My dillema - Raising my daughter correctly

[_Jason Bourne]

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?

Wow. As ornery as you often are here I do feel for you man. I did not know your wife was still participating LDS. Does she know the extent of your anger towards the LDS Church?

All I can say is you have a problem big time. If she does not want to leave forcing the issue will strain things for you. And I am sure she will want your daughter in primary. Look, I know you do not like the LDS Church at all. But I do not think primary will hurt her-and I mean hurt her from your point of view. Over time you can share with her, in a respectful way, your views-maybe when she is an early teen. Butif you have an issue now what are you going to do when she turns 8?

[_asbestosman]

I don't believe you have ever applied anything you have read. You can read all day. Until you apply it you will still be locked into the Mormon mind prison.

What, I haven't applied it until I agree with you? You're just as blind as you accuse Mormons of being. Perhaps one day you will get over your anger and be more reasonable as some of the others here are.

[_asbestosman]

Ya know, maybee the young hitler youth brigade wasn't so bad. Ya see, all they would've had to do was just inform the children when they came home to ignore the racial superiority lessons, the militaristic teachings and whole pump-up for Deutchland. Maybee the world would be a better place.

You're being ridiculous. Primary does not teach their kids to snitch on their non-member parents and thus put their lives in jeopardy. That's a very significant difference.

Your eyes are covered, your ears are stopped up and you are unable to speak evil because your mind has been told its wrong to do so. Your missing the whole point of this conversation.

Pray tell, what is the point? That the church is actually a cult? What is that supposed to mean? Do they threaten my life if I think about leaving? Golly VR, I hope you're properly wearing your foil helmet.

[_Who Knows]

I think one of the things that has made the church so 'cultish' to me is how I was raised. I'm 33, and still afraid to tell my parents about my 'apostacy'! Growing up, if i even thought about telling my parents that i didn't want to get baptized, go on a mission, get married in the temple, etc. then I'd be toast.

I think, if I had grown up without the church forced down my throat, I wouldn't be so antagonistic towards the church - and wouldn't view it as 'cultish' as i do.

What's my point? - that your daughter, VR, will be in a much better position than the rest of us - getting to hear both sides of the argument while growing up - and being able to make her own decisions without fear. That is, of course, as long as you (and your wife) are reasonable in your approach - and don't force anything down her throat (whether it's hardcore Mormonism, or hardcore antimormonism).

[_asbestosman]

I think, if I had grown up without the church forced down my throat, I wouldn't be so antagonistic towards the church - and wouldn't view it as 'cultish' as i do.

I grant that there's a particular culture one often finds in the church which I particularly despise. I do my best to defend those who leave from accusations that it must have been sin. On the other hand, I think I was raised reasonable well. While my parents made it clear what they expected of us in terms of church service, I also had my father help me see things from various points of view. That really helped me not to demonize people who belived differently than me.

I think your advice is reasonable.

[_Sam Harris]

Hey Vegas,

I would focus all my efforts to teaching my child to live an ethical life, trusting herself, seeing the goodness in others regardless of what religion they embrace. I would help her to see how her actions impact the world around her. I would help her be aware of her own sense of goodness. I would try to be a good example of the goodness that is possible regardless of religious belief.

In other words, rather than thwarting the efforts of church teachings, I would vastly expand them to include much, much more.

Does that make sense?

~dancer~

I'm in agreement with this. Sometimes you just can't rail against the status quo, it will do more damage than good. You might stand the chance of confusing your precious daughter, and making her feel like she has to choose between you and mom. Expose her to good things outside the church, but let her choose for herself. That is what I do with the TBM friends I have who still love (but don't understand) me. I come at them from an LDS perspective when necessary, but mostly I just be myself. I teach from my POV, I pray from my POV, but I don't invalidate where they are. And it works out ok for the most part.

