly another Christian, if the couple basically stays in the parameters of Mormon tradition concerning their relationship (abstinence before marriage etc.)?

Again, I'm sorry if my reference was offensive.

[anunitu]

Re: Ask a Mormon

Since I am nether Mormon or Christian,I may be a bit out of line here,but in the matter of a Mormon marriage to a Christian,the Mormons might be upset,but I think the(any flavor) Christians might be a tad bit more upset,because they do seem to view Morons as a "Cult"(not my words) I think that was said on the political news.

[MaskedOne]

Re: Ask a Mormon

Generalizing Christian response is at best risky and at worst an exercise in insanity. Going purely off sects that people on this site have experience with, there's a significant difference between the Catholic Church, the sect (whose name escapes me) that Thal was raised with and what I've seen presented by a former Jehovah's Witness that drops in occasionally. Off-hand, I can say that the Catholics my family deals with generally don't bother bitching about cross-sect marriage and I don't see that changing just for Mormonism.

[Siloh]

Re: Ask a Mormon

Yes, I was asking specifically about how it's viewed in Mormonism simply because they seem to have more of a dedicated lifestyle going across the board--and things certainly aren't always what they seem--so I was wondering if there was a general rule of thumb response in LDS toward this behavior. The sects of Chrisianity that I have any experience with seem really highly varied in practice and observation, moreso than I would expect, based on the little I know, of the LDS.

[Dez]

Re: Ask a Mormon

Siloh, you have said nothing offensive here at all, so no worries! Questions like this are part of why I started the very first Ask a Mormon thread on this forum, and that was five years ago come June(I spent my first 3 1/2 years on here as an LDS member). I like having interesting discussions, and about 99.99% of the time, people are super-respectful. Sometimes, the best way to get a feel for a faith is asking those tough questions.

I was an older teen when that South Park episode came out, and you know what? My friends and I all laughed our asses off. Older members were shocked and horrified(still, didn't hold a candle to the fuss about Big Love when that started up). It made our teenage lives easier though, since it meant that many of the kids our age now knew *something* about the Mormon church, and no longer confused us with the Amish :P Still, there were a number of things that Trey Parker and Matt Stone mentioned that raised some of the very first questions for me about my faith--why was Joseph Smith shown looking at a stone in a hat? All teens 14 and up take an early-morning seminary class before schools starts, and that year was church history. The fact that things Trey and Matt represented as facts, not just their own take on it, didn't match up with what I was being taught was the first of a number of very important "hmm" moments for me over the past 9-10 years.

In the words of Apostle of the church Boyd K. Packer, the LDS church, while good, often takes a stance that, "Some things that are true are not very useful."

As for the marriage issue, to a degree, I would agree with annitu...a lot of American churches, in particular, strongly discourage dealings with Mormons. I have a friend who grew up Wesleyan, and her congregation put Mormons in the same camp as "witchcraft", so you can imagine the laughs we have over that one.

Mormons actively discourage marrying someone from another faith, as well, though. A big part of the issue is temple marriage: from the time you are a child, you are taught that the only "real" marriage, a marriage that will last "for time and all eternity", allowing you(if worthy) to become a god after this life, has to be performed in the temple. There is a lot, and I mean A LOT of shame attached to the individuals and extended family of someone who does not get married in the temple, even if they are later "sealed" there (same ceremony). That happened to a family member of mine(different reason then a non-member spouse), and the stigma has followed them for the rest of their lives, including, I suspect, being present on their official church record and influencing what positions they are allowed to take within the church.

Because of this pressure to marry another member, most families who can afford to send their children to a church-run college. There, the expectation is generally for girls to get married ASAP, and they often drop out to help support their spouse's education. This is why Utah has a high female-male college attendance ratio, but the lowest rate of women graduating in the nation. Girls who aren't married by the time they could serve a mission are generally pitied, and someone 25 or 26 is often treated like an old maid.

Outside of Utah, there is often less pressure then that, but Mormon youth who date a non-member are encouraged to do everything in their power to convert them. While I've seen one or two marriages that have worked (often girls who were seen by Mormon men as having passed their expiration date, discovering that they were valued outside of the culture), it's much more common for a young person to get a lot of pressure from family to try and convert their boyfriend or girlfriend, and then if that person does not convert, they they dump them. Mormon girls, in particular, are taught that the absolutely most important attributes in a spouse are that they are 1) A priesthood holder, 2) have served a mission 3) Will take them to the temple.

[Siloh]

Re: Ask a Mormon

Thanks for that, Dez. Can I share the part about you as an older teen and South Park with a couple of my close friends (all die hard Trey Parker Matt Stone fans)?

