I had a friend who was never allowed any clothing that went above her knees, showed any part of her shulder, or went more than an inch or two below her collarbone. This was because her mom didn't want her little brothers to be exposed to that kind of evil. The worst part is that at this time, she was 13 and her little brothers were 4 and 8. But, gotta teach em young that if the woman isn't covered, she's free game, right!?
My two brothers and I would be sitting on the sofa watching TV, and our father would walk into the room, and change the channel without a word.
"Hey," we'd say, "why'd you change the channel?"
"The program was suggestive," he'd say every time.
One show he hated was called "Family." It was completely G rated, but it was too real. The characters had real problems, but they weren't Mormons. So they didn't pray or run to the bishop. Dad wanted to run a tight Jaredite ship in his home, but he was clueless. So he abused the television. No TV in the bedroom. No TV unsupervised, because the adversary was using television to attack the gospel and the gospel values of youth.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2017 03:54AM by donbagley.
I remember an unusual family that were LDS converts that lived in our ward briefly. Mom and Dad were mathematical geniuses. They were from Germany and joined the church when they arrived in America following the war. Dad was a scientist and knew A LOT about rockets (probably of the V1 variety) he worked at Thiokol as a rocket scientist.
They weren't so much Mormon strict as they were unusually strict on personal discipline. They were very serious people that were highly regimented. What I got a kick out of was the kids were not allowed to watch "Hogan's Heroes" because it made the Nazis look stupid.
Another family I know that were very strict were converts who left their rural, eastern Washington farm to live "amongst the Saints".
They were very strict and the they had no tv and were a very large family of seven kids. They were a blended family with kids from previous marriages and one kid with each other.
They are the only intact, reasonably functional family I have heard of that joined the church through the missionaries.
The father was a very strict,former Marine that had joined and left many faiths, he was very hard-working and expected his children to work hard so they often had lots of chores. There was no TV and he worked for the Church as a plumber.
They would sit on the very front row at church sitting ram rod straight with no flinching or signs of restlessness. He was my Sunday school teacher and there was no "goofing off".
He did not approve of me at all and felt I was a bad influence on his children. He was constantly letting my parents know that I was not in compliance with the word of Wisdom due to my Coca-Cola drinking. I liked his daughter though so I tried to go over to their house as often as possible.
Other families in the ward were intimidated by his strict discipline and so they would try to emulate a lot of his habits.It was pretty irritating.
They did have their problems though, they had a seventeen year old son that ran away, he stayed home from church pretending to be very ill, he called two taxis and the one that got there first he took to the airport. He hated his step-dad and wanted to leave, he also was under investigation by the FBI for robbing Seattle bank with some friends and returned to live with his Mom, he ended up doing some juvenile time for that and moved in with his mother.
The father was alos the first person I knew of that actually left the Church based on research and not because of being "offended".
Because he worked at the COB as a plumber he quickly became disillusioned by the church leadership. He spent a great deal of his work time doing plumbing work on the homes of general authorities, and he knew that this was something that was provided for free to the GA's. He immediately stopped giving the church cash for tithing, instead he would pay it in office supplies like staplers,copy paper etc. He did a lot of plumbing work on the side and took a lot of payment in trade, this is what he used to pay tithing.
I asked him why he paid in tithing and he told me that a stapler is always a stapler, the church can't waste it or misuse it. He left the church soon after and took his family back to Washington state. The rumor was that he learned something about Brigham Young that he didn't like and lost his "testimony" working around the "leadership" of the church...
He was definitely a dick, but he had a lot of qualities I respected.
My kids hate going over to their grandparents' house because it is all church all the time. The only videos allowed are church videos. Conversations invariably revolve around "the Church". If they want to manipulate my kids (or anyone) into doing something, it always involves a scripture or general conference quote.
My son just turned 13 this week. His present from them was a new scout shirt and a motivational DVD for LDS kids. Christmas was exactly the same ... usually a collection of Church videos and books.
They, of course, are too busy with church stuff to be much involved in their grandkids' lives. My kids are the only grandkids close by. But for example, my daughter has cheerleading competitions on Saturdays. The inlaws might be able to make one in March because the temple will be closed that day. Otherwise they will be serving in the temple all day on Saturdays.
I had a weird sleepover at a friend's house around the age of 9 or 10. He could not watch any TV in the afternoons so we went outside to play. This was not a big deal since I was accustomed to being outside, but what was wrong with old school Looney Toons, Tom & Jerry and Popeye cartoons?
Outside would soon drag. We went to a sandbox and I grabbed one of his Tonka trucks. He ran over and took it back. He then explained that his Dad told him that he couldn't get it dirty or he would never ever receive another birthday present. Sure enough, every one of his toy trucks were so purdy and new. In contrast, every one of messy's were dirty, a bit rusty and well worn. The Goop's had a mighty fine 8 lane interstate criss-crossing the yard.
So we started riding bikes, but with lots of do's and don'ts. We couldn't ride to the end of his driveway because bad stuff might happen so we had to stop abruptly at the bottom of his driveway. I was making big skids and "power slides" in a mixture of dirt and gravel. Well, the mom arrived in the station wagon and accused us of tearing up the dirt driveway. Not only were we told to stop, but we were also told to re-rake the rocks that had been displaced from our skid marks.
He had a neat tire swing hanging from a giant oak tree, but of course we couldn't play on it. "Someone might get hurt." Indeed, his older sister had fallen off and broken her ankle when trying to jump off to do flips.
I remember fetching some blank paper from my school backpack to make paper airplanes. I threw one into the air and my friend freaked out. "We can't fly airplanes. They will end up on the roof and my Dad will become very upset." I ignored him and continued to fly it away from his house. He eventually ran over to where it landed. He crumpled it up.
I later discovered the myriad of games and stuff that we could not play. Yet, we could not be in the house until dinner time. After dinner, we could watch TV but only 'til 9pm. I suggested my favorite TV show, Dukes of Hazard, but that was strictly forbidden. It was too violent for children. We ended watching some News TV program that covered the revolution in Iran. That program had raw footage of killings and fighting. I had untold nightmares while sleeping on the floor of the living room.
Instead of spending the Saturday with my church friend, I gladly called Mom to pick me up in the morning. Just too many senseless rules to follow.
My sister has a co-worker that is a single mom. She paid a neighbor with kids around the same age to watch her daughter after school until she could get home. This went on for quite a while. One day the neighbor, with tears in her eyes, told her she couldn't watch her daughter anymore cause the daughter wore tank tops and it was a bad example for her children. The tanktop-wearing daughter was 6!
I was the youngest in a large family. To add to that confusion, my parents took in up to four more people at various times. To add to that, my parents were very TBM: no fun on Sundays including no going to over to friends, staying dressed between meeting as this was before the block meeting schedule, television only after sacrament meeting, mutual on that appropriate night, sometimes Tuesdays, other times, Wednesday, etc. I really did not enjoy it.
There were times where I would not come home immediately after school. Instead I would go to a friends. They were unhappy with that but when it happened on a mutual night and I missed it, Dad became unglued. A couple of nights later I was called into the parents room where he told me about all the things I was doing wrong and how disappointed he was with me. Then he lost control. He unbuckled and removed my belt, pulled my pants and underwear down and proceeded to whip me with my own belt. I distinctly remember hearing Mom yell out his name. Afterwards he hugged me and said he was sorry it had come to this kind of "punishment" and asked if I wanted to go fishing that summer.
Two things came from that: I avoided my dad the best I could as I no longer saw him as a parental figure. The home situation became worse. Years later I figured that whipping was the very start of my life as submissive and into the BDSM lifestyle.