This is a guest post for reflection this Sunday.
Years ago, I had a Girl Scout troop when my daughter was very young. I think they are called Daisies at that age. There were many more girls interested than we had parents who could volunteer. There was another daisy troop that same year but they met one evening every other week. My troop met right after school on Tuesdays and I lived close enough to the school that I would walk over to the school and escort the troop to my house.
This was a troop that working single parents could use without a problem with their employment. Word got out. Soon I had a troop full of little girls. Too many of them. This was a suburban school in an affluent neighborhood, but the majority of the more stable families ended up with the other troop. I had the Kurdish girl whose refugee family had 4 generations living at home and none of them spoke English. I had girls from broken homes and a level of poverty that I didn’t think even existed in the neighborhood.
I found out that the national Girl Scout organization will pay the $10 joining fee for low income girls, but they do not have any way to help with uniforms, troop activities, or the huge number of local activities that the girls would like to attend. Girl Scouts is a never ending list of $5 of $10 fees for activities. Daisies were not allowed to sell cookies then.
Over half the families in my troop simply could not afford the fees. I called the regional and national offices of Girl Scouts. I was told that Inner City troops were subsidized, but that suburban troops were not subsidized. Individual circumstances didn’t matter.
Cookie sales were supposed to fund the troop — But my girls were too young to be allowed to sell. So … I paid. I bought uniforms and badges, paid for activities and supplies and felt blessed to have an excellent job and a husband who was supportive of what I was doing.
Out of those 23 girls, approximately 12 came from socially and economically stable families. That left 11 girls who each had a different story. Aspergers. Kurdish Refugee. Being raised by an underemployed single dad. Recently divorced mom. Each story was different. My assistant and myself approached the situation as each girl being equally important.
After a year, I asked if another parent would consider taking over the troop. There were no takers. I ran the troop that second year and we sold cookies. Lots of cookies.
The troop finally had funding. After a second year, my work schedule was changing, and I had no choice. I needed to give up the troop. I told myself that the paperwork was in order, the bank account was in good shape, and I was walking away but leaving a well organized troop behind.
Within a few meetings with the new leader, I thought the leader was singling out my daughter and being mean. Assuming that I was being biased, I didn’t say anything about it, but the next activity was a pool party. I had my oldest teenager drive her little sister. I asked my oldest to hang out for the hour and then bring her sister home. I hadn’t told my oldest anything about the dynamics or my concerns. My daughters returned home and my oldest gave me an earful about the hateful attitude of the leader and how poorly my youngest was treated.
We ended up pulling my youngest out of Girl Scouts and just walking away. We didn’t make a fuss. We didn’t complain. We just left. I look back at all the little girls who had learned so much through the first 2 years. I knew that the girls were now old enough to sell cookies so the finances of the impoverished girls were not going to be an issue. With the new leader, within about 4 months, she had cut the troop down to her own daughter and 7 of her daughter’s good friends. There was no longer any issues about poverty or language barriers or family dynamics. The troop changed into a strong clique of girls who went on as a troop for many years.
Why do I bring this up in an essay about church? Because I am thinking about leaving my religion. As I discuss the church with other people in a similar situation, the youth program keeps coming up. Other parents talk about the wonderful youth programs of the church.
For better or worse, after my experience with the girl scout troop, I look at the youth program with new eyes and I am unhappy with what I see. As a youth leader, I noticed that by age 11 or 12, we started to have a slow attrition of young people.
Kids who had always been active would suddenly not be attending primary. As the children grow up and transition into the youth program, I noticed that the children who came from broken homes, part members homes, children with socioeconomic disadvantages, neurological differences, or were simply fat or less physically appealing were not as included socially by their LDS peers and the leaders.
By the time the youth are 16 or 17, the youth that are left are very similar in
socioeconomic status and family backgrounds. They are usually a very tight social group. Parents spend Fast and Testimony meetings talking about the wonderful youth of the church. With tears in their eyes, they talk of their children and the wonderful friends that their children have at church. It is easy to look at the youth that are left and be pleased with the tight bonds that they have. But instead .. take a step back and look at who was lost along the way.