A non-Mormon girl I knew went to a Mormon college in Utah. The students can't have coffee! How do any of them graduate? :P I wonder if she found any pressure there religiously. In any case, the way I knew her was that she was "that shiksa" who was chasing my Jewish best friend's a tail. So, you know, I'm not here to judge; I've been guilty of being in a population pressuring others, no matter how self-mockingly that pressure was applied to non-Jews.

So, dare I ask what is most important in an LDS bride (besides youth)?

[Dez]

Re: Ask a Mormon

Thanks for that, Dez. Can I share the part about you as an older teen and South Park with a couple of my close friends (all die hard Trey Parker Matt Stone fans)?

Hahaha....Sure, by all means!

A non-Mormon girl I knew went to a Mormon college in Utah. The students can't have coffee! How do any of them graduate? :P I wonder if she found any pressure there religiously. In any case, the way I knew her was that she was "that shiksa" who was chasing my Jewish best friend's a tail.

Goooood question! It kinda depends on the generation

The ban on alcohol is from a text called the Word of Wisdom, which was a suggestion until the Prohibition, at which point following it became required for temple attendance. When it was first presented to the church, avoiding tea and coffee was popular with a lot of churches in the area...since it specifically says no "hot drinks", though, that leaves it rather open to interpretation. Some strict members in older generations took that literally, and avoided even hot chocolate(although you would have had to pry her morning Postum out of my grandmother's cold, dead hands), while others have said that it means no caffeine, and so church schools don't serve Coke or Pepsi. A few years ago, there was a lot of pressure to avoid energy drinks....those had become the primary way the college generation was keeping up. IMO, tea and coffee are gentler on the system! Which school was she going to, by the way? Was it Brigham Young University?

So, you know, I'm not here to judge; I've been guilty of being in a population pressuring others, no matter how self-mockingly that pressure was applied to non-Jews.

So, dare I ask what is most important in an LDS bride (besides youth)?

I know the feeling...it's very different being part of an in-group vs. being on the outside. It was a real eye-opener for me to actually start to not attend in a LDS-majority town. I'd always been a bit of an oddball, but I'd never been shunned before...it gave me a lot of pause about just how invisible others can be when you are part of a majority.

As for what LDS brides are taught...I think that church materials can exemplify that far better then I ever could. Women are taught to be mothers, and often not much beyond that, unless their individual family is very progressive.

This is part one of the lesson manual for girls age 12-18: http://www.lds.org/manual/young-women-manual-1?lang=eng

I would particularly suggest one of the ones on Homemaking, Supporting The Priesthood (Priesthood being all men over the age of 12, in various capacities), or Lesson 8, "Attitudes About Our Divine Roles".

This is a talk by Julie Beck, the current president of the Relief Society (the organization for adult women), talking about what women are expected to do. It's called "Mothers Who Know": http://www.lds.org/general-conferenc...-know?lang=eng

That is the single best synopsis of the worldview I was raised with I can think of. My mother was very strongly for education, as a bit of an exception, and encouraged me to wait until after college to get married, but the choices I made were more in line with the culture...I'd be fine with talking about that if you're interested.

And, last but not least, generally recognized as hokey but still with a valuable message attached, I give you Johnny Lingo: http://mormonchannel.org/video/johnnylingo

I think that a culture's humor says a lot about it...last time I was at BYU, they were selling shirts that said "8 cow wife" on them.

[Siloh]

Re: Ask a Mormon

Oh... Dez... I've only read a few of the articles so far...Phew.

I'm sorry if this derails the Q&A format.

Here's a quote from Junot Diaz's novel The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao:
"I was the perfect Dominican daughter, another way of saying the perfect Dominican slave"

I used to replace the word "Dominican" with "Jewish" when I read that due to certain gendered household pressures (religiously endorsed, of course).

Reading these, though, well, it's kinda easy for me to see the draw and security of these types of values. Making my own plan is more daunting in terms of the possibility for confusion and failure than following God's plan. And, really, all of my deviant behavior comes with a real hard price. I used to be a goody-good. Things were simpler in a lot of ways. But I was also a nervous wreck of a perfectionist. Very exhausting. But, a tempting lifestyle in several ways, no doubt.

I'd always been a bit of an oddball, but I'd never been shunned before...it gave me a lot of pause about just how invisible others can be when you are part of a majority.

I was shunned once when I was thirteen. It was nuts!

Which school was she going to, by the way? Was it Brigham Young University?

No idea, but I could figure it out if you're interested. Every conversation about her and that school was "WTF no caffeine?!" Me and my friends were all nocturnal gamer nerds who regarded coffee as holy.

---------- Post added at 04:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:57 PM ----------

She did to to BYU.

