After a worship service with all members, we split into demographic groups for Sunday School. One of the groups is called Young Women, designed to help teenage girls navigate the social pressure to become immoral. I loved attending Young Women when I was a teenager. I made friendships I maintain to this day. But I was saddened when my only single, childless Mormon friend, who teaches Young Women, told me she was asked to invite an “exemplary woman” to speak to the class about the joys of womanhood. “Preferably one who has married in the Mormon temple and has a family, to speak on the joys of being a woman,” she was told. My friend is stunning, articulate, and hardworking. She has an education and works at a job making more money than most men I know. By church standards, she is not considered exemplary. I can only imagine that she feels hypocritical trying to lead teenage girls. In fact, it’s hard for any single woman not to feel inadequate. The church offers no lessons for people living outside the ideal. We are these lost souls trying to find our way and carve our own path with no direction from any church leaders or even friends to turn to for advice. I’ve become almost bitter about it because I want to belong, but I know I won’t ever truly fit into this family-centric religion. Once, my church held an activity focused on the theme of “goal setting” — how and why we need to set goals in our lives. I presented a slideshow to women and men about how I achieved my goal of running marathons on every continent. I hoped to inspire other Mormons to discover their passions and pursue them. Lots of women approached me after the event, and one said she felt inspired to register for a 5K. Then a single man in his twenties, whom I didn’t know personally, asked, “Don’t you want to wait to have those experiences with your husband and children?” He probably assumed I was younger and still had time to raise children and travel later on in life. But it was rude and unwarranted. If I had waited to create these memories after marriage and children, my journal would have contained empty pages for 38 years.
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
Ugh. The whole belief that a married person is somehow better than an unmarried person is ridiculous and offensive. We need to stop teaching people that they are not "whole" as a single. What a dumb idea.
~Those who benefit from the status quo always attribute inequities to the choices of the underdog.~Ann Crittenden ~The Goddess is not separate from the world-She is the world and all things in it.~
One of the groups is called Young Women, designed to help teenage girls navigate the social pressure to become immoral
I hope there's more to it than that. 6 years of that would get boring really fast. Young mens was boring, and although we did spend time learning about sexual morality, we also did other things. Come to think of it, the other things were mostly just scouts, so I guess it makes sense that without a scouting program there isn't much else for young women to learn about.
"We have taken up arms in defense of our liberty, our property, our wives, and our children; we are determined to preserve them, or die." - Captain Moroni - 'Address to the Inhabitants of Canada' 1775
Points for outward signs of spiritual superiority:
Mission Temple Marriage within a year of end of mission Temple attendance to necro convert, make sure to pontificate as often as possible in Testimony meeting, SS, EQ, and RS. Extra bonus point for bragging to your HT families. Spawn at least four children, extra points if all four are born before the husband finishes college Spawn at least six and you can question, with condescension, other couples with less than four children "You aren't done yet ARE YOU?" Wear garments and clothes that show you wear them.. properly e.g. wear that celestial smile(under thin white shirts) proud boys! Called to EQ/RS prez and then bishop or bishopric, and then stake presidency/prez All children do the above, and grandchildren(if you live that long and followed second part of #4
New name: Boaz The most viewed "ignored" poster in Shady Acres® !
The church offers no lessons for people living outside the ideal.
This is so true. Single or divorced adults are treated as outsiders.
The Church doesn't want single adults. That's why they are herded together in isolated wards designed, specifically, as a method for getting them to hook up and marry as quickly as possible. This institutionalised ostracising also takes place in these singles wards if you are a single adult who isn't actively seeking a marriage partner.
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')