My dillema - Raising my daughter correctly

[_Mercury]

Truth Dancers advice sounds very wise. It would undoubtedly be wise to cool your jets on this one, since it has the potential of causing a real rift between you and your wife.

As for myself, I am looking forward to baptizing my daughter. I wish to impart to her a love of all people and a respect for all faith traditions.

then why are you baptising her? Mormonism by definition isolates a child, making others out to be "of the world" and in the wrong. You are sorely mistaken if you believe otherwise.

I am wondering that my self why are you doing something to your daughter you are against....children do not need isolation they need acceptance by all not a few...but she is your child not mine

No, these are just misconceptions of the way Mormons "have to act and behave". Sometimes the only way to effectively vilify people is to lump them all together, but we are not so easily categorized or stereotyped. Our boxes are apparently too permeable. As to the effect of baptism on my daughter? I view it in a positive light.

OK, what your saying is that the LDS culture which is consistently self-marginalizing will be "different" for your daughter? She's growing up learning that a polygamous philandering con man is the one stop shop for god. Shes learning that a proud people with a log tradition should fit the picture of the Mormons misconceptions.

Get out of the cult and save your family while you still can.

[_Ray A]

I love my wife dearly but this issue is unnerving. The last thing I want is my daughter to become locked in the clutches of the cult but I am afraid my wife believes I have no say in this.

What would you do?

With your daughter growing up under the influence of both you and your wife she will see both sides. What you should do is try to make an agreement with your wife that when she's eight she makes her own decision. She (your daughter) will know that you don't believe, and that her mother believes (if she still does then), and if you feel she can't make an informed decision at eight, then ask your wife for a compromise, to at least wait until she old enough to make an informed choice. If your wife can't agree to that, your daughter will still know your position and will eventually make her own choice. My children remained in the church until they were between the ages of 8 and 12. Only one wanted to keep going, eventually, and I didn't force her either way, but did encourage her to go if she wanted. By 21 she was nearly anti-Mormon. With no encouragement from me. Teach your children, pro and con, but let them do their own thinking in the end. But I really think you're panicking and crossing your bridges long before you're even near them.

[_Jersey Girl]

My wife is still LDS, I do not attend. Although I have a cordial and small social relationship with the Mormons my wife attends church with, I am starting to become uneasy at the thought of my one year old daughter attending the indoctrination and utter brainwashing of primary. Its down the road but not upon me yet. I am left with two tasks that would give me the desired result:

1. Convince my wife to leave the cult
2. Convince my wife that having our daughter attend primary will dammage her ability to discern what real truth is.

I love my wife dearly but this issue is unnerving. The last thing I want is my daughter to become locked in the clutches of the cult but I am afraid my wife believes I have no say in this.

What would you do?

Hello Vegas,

I was so glad to find this new thread by you. Just when I thought I'd become bored to death with the threads here, I finally found something I can care about.

On another thread, OUT OF MY MISERY asserted that I read books with pictures in them. I do read books with pictures in them and have been doing so for 20+ years. I know something about young children and I hope that something I write here will be of use to you. I will likely make more comments as ideas come to me.

I agree with other posters who advised you to teach your wife the things you have discovered about the Church. As your wife is developing more awareness of the information that you have, you can teach your developing child.

My first thought is that you might consider taking the concepts found in scripture that you feel are valuable. I'm thinking of things like love, kindness, friendship, helpfulness, generosity/giving, gratitude, expressing thanks, honesty and a love for truth. Your wife can have no disagreement with these types of values you might want to instill in your child. Look for the best of religious concepts you can find in the church...and act on them.

How do you teach these to your young child? You model them. If you want your child to learn what kindess is, you demonstrate kindness to her. This is how young children learn, Vegas, the concepts that adults take for granted. A young child, for example, cannot learn what sharing means to another person until they have experienced what it feels like to "own" a thing. Eventually, perspective taking (how the other person feels) and empathy (caring for that person's feelings) develop over time.

Would you like your child to be kind? Then be kind to her and let her observe you being kind to others. Would you like your child to be giving? Be giving to her and let her observe you being giving to others. What can we give? An example of modeling giving might be for her to see you or go with you when you help a neighbor fix their car. Would you like your child to be loving and empathetic? Then you must be loving toward her and show concern for her feelings. Let her observe you acting and speaking in loving ways towards others.

The very first "other" you can demonstrate these concepts to for her observation, is Mom.

