Family friendly?

Good question Cadence. I think it’s the belief in the eternal nature of families and the way the church is always focused on strengthening the family that makes people say that. Sometimes I see the church’s constant teaching and reinforcement of the importance of the traditional family to be more hurtful than friendly to a lot of members. In our society there are so many variations in family structure that to teach that one is more highly esteemed than any others can cause pain to those who, through no fault of their own, are part of a different structure. When I was 15 years old my parents divorced. I remember thinking that meant that our family would never be able to be together in eternity. A few years later, my oldest brother came out as a homosexual, further reinforcing this idea that we would never get to see him in the next life. My father still doesn’t speak to him or allow him in his home because he’s remarried and doesn’t want that “influence” around his step-children.

It seems that this “war on the family” creeps into almost every lesson I hear at church lately too. Somehow, our lesson about the plan of salvation became a discussion on the many ways Satan is trying to destroy families and how that is his main target and mission here on Earth. Only a passing mention of the atonement of Christ and how it makes the whole plan possible.

All the lessons on marriage usually carry guilt-inducing messages as well. I work in family education and our bishop recently asked me to teach a combined RS/PH meeting about marriage. I was delighted to hear that he wants me to focus on research-based methods for improving relationships rather than the usual lessons on how our marriage will be wonderful as long as we check-off our church to-do lists together. Home teaching? Check! Temple attendance? Check! Paying our tithing? Check! I feel closer to my spouse already! 🙄

Anyway…sorry to ramble and rant. I don’t really see the church as being any more family friendly than any other religion. We sure talk about it a lot more though and I suppose people view some of the programs as being more family focused. I don’t know. For me, the church’s “focus on the family” has been more hurtful than helpful.

I think it’s family-friendly in some doctrinal aspects such as believing our families continue to be families in the next life. :angel:

Or perhaps it’s that church is family-friendly because you can bring your kids to sacrament meeting because everyone is too busy trying to quiet their own kids to get mad at you for bringing your noisy kids to church. 😆

Or maybe it’s like a mafia family in that, as long as you listen to the godfather, they know how to take care of the family? :think:

Hmm…

From my experience it’s about par for family-friendliness. There are certainly others that are more open and make it more fun for kids and easier on parents. There are some that wouldn’t expect you to worry so much about your children’s eternal souls.Then there are others that would require you to cut off communication with your children because they were excommunicated for celebrating their birthday. I don’t see the LDS church at either extreme. Even with homosexuality or divorce or other issues. There are much more lenient churches and much harsher. I think the church has also come a long way in just the last 5-10 years on those issues. And I think a lot of the issues we have with parts of the church are reflective of conservative protestant christianity more than just the LDS church. The only difference is they don’t usually claim to be led directly by God through a living prophet…

I have been holding off on commenting on this discussion as I have a very strong, visceral, reaction when I hear members of the church talking about how important the family is in the church. However, I think I have calmed my thoughts enough to provide a response without going off the rails and ranting. 🙂

it’s the belief in the eternal nature of families…

I can accept this, in that we are the only faith (that I am aware of) who has a codified doctrine of the eternal nature of families. However, I know lots of people of other faiths that feel that family relationships will continue after death regardless of whether or not their church doctrine states this. Side question – does anyone know of any faiths that explicitly teach that families will be separated for eternity after death?

… the way the church is always focused on strengthening the family

This is where I start to have problems. I apologize in advance if I come across as a little harsh. 👿

I cannot in good conscience say that an organization that demands so much time in service from their members, where they are removed from their respective families, is strengthening the families of its membership. How can a family be strengthened when they are not together? This is especially true of individuals who serve in leadership.

As I grew up (as a non-member), I could never understand how my friends’ fathers could work 40+ hours a week at a job and then spent another 20-30 hours a week at church meetings. To me this creates absentee fathers, who’s only active role in the family is to be the wage earner and spiritual figurehead of the home.

