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My 16 year old daughter went to the local LDS Prom tonight with a Luthern date. They had a wonderful time. I checked FB to see some photos that DH had posted. I noticed another photo on my feed. It is a photo of 10 couples. All LDS youth from our ward’s very small group of youth — All at a pre-prom event at our bishop’s house. Another event that she wasn’t invited to. Too often, all the church kids — except her — get invited to a pre-party event before a church event. The pre-party events are private, held in private homes, so no one sees a reason to include her. All the other ward kids show up together still talking about the pre-party — except her. My heart aches.
Tonight, I’m trying to focus on the fact that she and her date had a very good time. That needs to be enough.
But it isn’t. And my heart and head take another step away from this church that people keep telling me is so Christian.
or, another option, have your own pre-prom activity or equivalent activity. You run the risk of nobody showing up & going to the other activity.
It is always difficult to watch our children go through these situations in life.
As adults, we can usually handle it.
Minyan Man: This is not the typical “she wasn’t invited and mommy is sad.” Hell no. I don’t play those games.
My daughter is being systematically shunned.
We have had youth events at the house and a couple of the kids, if last to be picked up, have gone out and stared at the sky for 20 minutes while waiting for their ride, rather than interact in any fashion with our daughter. She talks to someone, and they turn their backs to her. There is a long history in the ward with this kind of treatment of youth. I only know the past 10 years,but there has always been one or two who are shunned.
Our bishop had a daughter go through the youth program with similar problems. She was shunned. As a family, we did many things to make their daughter feel included when no one else in the ward would. Bishop and his wife had expressed many times how much it meant to them and their daughter that we went out of our way to make social — and other — opportunities available for their daughter. That was 4 years ago.
Now it is our daughter, and they are so focused on their younger child’s social success that they haven’t even processed that they are doing the same things that hurt their older daughter so deeply.
I feel betrayed and angry and disappointed
amateurparent wrote:
Now it is our daughter, and they are so focused on their younger child’s social success that they haven’t even processed that they are doing the same things that hurt their older daughter so deeply.I feel betrayed and angry and disappointed
Easy to see why this feels like the last straw. You expect adults to be part of that village that it “takes to raise a child,” but they lose sight of their responsibility. I’m really sorry. What does your daughter say about it all?
My daughter rarely checks FB. Reddit is more her thing. I haven’t told her. I don’t plan to.
What bothers me the most about this, is that it is at the Bishop’s house. This makes it an “official shun”. That bothers me… I think I get it. We are a very active family in the community but less so in the church. My kids are 10 and 8. We arrange play dates for them. Although we have had play dates at our house with half a dozen different LDS kids it has so far not been reciprocated. I believe that this is because many of the young families in the ward have a clique (I use that word to designate a tightly knit and small social group) that is meeting their children’s social needs so that they do not need to look outside of it. Some others have large families where the children play mostly with brothers and sisters. Still others are just “homebody” families that seem content not socializing much.
My personal solution has been to diversify my children’s social network. Just because the LDS families are not inviting my kids over does not mean that nobody is. We therefore spend more time cultivating and growing our family’s and children’s social relationships with non-LDS families.
As somewhat of a related topic – I really dislike how the church goes about advertising events. The father and son campout is a big one for me. For several years I didn’t even know it was happening. Last year I caught wind of it and had to go hunt down people to tell me the details. This year I knew it was coming up and have therefore went looking for the exact dates, etc. Suppose I were an investigator or an inactive member. Would this not be a great opportunity to get me to socialize with other church members in a non-church setting. Wouldn’t we want to make it easier for people like that to attend? Maybe with posters or a bulletin board in the church, an announcement in the SM pamphlet, or something on the ward website. Perhaps we could meet together at the church at a certain time and organize a carpool for those that need transportation. As it stands, it is on the stake calendar and people are on their own to find out about it and to get there. In general, I believe that people in the “in-group” already know about it and not much thought is given to those that are not in that group.
This is wrong. It is that simple.
Fortunately, it isn’t universal – and probably wouldn’t happen in most wards. Unfortunately, it sucks even though it isn’t the norm – probably even more so, in a way.
So what exactly is an LDS Prom? If it is put on by the church, why does the church feel the need to compete with (or provide an alternative to) the school prom?
If the LDS Prom is a church event why then would anyone feel the need to have a pre-LDS prom party? Would that be akin to hosting a pre-stake youth dance party? Am I missing something?
Ann wrote:Easy to see why this feels like the last straw. You expect adults
Even cropped like this, this statement is a disturbingly accurate description of the problem a lot of us have with the Church.
We expect adults. Instead, we find junior high clique politics everywhere.
Roy wrote:So what exactly is an LDS Prom?
It’s like a regular church dance where they put up decorations and ask people to come dressed in formal attire, probably in the spirit of competing with a school prom. Not in the sense of doing it on the same night as a school prom and asking people to attend the LDS “prom” instead but in the sense that the church prom will be viewed as a more wholesome activity when juxtaposed with the school prom.
NightSG wrote:Ann wrote:Easy to see why this feels like the last straw. You expect adults
Even cropped like this, this statement is a disturbingly accurate description of the problem a lot of us have with the Church.
We expect adults. Instead, we find junior high clique politics everywhere.
Yes.
It must be tough being a kid in the information age. I’d rather not have a record on public display of all the things I wasn’t invited to as a kid (and even as an adult today
:crazy: ).Mormon Prom is an attempt to avoid the evils of regular prom – you know, stuff like exposed skin and making out that the kids see every day at school, anyway. Old-Timer wrote:Mormon Prom is an attempt to avoid the evils of regular prom – you know, stuff like exposed skin and making out that the kids see every day at school, anyway.
Yeah, I missed my prom because my date couldn’t stay in her dress long enough to get there. So they’d be protected from influences like me anyway.
(Well, unless they also skipped prom to go down by the river and…uh…do stuff.)
Had to get her back in the dress later and take a couple of pics in front of a nondescript red brick wall that looked close enough to what the HS had so we could tell our parents we went. Fortunately nobody ever asked why she looked like she’d been…uh…doing stuff in a river and then shoehorned back into her dress, though I’m pretty sure it didn’t fool my mom and hers didn’t care either way. I think her mom actually hoped I’d get her pregnant and stick around, since I would’ve been the first potential suitor with a job, no other kids and no serious drug addictions. Also the first serious one less than five years older than her.
The LDS prom seems like a fun less-pressure alternative from what I can see. Twilight author Stephanie Meyer hosted it in my stake last year, and the kids that went had a blast. It’s more of a friend prom, and they did fun stuff after like AZ Air Time (one of those jumping gyms). Most of the kids just went as friends rather than GF/BF. Although I was pleased that my son decided to go to (real) prom last minute this weekend, just with a group of friends, no date. I think I scared him by telling him I skipped mine. I should have gone with my best guy friend who asked me, but I didn’t want it to be weird. Insecurity held me back. I should be clear: I have no problem with LDS Prom for most people who go. I just don’t like the “avoid the evil people” rhetoric.
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