What I am trying to get across to you, is how children learn social/emotional concepts. Also, that if you would like your child's life to have meaning, you must make a conscious effort toward providing her with meaningful experiences.

While she is growing up in the Church, can she not also have a broader range of experiences? Can she become involved in community service? Right now there are people ringing bells outside of the stores with a kettle. Let her drop money into the kettle and tell her it is "to help". As she grows to be around say age 3, those concepts will start to form in her mind and you, as her parent will teach her over the years, the qualities you would like her to have...by modeling them for her. When she is older, you can explain to her that the money (for example) that she drops into the kettle...will help people. Still later, you can show her ways to help people by engaging in community service.

You teach her to value people, by valuing HER.

Perhaps, as you are providing her with meaningful experiences, your wife will come to agree with your point of view regarding the church. The best situation for your child would be for both parents to be in agreement on something, so that you can provide her with consistency instead of confusion.

I would not recommend that you engage in any sort of power struggles with your wife over church attendance. What the church teaches your daughter prior to age 5 or so, she will not retain. It is those layers that you as a parent can build over a lifetime, that will stay with her.

I am not LDS however, I have big problems with the baptism at age 8. You could study the development of moral thinking and reasoning to know why I have problems with it. At age 8, a child is preoccupied with rules and black and white reasoning. That is to say, if people tell your child (as Porter described) that becoming a member at age 8 is a big deal, she's likely going to buy into it.

Until that time, put into your daughter what you want her to keep. A compassionate love for her mother, is a good place to begin.

Okay, I just winged that. How'd I do?

Jersey Girl
:-)

p.s. Just incase we're not in contact at that time, I would be remiss in advising you if I failed to heads up you to this. When your daughter enters middle school, it is likely that all the things you worked so hard to teach her...will fly out the window. You will find yourself wondering what has happened to her and think you totally flopped as a parent. Not to worry, ride out those years and she will "reappear" in High School...and you will come to see all of those things you put into her...in her attitudes and behaviors about others.

[_Coggins7]

My wife is still LDS, I do not attend. Although I have a cordial and small social relationship with the Mormons my wife attends church with, I am starting to become uneasy at the thought of my one year old daughter attending the indoctrination and utter brainwashing of primary. Its down the road but not upon me yet. I am left with two tasks that would give me the desired result:

1. Convince my wife to leave the cult
2. Convince my wife that having our daughter attend primary will dammage her ability to discern what real truth is.

I love my wife dearly but this issue is unnerving. The last thing I want is my daughter to become locked in the clutches of the cult but I am afraid my wife believes I have no say in this.

What would you do?

Loran:

First of all, you need to eliminate any possibility of your daughter ever developing critical reasoning skills past that of a taco shell. Next would be to feed her a steady diet of anti-intellectual, emotion based rhetoric calculated to shut down both her imagination and rational mind and accept that which you teach her on the basis of your emotional responses to LDS claims alone. Next, feed her a steady diet of anti-Mormon literature, and keep any substantive pro-Mormon scholarly or theological material away from her, lest she begin thinking for herself and stray from the true path. Then, make sure Vegas, that you tell your innocent, one year old daughter the same flat footed lies, the same guile ridden deceptions, and make the same bigoted, irresponsible claims you make here about the church, its history, and its leaders, so that she will be able to tell you, after she has lost the possibiltiy of exaltation in the Kingdom of God, how grateful she was to have you as a father.

Perhaps you'll both be in the same kingdom where you can discuss it for a few million years.

What, exactly, Vegas, did you do that caused your alienation from the Church?

Loran

[_Coggins7]

OK, what your saying is that the LDS culture which is consistently self-marginalizing will be "different" for your daughter? She's growing up learning that a polygamous philandering con man is the one stop shop for god. Shes learning that a proud people with a log tradition should fit the picture of the Mormons misconceptions.

Get out of the cult and save your family while you still can.

Loran:

Its high noon and I'm calling you out Vegas. I want sources and why I should believe such sources are credible. I'm ready with my own. I'm going to turn on the light and when the rest of the six legged pests scurry for the baseboards, I expect you to be standing there ready to draw. Its high time you and the other scholars of LDS history poop or get well off the pot.

OK hombre...this town ain't big enough for the both of us...

[_Mercury]

What, exactly, Vegas, did you do that caused your alienation from the Church?

Loran

I thought for myself.