Even now, I look at my TBM brother-in-law. He is in his mid-30’s, works 40+ hours, has 5 children, and is a Bishop. His kids only really see him maybe 5 -10 hours per week. This is not a strong family in my mind. It is a strong single-parent family, with my SIL doing an amazing job of managing everything on her own. My BIL once made the mistake of complaining to me about the difficulties of managing his work/Church/family-life balance. I simple told him to make a simple choice. Either your family is more important to you or serving as Bishop is more important. If it is your family that you value most, tell the SP that you can no longer serve as Bishop. Well, he didn’t like that response all that much.

I firmly believe that if the Church really valued families they would keep parents with children at home out of leadership roles. Of course this would require folks to stop having kids after the age of 35 or so. 😈

Anyways, just my thoughts.

It is extremely family-friendly for those families for whom it is friendly; it is extremely family-unfriendly for those families for whom it is unfriendly’; it is in the middle for a lot of families.

I mean that seriously, not facetiously. It really, really, really works for lots of families; only works for others; doesn’t work much for others; doesn’t work at all for others.

The theology is extremely family-friendly – when interpreted liberally. It is extremely family-unfriendly when interpreted conservatively and with hardcore exceptions – like when homosexuality is part of a family.

I guess I better open the door again, if my last comment closed it. 😳

I think a HUGE part of how family friendly the Church is for most families, in practical terms, depends on the local leadership FAR more than the global church. Pres. Packer has said more than once, in different ways, that the Church is supposed to support families – not the other way around. However, when push comes to shove, it’s far too easy for local leaders to ignore that and try to do everything imaginable in the name of helping people and, instead, end up burdening them.

I hate to say this, but when I hear about the family aspect of our religion, I believe it is partly to engender commitment to the church, to help the church achieve its goals, reduce church spending, and fuel membership growth.

Think about it — married couples with children tend to have more free time to devote to church pursuits (if they choose). Single parents have the responsibility to perform as much internal family work as couples do and therefore have less time to devote to church service than married couples.

Research has shown that married couples tend to have an easier financial experience than single parents, although I’m sure there are exceptions (and this is no way a criticism of single parents). This means less burden on the fast offering funds. Families that stay together don’t disrupt the potential for family growth that typifies marriage; individuals who experience divorce or remain single tend to have fewer children. Therefore, family stability tends to create organic (internal) growth within the church. The strong cultural value that you should start having children early in your marriage also encourages commitment to the marriage, as does the temple ceremony. I read one blog post that indicated men who get married in the temple and have a child early tend to stay with their marriages longer than men who do not have children early. Therefore, early marriage and child-rearing helps the church grow.

Regrettably, when I hear discussions and talks on eternal family at church, I see it as much a value that is meant to further the institution of the church as it is for the benefit of individuals. I also believe these cultural values and even the doctrine itself can encourage individuals to make unwise decisions sometimes. Many are happy, but my eyes have been opened…after my own commitment crisis…I see this self-interested side of the church as clearly as the spiritual reasons the church teaches. And it can have a high personal cost to individuals if they do not weight their personal judgment equally with the one size fits all teachings of the church.

I see a greater consciousness now that there IS diversity in family needs from talks on the pulpit.

However, I’m going to have to maintain that there is still a one-size fits all culture that attempts to assert itself regarding families — and it is widespread — observed in five different wards in two countries (in my experience). As a couple without children for 10 years, it was relatively constant –the comments about our childlessness. As someone who had trouble finding a suitable person to marry in the Mormon “mission field” of Canada (due to low Mormon population), I also received a lot of pressure and sometimes, even displeasure because I was not married. I heard the quote that BY said “unmarried men are a menace to society” a number of times. There is also strong pressure to stay married even when the marriage horse has died — Dallin H. Oaks gave a talk on that in recent years, and leaders, at one time were counseled never to advise a couple to split up. I heard that one over the pulpit several times in Canada. Also, a pervasive theme among single people is that the church programs and culture really is geared towards families to the point single people don’t always feel they belong.

These widespread cultural values do not seem to develop without conscious management from the people at the top.

We could start a debate about “what is the church” (leaders? rank and file members? the buildings? the handbook?) but I don’t want to go there. Too many years of studying the drivers of corporate culture and the management of change leave me with too much to say, and it conflicts with a subset of the membership’s perceptions very starkly. And it never ends satisfactorily…