I wasn’t giving my children enough credit

TL;DR: I came out to my kids, and they’re awesome. So is my wife.

Sunday night, we were due to read Mormon 9 at bed time. Medium story short, we read the next chapter instead, and when DD2 asked why we weren’t reading Mormon 9, I said, “Because it’s full of hateful bull****.”

I stand by my statement, for what it’s worth. Well, maybe it’s not “full,” but it’s definitely ripe.

I didn’t want to leave that emotional bombshell undefused, so FHE on Monday night was a “Daddy talks about his faith transition” discussion. Mormon 9 turned out to be an ideal framework for it. Here’s how it went down.

First, I coordinated with DW in private. I can’t stress enough how important this was. As it happened, my take on Mormon 9 made her defensive because she’s been reading it nonliterally for so long that she couldn’t see the literal meaning without some work. Defensiveness from her during the discussion could have made the kids feel like I’ve done something wrong. DW also had great ideas; for example, that the #1 objective should be that they feel loved and safe.

I told the kids two implications of the literal meaning of the first few verses in Mormon 9. 1. If you don’t believe in Christ, it’s because you choose not to (the operative word is “deny”). 2. If you don’t believe in Christ, you’ve spent your life abusing God’s laws. We talked about counterexamples to both implications (good Muslims, good atheists), and about how believing those implications can poison our relationships. Using an additional example from the Old Testament – the Lord commanding the Israelite army to kill every Amalekite man, woman and child – I pointed out how always understanding the scriptures literally can make you a worse person. They dug it.

Then we talked about DW’s nonliteral reading: broadening the idea of believing in Christ to include believing in what he did and taught. Anybody who believes in lifting, loving and healing others believes in Christ in this sense, including good Muslims and good atheists. The indictments in Mormon 9 don’t apply to them.

Obviously, I said, this didn’t explain my outburst. I had felt attacked, I told them, because I don’t believe in Christ in a literal sense. I didn’t tell them why. I identified myself as an agnostic deist and defined the term. I had to explain a few times what I don’t believe from different perspectives before it really started to sink in. The prior discussion set me up to tell them that I do believe in Christ in a nonliteral sense – that I believe in lifting, loving and healing.

DD1 wasn’t surprised at all. (She already knew I don’t accept the Book of Mormon as a literal history.) The rest of them were. DW and I asked them a few times throughout the discussion how they felt, and whether they had questions. They took it surprisingly well: no tears, no blame, no anger. Nothing negative, really. Nobody had questions, though DW brought up eternal marriage and I said I hope we’re together but I don’t think the Church has any special authority to make it happen. I said they probably would have questions later, and that they could ask either of us – but that DW would likely direct questions about what I believe and why to me.

We assured them that things aren’t changing: I’m still the Primary pianist, I’m not going to go out drinking, etc. Most of all, we assured them that I’m still the same person, and that I love them. Well, one thing will change: I’ll occasionally bring up challenging ideas. As a believer, I used to avoid thinking about certain things. It turns out that most of them aren’t worth thinking about, but a few of them really are, and I think it’s important to discuss them.

DW talked me up a bit: I’m thoughtful and deliberate, and put in a lot of work to come to my conclusions. Also that I respect her beliefs, and that she respects mine.

We asked them to keep it all between us: not to tell people at Church or even extended family. Again, Mormon 9 helped: I could name specific people in the ward who are good people, but who are unlikely to understand because they almost certainly believe black-and-white ideas like those in the literal reading of Mormon 9. (Maybe it really is inspired!)

We told them how much we love them and feel fortunate to be their parents. Hugs all around.

I feel like a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders. It was comprised of a hundred little things. One example: if they notice that I hardly ever volunteer to pray, they can figure out why instead of worrying about it or putting my wife on the spot.

If there’s a moral to this, I suppose it’s “Don’t underestimate what your kids can handle, especially if you break the news as a couple and are united in love.”