[Dez]

Re: Ask a Mormon

Pfft...this is fun!

Author of a q&a thread pretty much gets to make the rules. Mostly, they have a different format, and are labeled specifically as q&a, just so that people don't try to climb on them and argue or bash. Doesn't happen often, but every once in a while...

Your quote...it hits kind of close to home. I know that there are women out there who do really well with that...I look at the women in my family, though, and there are a lot of stresses trying to adapt to those expectations. Especially the one's with strong personalities. That might be overly-simplistic for me to say, though. One of my most outspoken family members for the way the church deals with women says that she's very happy, but she's been stressed to the max by having three kids in seven years, and now that the youngest is one, she's trying again! It makes me angry, because she waits on her husband and kids hand and foot, but if something happened, or he left her? She would literally have nothing.

It hasn't always been that way...the Mormon church culture has grown more and more strongly conservative over the past 100 years. There's a fantastic book about it called Women and Authority; Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism. I used to put up a link to where it was available online, but it's out of print and has been taken down. Many of the Sufferage-era female leaders in the church were outspoken feminists, and fully supported ladies like Susan B. Anthony.

It's a bit different for me, though...I was always a bit of a black sheep.

You should ask your friend about curfew, then, and whether boys were allowed to use their restroom or not

[Dez]

Re: Ask a Mormon

Speaking of quotes about women, got this one in my Facebook feed via extended family, and given the recent conversation, couldn't not share:

"The world has enough women who are tough; we need women who are tender. There are enough women who are coarse; we need women who are kind. There are enough women who are rude; we need women who are refined. We have enough women of fame and fortune; we need more women of faith. We have enough greed; we need more goodness. We have enough vanity; we need more virtue. We have enough popularity; we need more purity." The Joy of Womanhood, Margaret D. Nadauld, Young Women General President, October 2000 General Conference

I appreciate the sentiment, I do not agree with the subtext or the false comparisons

[MaskedOne]

Re: Ask a Mormon

Ouch, that's a lot of traits that don't need to be in opposition to each other.

[Medusa]

Re: Ask a Mormon

Ouch, that's a lot of traits that don't need to be in opposition to each other.

Exactly. I prefer to see myself as a Tigress. Ever seen her rip an animal in half? Yet pick up her cubs in her jaws with gentle movements?

[Siloh]

Re: Ask a Mormon

I've been reading the Young Women's manual quite a lot. So far, I've learned that if I need to entertain a group of Mormon youth, shirt ironing competitions are what's really good. Also that Heavenly Father is counting on my influence over housekeeping to compel men to make the right choices. I'm currently reading the section on degrading media, which has so far taught me that I majored not in Literature and Writing, but in Satan's Greatest Tool. How nifty! I wonder if I can convince the college to change my diploma this late.

---------- Post added at 09:08 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:01 AM ----------

I decided I have more to add than a little humor.

My sister-in-law (she's 19) has been dating a Mormon boy on and off, kinda. They've been really good friends for a long time and had begun seeing each other around the age of 16 or 17. He gives me a lot of confusion, though. There's no way he could qualify for a mission. I don't think he really cares much for the Mormon tradition, though he does attend services and has brought my SIL with him a few times and has otherwise encouraged her to explore Mormonism, but the kid...

I guess my question here is, can you be considered a young Mormon man when you're basically perpetuating every evil the LDS have renounced as the work of Satan and wickedness? Is there a Mormon Lite that I've not encountered, or is it you're in or you're out?

Reading all of this, I can't believe they let my SIL in the house! Apparently his parents are pretty observant.

[Dez]

Re: Ask a Mormon

Ouch, that's a lot of traits that don't need to be in opposition to each other.

Exactly. I prefer to see myself as a Tigress. Ever seen her rip an animal in half? Yet pick up her cubs in her jaws with gentle movements?

I agree with both of you. A major aspect of my growth over the last couple of years has been figuring out that I CAN be tough and tender. I can know what I want, instead of looking to others to tell me what I want, or denying myself simply because I want it. It is slowly getting easier for me to state what I want it bout feeling massive amounts of shame.

I think that a lot of Mormons, especially the women, never really grow up all the way. In order to stay "sweet", they live in a sort of perpetual adolescence, where they still speak in childish terms and little soft voices. You can see it in the women who get called into leadership...just search YouTube for Julie Beck, the woman who gave the talk I linked.

I've been reading the Young Women's manual quite a lot. So far, I've learned that if I need to entertain a group of Mormon youth, shirt ironing competitions are what's really good. Also that Heavenly Father is counting on my influence over housekeeping to compel men to make the right choices. I'm currently reading the section on degrading media, which has so far taught me that I majored not in Literature and Writing, but in Satan's Greatest Tool. How nifty! I wonder if I can convince the college to change my diploma this late.

