Looking for advice

[Anonymous]

I’m looking for advice from those of you who, like me, have experienced a paradigm shift but still embrace the gospel and want to raise your families in the church. Sorry it’s book-length…

I mentioned this on another thread but lately I have been struggling to find a balance with my parenting. I want to provide my children with some innoculation against those things that blindsided me as an adult and prompted a crisis of faith. As we study the scriptures and discuss the gospel at home, I teach them unvarnished truth with my current understanding of why things happened as they did. They know Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage and that he translated the BOM by looking into a seerstone and that for much of the translation the plates weren’t even in the room. They’ve heard apologetic responses (goood ones and bad ones) to common questions and they know that the church and all the people within are works in progress. In short, they are being prepared in a way that I wasn’t. I want them to be able to separate the gopel from the church in a way that I never did growing up.

Here’s the rub: I wasn’t raised this way. I was raised to believe that a divinely restored church meant that prophets were practically infallible, policies were perfect and always rooted in true doctrine, and whatever got disseminated wth church letterhead was the word of God. We simply never questioned church manuals, church leaders, or church practices.

The internal conflict of teaching my children that the institution serves A purpose but isn’t THE purpose is more than disquieting at times. But I know it would be wholly disingenuous of me to teach them that God cares about earrings, white shirts, facial hair, or merit badges. They are being told in church to associate with people who share their standards to avoid temptation and I’m explaining to them at home that my expectation is that they not avoid those people who are spiritually wounded as the Levite and Priest did but to reach out and save everyone they can with charity and compassion. No one is a service project, everyone is a brother. And I promise them that if they emulate the Lord and stay close to their Father in Heaven, they can never become contaminated or unclean by association. They are taught at church to follow the prophet without hesitation and I teach them that being a prophet doesn’t come with infallibility and that while I want them to follow the prophet as he follows the Lord, they are each ultimately responsible for their own relationship with God.

I don’t believe I am teaching them anything that is inconsistent with the standard works, and I can also present quotes from modern church leaders to support almost everything I teach them, but I also know that they are getting mixed messages between what they learn at church and what I teach them and I worry that they will have no faith in the institution of the church as a result of the inconsistency.

Any advice?

[Anonymous]

I think they will still be able to have faith in the institution of the LDS Church. But that faith will have appropriate limits rather than being the inordinate faith and loyalty that we grew up with.

[Anonymous]

I am starting to do the same thing with my children. Right now with my daughter who is 13 it’s all black and white. There are no shades of gray. She doesn’t get it. But I’m trying to do so with my 17 year old son and he gets it much better. Now I’m not sure what to do with my 19 year old on a mission. I missed the opportunity with him. I guess we’ll see what happens when returns.

[Anonymous]

There are at least two other threads in the archives that address this directly. I’ll try to find them and provide the links for you to read them and the comments.

“Raising kids” (http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=287&hilit=parenting) – 36 comments

“What to Tell the Kids” (http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=98&hilit=parenting) – 75 comments

[Anonymous]

I have some advice.

Regarding cultural things — white shirts, earrings, tatoos, merit badges — I too have a full drawer of

t-shirts on those issues. My answer is to look at it as a culture, just like any culture. You respect the culture of the group you are interfacing with. When you go to Canada, you show respect for the Canadian flag even though it may not represent your own political philosophy, when you go to the Northern states, you take off your shoes in the foyer before you enter the house (at least, that’s what we do in Canada). We don’t do it because it’s law or the gospel, we do it out of respect. Let the kids know that people in the LDS church believe that a white shirt and tie while officiating in priesthood ordinances is a sign of respect for God, and that we should respect that symbolism. Let them know that in other periods of history, a robe would have been appropriate, but no more — culture has changed. I use white shirt and tie as an example, but I’m talking about all the cultural values that people get confused with the gospel.

Regarding the unvarnished truth — plural marriage, etcetera. I struggle with that now. I would teach them that unvarnished truth IF I HAD SOMETHING POSITIVE TO LEAVE IN THEIR MINDS ABOUT THE CHURCH AFTER TEACHING IT. It means imparting some stage 5 thinking this reasonable and plausible to them. Personally, my State 5 ideas are not digestible to my 12 year old daughter right now, and my younger son wouldn’t get it. So, I leave it alone. When they start asking questions, I will be there armed with my own hard earned philosophy, and will have reasons I didn’t expose it to them sooner.

[Anonymous]

Oh, I just realized that maybe I am getting through to my daughter. She said she was hopping mad the other day because a girl at school insisted that because another girl was a Mormon she couldn’t wear a cross. Well, my daughter vehemently denied that and came home and asked me to get her a cross to wear! So she IS listening and learning. :thumbup:

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the links to past threads, Ray, I will definitely be reading those!

SD,

I try to always leave things on a positive note. Usually I frame things in one of two ways: (1) Just like the Nephites, we often live preparatory laws even though, like the Nephites, we know they are not salvational. We do this because these preparatory laws point us toward Christ and eternal truths. (2) Christ taught that Moses gave a preparatory law because of the hardness of Israelites’ hearts. The policies and practices we live as a people correspond to the hardness of our collective hearts and also the world around us. Until we are all prepared to live the law of Christ, we won’t be asked to.