The socially awkward girl who now works at Star Buck on Sundays. The boy with the misshapen head from a forceps delivery who came by himself because his mother was so offended by how he was treated that she could not stand to watch it happen. He was not included in anything outside of actual church events. He quit coming.
The Hispanic girl whose mom cleaned houses for a living. The two brothers who didn’t like to play basketball. The daughter of the hoarder. The Asperger child. The teenage boy who had all the mannerisms of a flaming homosexual but who lived a chaste life. These are all real people from my church experience.
Looking back at the history of each ward that I have been in, I have seen this same dynamic. The children and teens who do not fit into the narrow parameters of the clique are driven off by their peers, their peers parents, and leaders. The dynamic is so subtle that it is easy to miss if you are not paying attention.
Imagine, all the youth are going to an activity. Certain youth are getting together in advance for dinner before the activity. Not everyone is invited to dinner — just the kids who are great friends.
The parents don’t see a problem with their kids having friends from the ward. And obviously, some kids get along better than others. But watch the dynamics.
The group of kids that do the social things together outside of church activities will in a few years be all that is left of the youth program. One by one, the outliers slip away. All that will be left is a core group of socially connected kids and their parents testifying about the wonderful youth program.
As a Christian and as a parent, what is your obligation? How far should you have extend yourself? If the Church has abandoned you, how fair is it to say you are abandoning the Church? Where can you go once the Church has discarded you?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
Wow. This is really good. I’ve been having a hard month re social dunamics of my daughter in our ward. I realized that we moved “up on a hill” but my daughter’s only friends all live in apartments and out on farms in the country. She’s a little socially awkward. And the girls in my neighborhood tell my daughter they won’t sit w her on the bus. My daughter is that kid. Sigh. I had hoped she’d get a group like I had growing up.
I love how you applied it to the larger dynamics of the church as they put up more boundaries.
I really liked this too (obviously, since I accepted it as a guest post).
But in the larger context, because of the social situation of leaders, they will always be buffered from social isolation. I remember on my mission, teaching study groups at the Hill Cumorah Pageant. A kid remarked at just how open and inclusive and kind people at BYU had been to her. I pointed out, gently, that since her father was an apostle, people might be more inclined to include her socially.
She quickly realized that some of the other kids in our study group shared her economic status (in those days, general authorities were barely a step above poverty) but had not had the same experiences.
But it was a lesson for me.
May God bless all those who try to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ, imperfect as they may be. May we forgive our fellow pilgrims for whatever offenses we have endured. May we rejoice in the Gospel and its restoration in these latter days, and thank God for so many blessings, opportunities, and even challenges. May the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continue to grow, both as an institution and also as a collection of individual members. May each of us be kind to our neighbors, even the neighbors in our pews, and encourage each other in faith, hope, and charity.
My oldest is the the boy on the Autism spectrum. Essentially it means he struggles in social situations with his peers. I was thinking even last night that I’m in a position to help him find a group/club that will be accepting of him. A place where he can develop friendships. He certainly isn’t at Church..he hates going, for a few different reasons, but one of them is for the social aspect.
I don’t think the Church is abandoning us, though relationships have changed for me post faith crisis. but if it’s not working, I’m hoping we can just leave, someday, as a family.
I’ve been thinking of scouts for my nearly 10 year old ((and volunteering at the same time), or reaching out to the local autism spectrum group; they have social functions occasionally, maybe find some like minded souls.
It is a very pertinent post. Thank you.
I’ve noticed a similar trend. I now say to my husband-watch that kid of a lone parent. He will need to get a job, and there is no family car. Who will get him to early morning seminary? Or the kid that lives in an outlying village-again, who will get him to seminary in the morning before school? We notice that in the more prominent families, family support gets kids through and they have consequently a more cohesive social network. The other kids are left out, and those families rarely extend themselves beyond that network.And seminary was for many years in their own homes or those of relatives or neighbours. I’m baffled how this works. We build in social privelege from the start.