[_Mercury]

Do you mean information campaign, or disinformation campaign? On this subject, your daughter is entitled to hear or read ALL that she wants, and with you as her father I doubt she will be the subject of hearing only one side. What you should be careful of is that she doesn't grow up hating Mormonism.

Yes, disinformation.

Would I give my daughter Mein Kampf or a simmilar book to read "because she is entitled to it"?

Would you allow your children to explore scientology without warning them of its nature?

[_Mercury]

I don't believe you have ever applied anything you have read. You can read all day. Until you apply it you will still be locked into the Mormon mind prison.

What, I haven't applied it until I agree with you? You're just as blind as you accuse Mormons of being. Perhaps one day you will get over your anger and be more reasonable as some of the others here are.

Yes, until you agree with me. Just as you feel I am not applying "what i really know in my heart to be true". Ya see, i lived the mo life. THere was always that lingering doubt when I defended MormonCorp. I do not feel that same unease whenever I argue about the church. No cog-dis kicking off neurons in my brain fighting to keep my sanity intact.

I took the red pill. You need to as well.

[_Mercury]

Ya know, maybee the young hitler youth brigade wasn't so bad. Ya see, all they would've had to do was just inform the children when they came home to ignore the racial superiority lessons, the militaristic teachings and whole pump-up for Deutchland. Maybee the world would be a better place.

You're being ridiculous. Primary does not teach their kids to snitch on their non-member parents and thus put their lives in jeopardy. That's a very significant difference.

Your eyes are covered, your ears are stopped up and you are unable to speak evil because your mind has been told its wrong to do so. Your missing the whole point of this conversation.

Pray tell, what is the point? That the church is actually a cult? What is that supposed to mean? Do they threaten my life if I think about leaving? Golly VR, I hope you're properly wearing your foil helmet.

No, I am not being riddiculous. The paralell to the hitler youth stands. They indoctrinate the youth using song, a sense of camraderie, play acting, etc. Once you step outside the circle of Mormonism you might see this as well.

Its a personality cult. A danger? Yes, to your mental stability. They will not threaten your life but will threaten your family with separation, pound you with guilt and force your friends and peers to see you through the eyes of group judgement over stupid assinine trivialities.

A cult by any other name is still a cult.

[_Ray A]

Would I give my daughter Mein Kampf or a simmilar book to read "because she is entitled to it"?

Would you allow your children to explore scientology without warning them of its nature?

Why not? I studied and wrote an essay on European history at university using Mein Kampf as one of the sources. I would encourage my children to read it. I'd say, "read this and learn how emerging fascist dictators think". The problem is they seldom read more than the daily newspaper.

Of course I would encourage my children to study any religion. I'd encourage them to learn what happened at Waco, and the mind of Koresh. None of them got far enough in the church to open the history books out of interest, but if they had I would have encouraged them, I would have wanted them to read books like Mormon Enigma and In Sacred Loneliness. The one child who remained interested asked me many questions, and I told her all about polygamy and other controversial aspects of church history, but I never made a decision for her. When she left the church it was not for doctrinal or historical reasons, but she felt the church was "mainpulative", and some of it "fake", meaning that she felt it made her feel "self-righteous" and above others, and many of the relationships were based more on the church (the push to date and get married in the temple) than on how she really felt and what she wanted in life and in a partner (not just "someone with a strong testimony"). Undoubtedly some of my views rubbed off on her, but I wasn't going to BS her and present a happy ever after Molly Mormon scenario. It's harder to keep them in the church than to get them to leave. But maybe you don't see it that way. And from reading what Who Knows wrote, I feel sorry for his situation. I don't believe any parent should put that much pressure on their children. But I do understand this can happen in TBM situations.

Generational Mormons born in places like Utah and Idaho do seem to have more of a challenge because they come from such large Mormon families, but judging by the turnout on RFM, it looks like all that indoctrination didn't work. In Australia the inactivity rate is around 70%. Go into a ward of 600-700 on the rolls and you'll find about 100 active. You're not the one swimming upstream, your wife and the church are.