[_Mercury]

OK, what your saying is that the LDS culture which is consistently self-marginalizing will be "different" for your daughter? She's growing up learning that a polygamous philandering con man is the one stop shop for god. Shes learning that a proud people with a log tradition should fit the picture of the Mormons misconceptions.

Get out of the cult and save your family while you still can.

Loran:

Its high noon and I'm calling you out Vegas. I want sources and why I should believe such sources are credible. I'm ready with my own. I'm going to turn on the light and when the rest of the six legged pests scurry for the baseboards, I expect you to be standing there ready to draw. Its high time you and the other scholars of LDS history poop or get well off the pot.

OK hombre...this town ain't big enough for the both of us...

I shat, got off the pot and wiped long before you showed up.

Your f*****g with the real gunslinger. You have no place in this Ka Tet.

Gawd I hope im not the only one who gets that reference.

[_asbestosman]

Then, make sure Vegas, that you tell your innocent, one year old daughter the same flat footed lies, the same guile ridden deceptions, and make the same bigoted, irresponsible claims you make here about the church, its history, and its leaders, so that she will be able to tell you, after she has lost the possibiltiy of exaltation in the Kingdom of God, how grateful she was to have you as a father.

Perhaps you'll both be in the same kingdom where you can discuss it for a few million years.

I didn't think God would allow parents to damn their children. I always thought God would merely hold parents accountable for what they taught their children, but the children would be judged according to their circumstances. Perhaps we should start a new thread on this. Would God really let one person use their agency to eternally damn another? That just doesn't fit with my understanding of our Heavenly Father's Plan.

[_Coggins7]

I didn't think God would allow parents to damn their children. I always thought God would merely hold parents accountable for what they taught their children, but the children would be judged according to their circumstances. Perhaps we should start a new thread on this. Would God really let one person use their agency to eternally damn another? That just doesn't fit with my understanding of our Heavenly Father's Plan.

Loran:

And I never said he would. The implication is that she would lose her exaltation and the ability to actualize her full, eternal potential, of her own free will and choice but under the heavy influence of her Father from her impressionable childhood upwards. Depending upon her own inherant individualism and intellectual strength, she may or may not be able to work her way out of the spiritual tomb her Father has created for her. We are influenced by those around us, and especially by those closest to us. The end result, if it turns out badly, will be on the heads of both, but the influence we have upon one another is systemic, not atomistic, and we are not going to be able to extract ourselves from the consequences of the influence we had on others by wrapping ourselves in the folds of free agency, including the free agency of others.

Loran

[_Mercury]

My wife is still LDS, I do not attend. Although I have a cordial and small social relationship with the Mormons my wife attends church with, I am starting to become uneasy at the thought of my one year old daughter attending the indoctrination and utter brainwashing of primary. Its down the road but not upon me yet. I am left with two tasks that would give me the desired result:

1. Convince my wife to leave the cult
2. Convince my wife that having our daughter attend primary will dammage her ability to discern what real truth is.

I love my wife dearly but this issue is unnerving. The last thing I want is my daughter to become locked in the clutches of the cult but I am afraid my wife believes I have no say in this.

What would you do?

Loran:

First of all, you need to eliminate any possibility of your daughter ever developing critical reasoning skills past that of a taco shell. Next would be to feed her a steady diet of anti-intellectual, emotion based rhetoric calculated to shut down both her imagination and rational mind and accept that which you teach her on the basis of your emotional responses to LDS claims alone. Next, feed her a steady diet of anti-Mormon literature, and keep any substantive pro-Mormon scholarly or theological material away from her, lest she begin thinking for herself and stray from the true path. Then, make sure Vegas, that you tell your innocent, one year old daughter the same flat footed lies, the same guile ridden deceptions, and make the same bigoted, irresponsible claims you make here about the church, its history, and its leaders, so that she will be able to tell you, after she has lost the possibiltiy of exaltation in the Kingdom of God, how grateful she was to have you as a father.

Perhaps you'll both be in the same kingdom where you can discuss it for a few million years.

What, exactly, Vegas, did you do that caused your alienation from the Church?

Loran

So your saying that Mormonism gives one critical thinking skills? Hahahaha!

Seriously? And the whole anti-intelectual thing? Your barking up the wrong tree pal.

One would have to be intoxicated to keep believing that joseph smith translated the book of abraham from a common egyptian funerary text. But that's just one instance of a multitude.