I have skin in the game too, my daughters had particular musical talents and wanted to practice. They weren’t seeking early marriage and wanted to invest in education. They weren’t consequently part of the inner circle, and so there was nothing holding them socially to the church. I’m not saying that’s anyone else’s responsibility, but we have a system that is really quite Darwinian where only the fittest survive
amongst our youth.I watch it happening.
I grew up in a situation where the other kids in my age group at church were very good friends with each other. I wasn’t part of the group, but they were really neat kids that never made me feel like an outsider. I was used to moving between groups at school, so being outside a social group didn’t feel weird. Two other boys our age weren’t consistently active, but their family situations were much less stable. I never got the sense the other kids did anything negative to them. One of the boys I got to know decently well, and he just didn’t feel comfortable with the church thing generally.
In contrast was the very large group of girls a year younger than me. Problems with 2 competing queen bees, bullying, etc. I was supposed to preside over them, and it was very difficult.
My husband and his brother had similar hostile YM experiences. My husband stuck it out (probably due in large part to stubbornness and a rule-following personality). His brother didn’t.
Ji. I don’t think it is so much forgiveness as it is eventually giving up trying to force your way in. How do you respond to people who have given up trying to go where they are not wanted?
John, in the DFW area we have a number of good support groups for kids on the spectrum.
Handle. I have no words. It was a reason I thought this post was worth accepting as I had no advice.
Kristine, I feel for you.
Mary Ann. My dad was enlisted in the Air Force. We moved a lot and I generally did not fit in. I’m glad you and your husband did better.
Stephen,
I think it is all about forgiveness. No one can change anyone else, but anyone can forgive. Rather than condemning fellow Saints for not measuring up, and leaving the Church because of them, one can frankly forgive them all and try to find a way to help someone else on his or her journey.
ji, if only it were so simple. All of the forgiving in the world will not create an opening into a circle where one is not welcome. And this problem doesn’t end with the youth; it continues into and throughout adulthood, where certain ward members are “accidentally” not told about less-known ward events, not called to any responsibility that may include a social element, not advanced in the priesthood, not helped when there is illness or extreme hardship. No matter how valiant or active or converted those less fortunate members are.
We can do better.
I was extremely saddened to read about the guest author’s experience with the youth programs in the wards she has lived in, and I was sorry that she seems to feel that it is the Church (rather than misguided members) that is failing to meet the needs of children and teenagers who feel marginalized. Certainly wards like the ones she described exist. But I have also seen many wards, in different states and countries, where ward members have found ways of becoming very inclusive. Is it not our shortcomings as individuals in wards and stakes–our personal failures to live up to what the Lord expects of his disciples–that can lead to the kind of cliquishness the author describes?
Although feeling excluded is not the only reason why some youth leave the church, I hope this post encourages us to look far more closely at how the youth programs are functioning where we live now. If we see ways in which those programs fall short of caring for, and attempting to include, all those who would like to participate, I hope all of us, including the guest author, can choose to stay in the Church, and find ways of helping ward members recognize the problems, and then keep working to solve them.
Often people act in harmful ways more out of misunderstanding than evil intent. I believe that we are all influenced by our environment more than we usually realize, and worldly values encourage cliques. I have seen instances where ward cultures have been dramatically changed for the better, in other aspects, by the positive examples of only a few dedicated members. I would hope that youth leaders could pray to recognize when fundamental changes need to occur in the attitudes and actions of both the youth and the adults in their wards; and then have the courage to use their influence to bring about those changes.
You are right.
OldJen,
You say “we” can do better. I agree, but saying “we” is sometimes a cover for meaning everyone else. No one can change everyone else, and rather than condemning them for not measuring up, I think it is simply better for one to choose to do good him- or herself, regardless of what anyone else does. The call of our Savior, as I understand it, is for individuals to choose the right, regardless of what anyone else does. And we’re called to gather together to help each other. Even if no one helps me, I can still try to help someone else.
Or, in other words, if what Peter said in John 6:68-69 is true, why would I let someone else’s alleged unkindness drive me away from the Savior and His church? For me to be more Christlike, I have to forgive my fellow Saints for their alleged unkindnesses and endure to the end in faith, hope, and charity. So yes, to me it is all about forgiveness.
