Do 'Picture Perfect' Families Even Exist?

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_AmyJo
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Do 'Picture Perfect' Families Even Exist?

Post by _AmyJo »

Do 'Picture Perfect' Families Even Exist?

"Neil L. Anderson [told members at] church conference in Salt Lake City that the religion has hundreds of thousands of children who live with only one parent or whose parents aren't Mormon.

Anderson, a high-ranking leader with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said the religion will continue to advocate for families led by married men and women who belong to the faith. But he said the religion should embrace other children too.

Anderson didn't mention children of gay parents. The church came under fire last November when it announced new rules banning baptisms for children living with a gay or lesbian parent."

He admonished them to be more thoughtful and sensitive toward children of all backgrounds, many of whom don't come from 'picture perfect" families.'"

Well, the fallout is clear. The damage may be irreversible. Hindsight being 20/20 vision, they were not visionary with their prophetic policy statement last fall, and are now trying to recoup some of the damage done.

Too little too late to reverse the tide? One can only hope.

After all, Stepford Wives and Norman Rockwell got nothing on the picture perfect Mormon caricatures - mythological creatures that they are.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/latest-mormo ... tml?ref=gs
_MetalSlasher
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Re: Do 'Picture Perfect' Families Even Exist?

Post by _MetalSlasher »

I'd say no. Everyone has problems and so does every family.
_AmyJo
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Re: Do 'Picture Perfect' Families Even Exist?

Post by _AmyJo »

MetalSlasher wrote:I'd say no. Everyone has problems and so does every family.


It's the idea that Peterson presents that the "picture perfect" families are only those who are male/female heads of households as couples; with 2.3 children or more, who are actively LDS and TR holders. That is the LDS definition of "picture perfect."

And yet he continues by saying there are hundreds of thousands of LDS children who are in single parent households, from divorced homes, without suggesting the possibility some of the hundreds of thousands are children of gay parents.

At least half of all children today at some time in their childhood will be in single parent households. I don't believe LDS are immune from the divorce statistics of the average American.

Some of those "picture perfect" families he alludes to, meanwhile, may be anything but perfect - which would be just the opposite of what he is suggesting. Deep seated and underlying problems also exist inside the LDS 'poster family' for the church. They are no more immune to divorce, infidelity, drug &/or chemical addictions; porn, etc than their non-LDS peers, or single LDS peers.

It's an offense to those who are single and LDS, with or without children, because they don't belong in the poster family grouping of LDS "role models." Why not elevate a struggling single mom as a nobel laureate for the church? Or a struggling disabled person who is working hard to find and keep a job to stay off welfare (so too the single parents.) Why not lift them up, instead of demoting them in the eyes of the church as "inferior" somehow?

Because LDS has to present itself and its families as "picture perfect" to feel self-righteous and holier than others.

Christ came to save the lost, afflicted, those in prison, the suffering and to heal the sick.

Mormons puff themselves up in their own eyes, like the Pharisees did of old. Where is their humility? For Jesus when asked what is religion, his answer was to scorn those who puff themselves up and raise the meek and lowly.

"13 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either.[e]

15 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you cross land and sea to make one convert, and then you turn that person into twice the child of hell[f] you yourselves are!

23 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens,[g] but you ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things. 24 Blind guides! You strain your water so you won’t accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel![h]

25 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and self-indulgence! 26 You blind Pharisee! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish,[i] and then the outside will become clean, too.

27 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. 28 Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness." (Matthew 23)

Or, on pure religion he said thus, "27Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (James 1:27)

He liked to keep religion simple and undefiled, in other words, without making it a science or philosophy. It is just a way of life, period.

Caring for orphans and widows in distress is not paramount to the Mormon way of life. It is a distraction and aberration from a race to the bottom by the business men running the church as the MLM corporation that it is, which is just profit before anything else. With the changes in church policy affecting children of gay parents, to the point of their being denied membership, the church has taken a position to be anti-children, not anti-gay in its policies.

It cannot serve two masters. It cannot love the little children as Jesus commands us to do, and yet turn them away from membership in the supposed only true church of Jesus Christ upon the earth. Jesus would spat in their faces were he here in person, to condemn those who condemn the little children and suffer them not to come unto him.
_James or Not
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Re: Do 'Picture Perfect' Families Even Exist?

Post by _James or Not »

They do. In pictures.
Next time the bully demands your lunch money tell him you left it on his mother's dresser.
_AmyJo
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Re: Do 'Picture Perfect' Families Even Exist?

Post by _AmyJo »

James or Not wrote:They do. In pictures.


And nowadays those photos are often photo shopped, touched up, etc.

