So I am new to this Board. I, like many of you, am a descendant of some of the very first members of the Mormon church. Both sides of my family are Mormon and have been for 6-7 generations. I live in Idaho, the culture here is permeated with TSSC constructs. I grew up in the Church and lost my faith at the age of 10 for very personal reasons. Someday I might share that story but I need some advice in the immediate sense since I can't turn to my siblings (everyone else in my family are Mormon), who are and will always be my best friends in this world.

I am a father of two beautiful and intelligent children. My oldest is a 12 year old boy and youngest is a 9 year old girl. My boys "friends" from grade school figured out we are not active members so he was marked as "not to be associated with" a few years back. He is extremely intelligent and figured out quickly that this type of conditional friendship was no friendship at all. It really didn't bother him.

Now cut to my daughter who is now going through the same dilemma. The difference being she is a very social being that involves emotions in her decision making. I do not know exactly what I can say or do to help her through the ostracism she is currently experiencing. It is fair to say I am emotionally handicapped and have trouble relating to the emotions involved.

She really wants us to attend church so she can be part of the "in" group and do all the fun activities they brag about at school. It is very difficult to tell a 9 year old girl the hard facts behind why we don't go to church in a way they can relate too.

Has anyone on here been in a similar situation? and if so how did you handle it?

Thanks for you responses and for the forum to ask these types of questions.

kneedeep in the Mormon Belt

Hi, Kneedeep. I can sympathize with your dilemma - it is remarkably similar to mine. When my son was 9 and my daughter 51/2 we moved to a very mormon neighborhood. We are nevermos, but with large extended mormon family on my husband's side and a great amount of exposure, having grown up in the "morridor". My son has had close friends that were, and still are, very TBM (his very best friend ever is on a mission in South America right now). There was NEVER an issue. My daughter had a few early run-ins that we were able to work through without too much trouble, and about 5 years of relatively smooth sailing. Then junior high happened. I don't know if it is the influx of several schools and the resultant show of "righteousness" that is necessary, but the pressure became insanely intense. Halfway through 8th grade, my spidey sense led me to read a note she had left out on the counter. She had "converted" to mormonism and was getting her friend's help in hiding it from me and her dad. I came to find out that there were parents (many, if not all) of her friends that were in on the "secret" and were giving her literature, emotional support, and lessons. I can't prove it, but I am certain that the missionaries had met with her.

The entire situation came to a head one Friday night. My son had been admitted to the hospital for emergency surgery, my in-laws were on their way in from out of town, and my daughter recieved in the mail an acceptance letter for a Catholic prep school that she was not very interested in attending. She lost it, and ran off. Rather than returning to the hospital to be with my son, I began a frantic search for my daughter. None of her friend's parents would answer the phone, let alone help me. After about three hours, I got a call from one mom that tipped me off as to where she was.

When I got to the house, her bike was out front. I put it in the pickup and knocked on the door. What followed was the single most insulting episode of my life. I was reduced to having to negotiate with an absolute dick who refused to release my daughter to me. It was only after dialing the police to report him for kidnapping that he told her to leave. He is a local politician that, I am sad to say, won his election unnaposed a few months later.

What then? It sounds simplistic - but we decided we were in charge, not her feelings. I told her she was forbidden to join a cult. If she tried again, I would have all of her parent's friends arrested. Extreme measures for extreme times. She knows I meant it. My husband had a pointed conversation with Dear Son's dad - who has always been a friend and reasonable. He told him if there was ever any attempt again, that we would involve the police and the press - and not the local press. Mittens was running for president at the time. I was furious that they would listen to my husband and not me. We sent her to the prep school, where she is now in her second year, getting a better education, and relieved that she escaped. I innundated her with information, even though she resisted.

Swim team. Hiking club. Public Library volunteer. Soup kitchen volunteer once a week. Competitive painting. Whatever. She needs a group that will take up a ton of her time. Anything that the mormons can't do because of YW or family home evening or whatever. If you can, a charter school, a private school, a different school.

I know how hard this is and I know it seems scary. It hurts so bad when you have a great kid that is being shunned (for whatever reason). You have an advantage. You are trying to plan instead of having to react.

I am pulling for you. Always remember: you are in the driver's seat. Don't give those weenies an inch to appease them. They take anything besides a stomp on their foot as encouragement. And sorry this is so rambling.

One other thing you can do that I forgot. NO MUTUAL. NOT EVER.