This post is a good one to think about. I grew up in the lower end ward in my stake. We stuck together fairly well in order to survive.
But now all of my kids are “the cool ones” and generally good about including others MOST of the time. But many times I remind them to think about the kid that just moved in. They usually are amenable but often just never think about it. That is probably at par for teenagers. More worried about themselves since they are often insecure. But we should expect more out of the parents pushing them to remember. I will say one of my kids was actually very good about reaching out and didn’t need much reminding. My youngest is the worst, but he is on the edge where he sometimes is IN and sometimes he is OUT. I try to remind him how he feels when he is OUT of the in group.
But your post reminds us to be watching out as it is true that you never can see a click from the inside. It always seems like “just a group of friends”. And now I have to think about MY clicks that I might have.
I am 77 years old. I went through the church program. I had a younger sister go through it as well as five daughters who went through it. My observation? This is childhood and teen life. It isn’t the Church. What can the Church do? My younger sister’s life may have been much changed and happier if a group of girls in Church had accepted her, but I can’t blame the girls or their parents or the ward.
I cringe to think of how I may have excluded others when I was a teen. I also recognize that as an adult, I’m not always in the “cool clique,” but when I am, I recognize that this is an issue.
When we were fairly newly married, my DH and I used to talk about people in the ward being A, B, or C in terms of how they could contribute in the ward. “A” meant they could be put in any calling and be successful – a president of an organization, a teacher, whatever. B meant they had no worthiness restrictions, but weren’t quite as ready for whatever reason to do anything they might be asked, or maybe they just weren’t as committed. Maybe they didn’t have a current temple recommend (that didn’t used to matter quite as much as it does now–we’ve found reasons to create more barriers to entry rather than removing the barriers). C meant you’d have to really choose to find a calling that they would be able and willing to do.
I think one problem that comes in is that people who would be A are viewed as either B or C and overlooked, and so often wards favor the same families over and over (the go-to families) because they trust the ones they know or their friends or those who are like-minded. Leaders too often lament that everyone isn’t an A without trying to figure out more ways to include the Cs and Ds at the B or A level.
This post hit home with on so many levels. Our oldest daughter was socially outgoing and loved the youth programs of the church. Our youngest daughter had the opposite experience. She left the church at 18 and never returned.
I came back to this post because it has a great “Is it I?” component. Something great to ponder on the sabbath.
This has hit me on a very personal level. My oldest daughter was always on the fringes of everything church. She was constantly berated by her leaders for not conforming, and constantly excluded from activities the youth did outside church. Often times after seminary, there wasn’t enough room for all the youth in the car, so it was always her that was told she had to walk. Yes, that really happened. She also wasn’t permitted to date a certain boy in our stake because I was divorced. She’s left the church and is having her name removed from the records, because she hates it so much. Her church experience was miserable because she didn’t fit the mould.
My other daughter is special needs. She is also on the fringes. She continues to go week after week to youth and seminary. She’s also never invited anywhere by any youth outside of the church activities. During activities, she includes herself, and is tolerated because she’s special needs, but I have rarely seen anyone go out of their way to be her friend. Yet, she still goes every single week to church by herself and to all her meetings. I’ve left the church completely, but I value her agency and her desire to stay. It just breaks my heart to see her want to stay in a place where people are really not bothered if she’s there or not.
In my youth, I was often out. I had a good friend, but I didn’t jive with most of the youth in my ward. My husband was actively bullied (a tale of being forced to volunteer to demonstrate tar and feathering with a ‘cold’ hot glue gun by an empty-headed teacher still makes me mad.) He left the church, but came back as a young adult.
My younger sister is autistic, and while she hasn’t always been able to jive with others, the leaders have always been inclusive and loving (sometimes even more permissive than I’d like, but I can’t force my way.) My youngest sister has her friends, but she has a gift of love that helps her be included and her best friends are often the ones in the ward who would otherwise be marginalized. I suspect that her friendship is what helped keep one young woman in the church during the transition from young woman to adult.