Though not where Neil Anderson is concerned.

It's all about the presentation. As long as someone looks good, they must be good. If a family looks like they have it all together, then by George they do.

Until the cracks begin to show and the paint begins to wear thin, no one is any the wiser. That's just how the church decrees.
.
If you're a family in Zion, with two heterosexual parents and 2.6 children, holding ward or stake positions, paying tithes, temple attendance yada yada, that is what he means.

In Mormonism the picture postcard perfect image is what I associate with as the Stepford Wives. The more robotic, the better.

There really is little/no room for individuality or creative expression outside of the indoctrination and dogma. Image over substance, in other words.

Isn't it sad that there's this untenable standard the LDS church still holds its members to, as in "picture perfect" families?

Just very, very sad and troubling when you consider all the damage and harm it has inflicted on those who don't measure up to the picture perfect stereotypes it sets as the bar. :/
_AmyJo
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Picture this: A 'picture perfect' gay family at shul today

Post by _AmyJo »

Picture this: A 'picture perfect' gay family at shul today

Two very handsome men on the youngish side of 30-40sh, a couple of very proud papas with their fraternal twin sons, babies not more than a couple of months old at the most, were at synagogue today showing off their newborn sons.

The boys were just adorable. Proud pappies taking them up to be on the bemah during the children's portion of the service. Rabbi got to hold up one of the babies, cuddling him as if he were his own son during the "Ein Keloheinu" song.

It was one big Kodak moment. The fathers in their kippas with tallits, while their baby boys wearing kippas would fall off their little heads and be scooped right back up to be placed on them again. It didn't really matter either way as to their cuteness factor.

They were very much a part of the larger Jewish faith community we call "home," as part of the same tribe. Fully accepted. Fully embraced by the community. Fully members, participating the same as anyone else and their children.

Now, compare this to the chasm found inside Mormonism. If you're gay, don't bother going or sending your children, because you won't be accepted into the body of Christ as part of the Mormon tribe, nor will their children.

In the Jewish family they are fully 100% accepted just as they are.

What a difference a faith makes!

It is love that makes the world go round. Just love. In the end, it's all that matters.

It is just one of the key features that marks a huge difference between a fully "functional" faith community, and a totally "dysfunctional" one, as the LDS demonstrates so ardently.

And another distinguishing aspect of what makes LDS a cult, rather than a faith community by practicing exclusion instead of inclusion.
_Maksutov
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Re: Do 'Picture Perfect' Families Even Exist?

Post by _Maksutov »

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001F ... TF8&btkr=1

From Publishers Weekly
The golden age of the American family never existed, asserts Coontz ( The Social Origns of Private Life ) in a wonderfully perceptive, myth-debunking report. The "Leave It to Beaver" ideal of breadwinner father, full-time homemaker mother and dependent children was a fiction of the 1950s, she shows. Real families of that period were rife with conflict, repression and anxiety, frequently poor and much less idyllic than many assume; teen pregnancy rates in the '50s were higher than today. Further, Coontz contends, the nuclear family was elevated to a central source of personal satisfaction only in the late 19th century, thereby weakening people's community ties and sense of civic obligation. Coontz disputes the idea that children can be raised properly only in traditional families. Viewing modern domestic problems as symptoms of a much larger socioeconomic crisis, she demonstrates that no single type of household has ever protected Americans from social disruption or poverty. An important contribution to the current debate on family values.
"God" is the original deus ex machina. --Maksutov
_just me
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Re: Do 'Picture Perfect' Families Even Exist?

Post by _just me »

Maksutov wrote:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001FSJ994/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1

From Publishers Weekly
The golden age of the American family never existed, asserts Coontz ( The Social Origns of Private Life ) in a wonderfully perceptive, myth-debunking report. The "Leave It to Beaver" ideal of breadwinner father, full-time homemaker mother and dependent children was a fiction of the 1950s, she shows. Real families of that period were rife with conflict, repression and anxiety, frequently poor and much less idyllic than many assume; teen pregnancy rates in the '50s were higher than today. Further, Coontz contends, the nuclear family was elevated to a central source of personal satisfaction only in the late 19th century, thereby weakening people's community ties and sense of civic obligation. Coontz disputes the idea that children can be raised properly only in traditional families. Viewing modern domestic problems as symptoms of a much larger socioeconomic crisis, she demonstrates that no single type of household has ever protected Americans from social disruption or poverty. An important contribution to the current debate on family values.


Very interesting.

Something else interesting is that a great number of men came home from WWII to raise babies that weren't biologically theirs. I was very surprised to learn that.
~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.~
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