These mean girls will likely have a "change of heart" at some point about your daughter. They will love her, want her, best-fried her, you name it. They will invite her to mutual or YW. She will beg. She wants to belong. You will call another mo parent who will assure you that there will be nothing "churchy" - they are only learning photography/flower pressing/quilting/fashion show!!! There will be a prayer - but that's it!! We would LOOOVVE for her to come!!! Please, please??

If you cave, here's how it will go down. The mo moms are not telling you that the prayer will be given by the bishop or the missionaries. The prayer is actually a 20-30 minute lesson that will include a faith promoting tale. All the other girls will get misty-eyed. Your daughter will be touched by the story, and the others will notice.

"You felt the spirit!! You know - that is how you know it's true!! Oh, now you have a testimony!! Now you are one of us!!" The adults will join in the celebration and congratulations, and your daughter that so wants to belong will feel like she has never felt before. They will then warn her that she must be VERY careful now - because Satan wants her more than ever. Anyone that tries to take it away from her, including her parents, are being influenced by Satan.

They will lie to get her by herself. No matter how much she begs, no matter how bad you feel, no matter how much she hates you - always, ALWAYS say no. Would you send her to a youth group meeting with the Westboro Baptists? Let her go to a political rally for a cause you vehemently oppose? Go camping with a registered sex offender even if the other adults say they will make sure nothing happens?

No Mutual. Ever.

You'll need to help her find an alternate group of friends in another church, girl scouts, sports, or whatever she likes.

Tell her she must learn to be strong and brave and never depend on an "in crowd" to validate her. They're likely to befriend her if they think she might join and back off if it doesn't happen.

If it's a huge problem for her, it would be best to move or put her in a private school.

Good luck.

Hmm, I am not all that good with emotion based decision type of people either, but I wanted to comment before your post gets too far down the page.

Maybe you need to present her with all the horrible things she would have to accept to go along with the happy shiny "in group"?
Things like just as she is being excluded now, she would be taught to be exclusive and feel superior to others, and she already knows how that feels from the other side. Tell her about how they do it very subtly, so that they can deny it to your face but still be called "the very elect" from the podium a few times a month.

Stuff about how they want to take away the wide array of choices available to growing young women and focus on ONLY motherhood as something to be aspired to. That motherhood is one of many many things she could feel accomplished doing with her life, but to mormons it is the ONLY thing for women.
That sexism really REALLY got to me as a growing girl.
The racism and anti gay attitudes were not tolerable to me either, but there was never a Sunday I wasn't reminded of my "place".

What does she feel strongly about that mormonism would cramp her style the most? If you have to work with her feelings, you're the one who knows her best.
Certainly the in group / out group is an angle to work on since shes already feeling it, but I think you'll need more than one way to discourage her.

All of this - all good. They can reason better than you think.

sunnynomo,

Thanks so much for the thoughtful response. I would come un-glued if anything remotely resembling your experience happened to me. The deeply flawed Bishopric families daughter that is our neighbor has been pressing my daughter about mutual (hey Steve, why has your wife been sleeping in the van in front of your house for the last week, in the dead of winter?). I grew up in the Church so I know the tricks and have been good about keeping those nights booked with other activities. Like most Dads, my daughter owns me, so it is very hard telling her no. I think that is the most sound advice I have received in a while. I truly appreciate it.

kneedeep

You are so fortunate to have that insider knowledge. My instincts *can* be good - but in this case, I woke up late. You are also a guy - so they can't dismiss you as a lowly, gentile woman that doesn't even know how disobedient to the priesthood she is. If you stand up, they will listen to you.

I think you will be okay!

how far would your commute be to work if you relocated to Oregon?


Mormon and Manners are polar opposite terms. Hence, the unannounced drive by's with cookies and spiritual message.

I got two 10 year old females. However, they got plenty of non-mo's as friends to fill in the gaps of missing mormon snob friends. This same stuff used to happen to me when I was growing up. I didn't go to church much during a period of my youth. My non-mo friends would tell me stuff about what some off the mo-snobs would say about me. Yet, at the same time, when I was at parties, I would see them drinking and smoking. But Hey! they were better than me because they took their hangovers to sacrament meetings the next day while I just hugged the toilet. LOL

I remember my reactivation period. I was on a mormon high horse and had gotten my mission calling. They had me stand at my singles ward sacrament meeting to announce it. I was seated as a sacrament blessor for the bread and water. I looked down to the congregation and saw my fellow mormon snobs, one was on church probation for chastity, another was 19 and had a 1 month old baby and wasn't sure who the father was, an other one of them couldn't take the sacrament, and there were some others that weren't even there that never returned to church even until this time.

Well, I love my independent mind now more than my conforming mind of my past. To all of them pretenders I say...sons a biches!