I’m sorry you feel excluded to the point of wanting to leave. I’d like to say thank you for reminding me how much more I can do, and how important I am to help others feel the love of Christ.
Our testimonies are personal and our relationship with God is personal. He will never abandon us, and if we are despised for his sake, he understands and loves us. I am reminded that even the apostles didn’t stay awake for Jesus in his time of need, but he relied on his father. Even then, God the father had to withdraw his spirit, leaving Christ utterly alone. That’s how Christ knows to succor us.
I hope you won’t leave, because your experience of the outside is so desperately needed.
This article drudged up painful and horrific memories of being a youth in the church.
I was born intersex, a birth defect that can leave a person somewhere between male and female with physical characteristics and anatomy of both genders.
The church leaders, adult members, and fellow youth could barely tolerate my existence. I was allowed to attend the main sacriment meeting, but was forbidden from relief society and forbidden from holding the priesthood. Many of the adult members considered me sin incarnate.
Even though I had the appearance and physical anatomy of both genders, I was expected to be male. I was expected to be attracted to women. That was especially painful as I am mentally female and attracted to men.
At the few youth functions that I was allowed to attend, I was specifically instructed to not talk with anyone else unless an adult directly oversees the interaction. Most of the youth dances ended up with me sitting on the floor in the corner crying.
The church leaders hated me, the adult members hated me, the youth members hated me, and even my own parents hated me.
My first suicide attempt was when I was nine. One weekend I went to school, climbed the rain pipe to the, and kept. It was only two or three stories, but the fall I remember well. There was no panic or fear, there was a calm and a peace. I’m finally free of this nightmare life.
I survived, of course. It was night time when I woke. Everything hurt, but no broken bones. I simply limped home, climbed into my pajamas, and went to bed. Nobody noticed I was even gone.
I made a couple of other attempts along the years without success. For a while I was thoroughly convinced that I was actually in hell.
I’m better now that I’m an adult. I can actually get medical treatment for my condition.
I no longer believe in any god. I’ve made it my mission to assist in tearing down the church so that no others would be put through the hell I was put through. I would see the church destroyed in my lifetime for their corrupt and evil ways. The world would be a better place once the church is gone.
Oh, Amy! Your story breaks my heart! I wish I could give you – and younger you especially — a hug. What a tragic story.
We walked away from the church a few years ago. We didn’t leave because of the people, but they certainly didn’t give us much reason to stay. My daughter was marginalized in her cliquey peer group and I felt like I could see into the future — it would continue and get worse. It made leaving a much easier choice.
I was one of those outlying kids. I was picked on and bullied because I was “fat.” I was ignored by leaders because my parents weren’t in the “cool” group at church. We weren’t struggling in any way either so we were doubly unimportant. My parents were never given leadership positions or treated with kindness. And yet of all my five siblings, only one is no longer a member and she was the one who somehow managed to make it into the tight group of friends. We are all still strongly active. It absolutely is about forgiveness. Yes we need to watch for the outliers and work hard to make them feel welcome and included. Yes we need to stop the bullying from both adults and kids. But ultimately it is our own testimony that keeps us or sends us packing. Do you believe it or not? If it’s true, you stay no matter how you are treated. We should be working hard to help our primary children gain testimonies that are unshakeable. We should be helping them to see that if the church is true then people in the church should not effect whether they are active or not. We absolutely need to improve how we respond to people and how we treat people. There are numerous conference talks about it every conference which just shows what a big problem it is. But we can’t change others, only ourselves. So YOU do everything you can to be kind to others. But no matter how you are treated, YOU can choose to stay and be active even if you feel there isn’t a place for you. My parents lived 30+ years in a place that didn’t accept them. But they have always continued to work hard, to serve and to obey the Lord. They have strong testimonies of the truthfulness of the gospel and they love God. We should be working hard to increase our own testimonies so that we can strengthen the testimonies of the struggling families around us. Only a strong testimony and deep love for the Lord will keep people when things are socially difficult. And the best time to build those testimonies is as primary children. They need to have that strength before they graduate out of primary – in fact, they need to have that strength by the time they are baptized because it only gets rough from there.