Glad you're enjoying it Certainly a strange trip for anyone not raised in the culture.

I remember ironing shirts. Gah! I also remember the young men in my ward having an activity where they were supposed to cook a meal for the girls, which turned into us doing all the prep work. Something that might augment the experience: if you put the title for any of the chapters into google, you will find additional suggestions women have come up with, and a plethora of chipper little handouts and activities.

Flipping through that brought back some very interesting memories...I'm pretty sure if I dug through my old mementos, I have a scrapbook sheet with pictures of me at 12 or 13 in my YW leader's wedding dress, attached to a signed promise to get married in the temple. We did it when we had the temple marriage lesson.

I decided I have more to add than a little humor.

My sister-in-law (she's 19) has been dating a Mormon boy on and off, kinda. They've been really good friends for a long time and had begun seeing each other around the age of 16 or 17. He gives me a lot of confusion, though. There's no way he could qualify for a mission. I don't think he really cares much for the Mormon tradition, though he does attend services and has brought my SIL with him a few times and has otherwise encouraged her to explore Mormonism, but the kid...

I guess my question here is, can you be considered a young Mormon man when you're basically perpetuating every evil the LDS have renounced as the work of Satan and wickedness? Is there a Mormon Lite that I've not encountered, or is it you're in or you're out?

Reading all of this, I can't believe they let my SIL in the house! Apparently his parents are pretty observant.

I am speaking in terms of generalities, since there is still a lot of variation in the LDS church, however, it sounds to me as though his family think that he is going to convert her, and so they're encouraging.

It gets...complicated...with Mormon boys that age. With some families, he'd be a lost cause at this point, but if there was that much drama(especially the "you are dead to me" kind), you probably would have heard something. The more plausible options at that point are 1) that he's very good at lying his head off, and lets his more unacceptable behavior out around your family because it's ok, or 2) that his family is the sort that is fine with him "messing around", but expects him to get his act together and become a model member here soon.

That's very cynical of me, I know. Since you guys aren't in a Mormon central area, he might become "Jack Mormon", ie, culturally Mormon, but drinks, smokes, etc. That's very looked down on, but given less shame outside of large LDS populations. He could be planning on going inactive or leaving, but still attends due to family pressure, too. The LDS church is loosing massive numbers of 18-30 year olds right now...this is the generation that grew up with the Internet, and so the stance of not talking about issues with history or theology isn't working as well as it used to.

If I knew your SIL, personally, there would be a couple of issues that I would raise. There are cultural issues that will be programmed into this kid, even if he rejects the faith as he grows up.

The first is the sense of entitlement that many Mormon young men are raised with. the assumption is generally that they need to learn how to take care of themselves for college and their mission, because other then that, there will be a woman taking care of them. She should take a good look at his parents, and see what his mother does in the home. Does she still do his laundry? Make everyone's meals? If this is why you asked about cultural expectations for women, then you are right in track. Even if he is very responsible and considerate while they're dating, he will move right into the example set by most of the men in his life unless he's actively aware that he doesn't want to do that.

The very interesting variation on that is marriages where the wife has a very strong temperament. At that point, you have couples like my husband's parents, where the wife runs everything, all while pressuring her spouse to keep him on top of his "priesthood obligations". Generalizations, which often mix and blend, but still. Even with that sort of example in my husband's home growing up, his littlest sister is often lauded as "perfect" by her friends...meaning that she waits on her sons and husband hand and foot, and takes pride in the fact that her infant daughter is never seen without a hairbow, already telling her what a great mommy she'll be. It's very troubling for her when she asks my five year old daughter what she wants to be when she grows up and the response is something like, " I want to be a painter, and play the piano and the violin, and ALL the instruments! And be a doctor! And a mommy.... *grin*". Her entire sense of self worth rests on being a good mommy, and making sure her kids grow up to "follow the gospel".

The other issue that might come into play is the potential for sexual hang-ups. If they're involved now, the fact that it's taboo could be making things work better then if they got into a more perminant relationship. In Mormon culture, girls are told that it is their responsibility to insure the chasity of the young men, including by dressing modestly. Because of this, if your SIL wears anything above her knee, or sleeveless, his family might have an attitude that he can't help their relationship because she's tempting him(poor boy...). He also has been raised in a culture that puts massive amounts of shame on men about porn and masturbation, still following Victorian era guidelines in how to avoid the latter.

Those ideas threw a lot of kinks in my marriage, some of which we're still working on. It's taken a LOT of hard work.

[Siloh]

Re: Ask a Mormon

Have you continued to practice a form of Family Home Evening?