I think I’ve had more internal conflict over teaching my children than anything else. It helps me to work my feelings out on paper/screen, though, and I appreciate you all letting me do that. My husband is a convert to the church and he has much less of an issue detaching the gospel from the church. He never had faith in the religious institutions of his childhood and none of them claimed to be the one true church anyway.

Ultimately, I guess it all needs to fall back on my faith that God can clean up any messes I make. My kids know I love them and if I screw up, they will eventually forgive me. Plus, mission money can be used for therapy if necessary…. lol!

[Anonymous]

I had a situation the other day….I taught my kids about prayer. I mentioned that in my view, to say “Heavenly Father, thank you for this day….” in EVERY PRAYER is a vain repetition.

That was years ago that I taught that idea.

Last week my daughter comes to me and says they were talking about testimonies and how people share “they know it’s true”. My daugther piped up and said “that’s a vain repetition!!!”. The teacher was apparently a bit taken aback at her statement, and said “it’s a repetition, but it’s NOT VAIN”. My daugther maintains that it’s vain, however.

So, there is a personal consciousness developing.

[Anonymous]

I agree with Tom. LIFE is full of mixed messages, the sooner they start to deal with them head-on all the better.

[Anonymous]

mercyngrace wrote:

Here’s the rub: I wasn’t raised this way. I was raised to believe that a divinely restored church meant that prophets were practically infallible, policies were perfect and always rooted in true doctrine, and whatever got disseminated wth church letterhead was the word of God. We simply never questioned church manuals, church leaders, or church practices.

Yeah … and how did that work out for you? [rhetorical question, no need to answer]

It sounds to me like you are doing a great job MnG. It sounds like you are teaching them a realistic approach to our religion that won’t slap them in the face someday. I believe we can still be positive and teach good things to our kids. This approach has no guarantees, but of course neither did the old approach many of us are familiar with like you described above.

Do the best you can to teach your children be word, and especially by deed, how to live the Gospel. I just don’t think you can do much better than that as a parent.

[Anonymous]

In Seminary this morning (my daughter and one other girl in town in our kitchen), we were studying D&C 110 – about the visions seen by Joseph and Oliver at the dedication of the Kirtland temple. I did two things, in relation to this post:

1) I mentioned clearly that verse one describes the events as visions – NOT necessarily physical visitations.

2) I talked about how I view temple work and the endowment as an important symbolism of turning our hearts to our ancestors (since Malachi 4 is referenced in the lesson), with the endowment ceremony being a grand morality play (or movie, in most temples now) about our eternal journey toward entering the prescence of God.

They understood that – both my daughter, who has been born and raised in the Church and attends meetings almost every week, and the other girl, whose mother is a convert and who attends church only sporadically.

[Anonymous]

I kind of freaked out (on the inside) the other morning because we were reading scriptures (Alma 32-34ish) and Alma tells the poor who are cast out of the synagogue for being improperly dressed and impoverished, that they don’t need to be in the synagogue to worship God. My 12 year old said “All God really expects is for us to be a good person, right mom?” I knew he was referring to my constant emphasis on the two great commandments to love God and love our neighbors.

At that moment I realized that I risked eliminating all need for the church depending upon how I answered the question. 😯

edit: Ray, you are a saint for teaching seminary I did it for a couple of years before I had my own children and it almost convinced me not to become a mother. I had this rowdy group of teenagers with a few sullen rebels tossed in. One morning, a student made an obscene phone call from the lobby phone in our building. I heard the phone ringing and ran to answer “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, may I help you?” Silence. Then an older gentleman told me that the number had come up on his caller ID and someone had made an extremely graphic and disgusting perverted call and his wife was so shaken up she was afraid to get in her car and go to work. I explained that I knew the student and that I would handle the matter and the gentleman let it drop. But not without saying a few choice and incredulous words about a kid making this kind of call from a church. It was all I could do not to detonate on that boy’s chest… Those were a long couple of years….

[Anonymous]

mercyngrace wrote:

At that moment I realized that I risked eliminating all need for the church depending upon how I answered the question. 😯

Is it possible you are putting too much weight and value on what might just be small moments? It feels like perhaps you are over thinking a lot of this stuff. At some point, we really do have to let go and let our kids be people. That one scripture isn’t the be-all end-all of a larger picture of what the church might mean in someone’s life, for the rest of all eternity.

[Anonymous]

Brian Johnston wrote:

mercyngrace wrote:

At that moment I realized that I risked eliminating all need for the church depending upon how I answered the question. 😯

Is it possible you are putting too much weight and value on what might just be small moments? It feels like perhaps you are over thinking a lot of this stuff. At some point, we really do have to let go and let our kids be people. That one scripture isn’t the be-all end-all of a larger picture of what the church might mean in someone’s life, for the rest of all eternity.

Definitely possible. There’s context for my concerns but I’m probably worrying too much about that, too.

[Anonymous]

I meant to share this last week but got distracted and forgot about it until just now…

So I was feeling pretty nervous about the way my kids were reacting to some of what I was teaching them about the gospel. The following Sunday (8 days ago) my younger kids come home from Primary telling me they learned about Heavenly Mother and my oldest said that his SS class spent a good chunk of time discussing the age of spirits. I think I’ll stop stressing now. If they are having those kinds of discussions, what I tell them at home must seem mild by comparison. 😆

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