Amy The Atheist:
There is so much goodness done in the name of God. Unfortunately, on a global level, there is even more evil done in God’s name. We read and talk of Self Righteousness in others .. But we rarely stop and ask ourselves if our own feelings of validation and righteousness in our actions fall into that same category.
There is a wonderful passage in Life of Pi in which Pi talks about a teacher who has suffered greatly from polio. The teacher has rejected God and has embraced Science as his diety. He worships Science as someone else would worship God.
Pi makes a comment along the lines of, “What a terrible disease that could rob a man of faith.”
Your comments remind me of that same suffering. You have had terrible and undeserved suffering that has separated you from your natural peers. You have been set on a different path that in only partially of your choosing. All your faith and emotion has been put into another place. You could not chose your circumstances. You get to chose your reaction to your circumstances .. But only to a point. Some reactions are so caught up in basic survival that we get started on journeys out of necessity. Chose comes later.
I hope your journey brings a calmness of spirit and soul. I hope that you can find peace.
Guest Author, I will find peace as soon as the church is destroyed and can no longer hurt people. I can walk away, but there are still so many left in the church who are suffering a similar fate. Many even attempt suicide and succeed.
You view belief in a god and the church as a good thing. I view them as evil and destructive to humanity.
This is a major reason why we are leaving, for our kids. What is there for them in this exclusive, elitist, narrow-minded world if they end up not fitting? And if they do fit, what does that say about us that we have no concern for the many who don’t fit? But mostly we want them to find strength and peace in church, and be engaged. Our kids are so much more engaged in the Christian Church that we have started attending. Not that it will be perfect either, but we’re hoping that we can find a good community where we can all feel at home and close to God.
My own children are aged 10 and 8. We have hosted multiple play dates with nearly a dozen LDS kids. As of yet my kids have not been invited to these LDS kids homes. I do not believe it is intentional shunning – more like subtle natural selection. There is a close knit clique of young families that we are not a part of. They have their social needs met inside the circle and do not think much about going outside. (my wife complains that they all sit together as RS activities.) Others have large families and the siblings play mostly with each other. While we are very active in the community, we are only semi-active at church. Just because our kids are not invited over by the LDS families does not mean that nobody is inviting them. We gradually are spending more time cultivating and growing our family’s relationships with these non-LDS families that are reaching out to our children.
We are not withdrawing from the LDS church community but the ROI for our efforts in that direction have been pretty lousy so far. I know that the church children’s program is practically nonexistent and that everything really starts to pick up with youth activities and scouting. I am hopeful that these activities will provide more opportunities to build friendships with LDS peers … but if not, my children will have a diverse group of friends in the local community. We will not put all our social eggs into the LDS basket.
I wrote the above in a hurry on a small phone screen. Reading it after posting, I am horrified at my typos. Please know there was concern and caring underneath the lack of editing.
To Jen from comment #24: You wrote, “But ultimately it is our own testimony that keeps us or sends us packing. Do you believe it or not? If it’s true, you stay no matter how you are treated.”
I believe that the church LDS has existed on this model for a long time. Church and religion is a sacrifice that we make because we believe that it will be worth it in the after life. If the church is true in this sense then anything can be tolerated and endured because the ends (exaltation and Godhood = priceless)justify the means.
Some other churches operate on a different model. A model of welcoming inclusion where people without any such testimony might choose to participate for the sake of the community and environment. The idea is that over time these individuals without specific beliefs will warm to them after prolonged exposure.
The differences in the approach can be startling. Obviously both approaches have strengths and weaknesses.
These stories are heartbreaking. I recall wanting to befriend a couple of girls that were very shy and had very limited social skills. I did what I could to be kind to them, however it was difficult to “click” with them. To be honest I needed better social skills myself to relate to them. I kind of wish I would have been given some lessons on befriending more challenging non-outgoing people. Teenagers can be so clueless and insensitive sometimes. It can be very hard for them to look outside themselves. Good lessons may help some, but giving someone time to grow up helps more.
I remember one particular very mean girl in Young Women. In today’s terms she would sexually harass me and was very catty. Even then though, I didn’t blame the church or leaders for her behavior. Mean people just exist and the YW isn’t exempt from that. I have no idea what I leader or her parents could have done to help her not be mean. I don’t know why she was that way, perhaps she had other issues.
Amy, I’m so sorry for your horrible experience, and your anger is understandable.
Personally, I don’t agree that any religion creates evil; rather the evil within us uses the language of religion, politics or culture to express itself. Similarly, mental illness can take on the language of a religion, culture or political view, but that doesn’t mean it was created by the religion, culture or political party.
IOW, if you could destroy the church, the evil you have encountered would still exist in the hearts of people. Until we can help people choose the good within over fear and hatred, we will continue to ostracize and destroy people who are different.
I find the church to be corrupt and evil at the top level. These old men who isolate themselves from the real world spit poison into the minds of their followers. Poison of hate, contempt of other, exclusion, judgement, and blind obedience without question.
The leaders are even getting involved in politics to force their poison onto others in this country, member or not.
I too was bullied by the other youth at church staring at 11 and stopping at 16 when I got a job on Sundays so I wouldn’t have to go any more.
Here’s the thing about forgiveness though… It took me another 15 years to be able to accept that it wasn’t my fault.
I was a weird kid. My mother had a career. My family was not socially acceptable. So I completely blamed who I was as a person for the way they treated me. (everyone loved them. They were socially acceptable. Etc.) To require me as a teen to forgive my bullies for sending me a message that I believed, would have been cruel and devestating.
Again, it took me 15 years to forgive and compared to what others have experienced, my situation was minor. So how dare anyone tell anyone else they just need to forgive. In stead, let’s support each other and give each other space to be angry and time to work through our anger.
I will say this though, as an adult and parent I’m not sure what I can do to help those youth on the fringes. I can be kind. I can encourage my daughters to be kind (and pray that they do). But any adult who intervened in my situation inevitably made things worse for me. Getting out was the best solution and no church member (at the time especially) is going to encourage kids to leave.
wow…sad blog. I have been all over the world and many different states, and the one thing that has always been comforting is having the steadiness of the church. What it means…the gospel of Christ, His messages, the atonement, the closeness to Him. His church…not the “mormon club”. You will find in every ward members who are spiritually immature, but It all comes down to our testimony and how we spiritually prepare ourselves each day to be one with the Sabbath and with the Lord in order to live His teachings. I apologize for those who have been insensitive, rude , or what ever else they have been to you and your family, I have seen my share of “ugly mormons” in my 55 years in the church, but please don’t leave the church on account of them. The Lord deserves better from you. Stay strong, give service, love your neighbor, cling to the rod, and be happy. There is no much time left to become the Zion people we need to be to receive the Lord. Hugs!
As far as intersex goes, better education on the complexities of chromosomal sex, physiological sex, gender identity, and sexual attraction would go a long way towards helping people better deal with differences. At least people in more developed countries don’t leave their babies to die along the side of the road when they have ambiguous genitalia.
Until we get doctrine to account for these complexities, we will continue to have massive problems.
Mary Ann
I don’t think the church is interested in facts or education. The leadership seems to think their beliefs trump reality. There’s quite a bit of science behind homosexuality, transgenderism, and intersex, yet none of these leaders have bothered to look into it. Some even still process that homosexuality is a choice.
I’m frustrated that with two MDs in the Q12 we still don’t have better statements on gender.
Even among regular members, though, when my husband explains to non-medical people about how some of the kids he helps don’t fall under strict “XX” or “XY” categories (and even those that do may not have their physiology match their chromosomes), people are willing to step back and think about how we *talk* about gender at least. When you start finding out that those genetic complexities can be verified by objective means, it can dawn on you that maybe there are more complexities in the other aspects than you previously thought.
I find it amusing that the man who professes to be the tallest is also the last to know when it rains, metaphorically speaking.
For men who claim to speak directly with this omnicient all knowing God, they’re always dead last when it comes to social issues. Doesn’t that seem a bit strange?
An outside observer would conclude that these men aren’t actually conversing with a god at all, and are just making stuff up as they go.