- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
People tend to live up to the labels we give them. I know I have — especially positive labels. But negative labels, at first, also influenced me. I also know that when I was classed as “going off the deep end” in my Ward after I stopped functioning as HPGL, I stopped caring about a lot of things, like whether my shirt was white or blue, whether I paid my tithing; and I didn’t care if I looked engaged anymore at church. I started reading, openly, with books, devices, and at one point, even used the chair next to me to sort receipts and clean out my wallet. A gospel doctine teacher called me out about it and I didn’t care. It was odd, as I am usually not that way. It wasn’t really a conscious rebellion — more of a recognition that I had been given an pejorative label, had been perceived as falling from grace, and therefore, felt like I was in a hole — one that I no longer had the effort or desire to climb out of. I guess the label of inferiority influences your willingness to use self-discipline to act in mainstream ways.
SilentDawning wrote:
People tend to live up to the labels we give them. I know I have — especially positive labels. But negative labels, at first, also influenced me.
I have a daughter who is led through life by words, non-verbal communication goes over her head more often than not. She is like me in that EVERYTHING gets translated into words. I have seen this in her since she was little (not to the degree that her brain takes it to) and I cautioned my husband when teaching her not to call her things, but to call her actions things. For example, she is not dumb – but she can, will, and did make dumb choices. At first it was hard for him and he did not understand the difference. But now that she is 7, I see the difference it makes in her behavior. She gets defiant and makes poor judgement calls, and the wind goes out of her self-righteous sails when we call her on the wisdom of her choices – while affirming who she is. It’s a lot easier to work with an extraordinary gifted girl who made unwise choices then a foolish girl. Hopefully her self-confidence will grow/stay intact through the teen years as we work together to teach the wisdom regarding wise choice-making and consequence accepting.
Those are good thoughts, Beefster – I like them! SilentDawning wrote:
People tend to live up to the labels we give them.
Very fascinating. Sometimes called the Pygmalion affect.
SilentDawning wrote:and at one point, even used the chair next to me to sort receipts and clean out my wallet. A gospel doctine teacher called me out about it
Well, what do you expect with a dozen XL condoms in there?
But really, I find that the worst stigmata in Church culture are the ones we can’t even hide effectively; convert, divorced, non-RM, etc.
Pretty sure I’ve told my own story of being treated as inferior, due to being an adult convert, and therefore not a RM, or having any family in the Church, but I struck up a conversation with a guy at a singles activity where we were both relegated to the “unworthy” table. He had been in a severe car wreck at 17, and years of recovery and PT kept him from serving a mission.
He took it as a challenge, and by that time, had successfully completed multiple triathlons, including at least one Ironman, and an engineering degree, and by all appearances was a very confident, healthy and reasonably wealthy man, (I’ll dodge the question of visual appeal, since I’m of the wrong preference to judge it effectively, but he didn’t appear to be missing any teeth, no facial scarring, etc.) but the non-RM label made him a low-value item on the Church singles market. During his mid 20s, while he was less active in the Church, he had married a non-member, but she left him when he decided to return to full activity a couple of years later. (Given that it was a mid-singles activity, 90+% of the crowd had at least one divorce behind them, so at least that stigma was pretty much nonexistent in that group.)
It was pathetic, and painfully familiar to watch him approach a woman, see her fascinated with the attention for as much as several minutes, and be able to tell from across the room when she asked him about his mission and got the unforgiveable answer.
I pondered inviting him to a non-Church singles group in the area, but (selfishly) decided I’d have a hard time getting any attention from the women there if he was around.
The strange thing about the RM stigma is that whether you served a mission doesn’t really matter in the marriage, in my view. What matters is the extent to which you meet the other person’s emotional needs and vice versa. The non-RM stigma also bothers me because it represents the church getting into your life in ways it shouldn’t. That stigma encourages men to serve missions for reasons other than the pure gospel. It encourages women to marry a resume rather than the person. It serves the interests of the church, and the church has no business interfering with that part of your life. Same with the one-year waiting period and shutting non-member family out of the temple by penalizing a civil wedding.
It’s so wrong. Get out of my relationships other than the HELP THEM in positive ways!!!!
And the church falls down on that part of it — no really good marriage preparation courses, defining extrinsic characteristics (was an RM) of good partners but no getting under the hood to help people see potential areas of conflict, how to select and identify a potentially suitable partner etcetera. LDS Social services is always booked up in spite of the considerable coffers the church could be using to expand those services. I still bear the negative effects of some of these meddlesome policies today. And at the time, I was a-hungering for good information and training on how to do it in the church. At least the catholics have it in their PREPARE inventory and counseling services…
This destigmatizing of our culture is a good topic to speak about for those of us wanting to change church culture. Or to pipe up about in classes when it’s appropriate. But you have to be careful lest you bring down the stigmatized people in the process of acknowleding such stigmas exist. I think such comments are best placed when someone entrenches the stigma with a comment. That way you are neutralizing the comment rather than raising awareness of the stigma and potentially upsetting people.
SilentDawning wrote:The strange thing about the RM stigma is that whether you served a mission doesn’t really matter in the marriage, in my view.
And yet “you will marry a RM and have ___ children” seems to be preprinted on all the patriarchal blessing forms for women.
Met more than one woman who got borderline-or-worse suicidal for a time upon finding out she was incapable of bearing children in spite of what was on her PB. Each took it as a sign she’d done something bad that she could never overcome, that caused her to lose such an important part of what she was supposed to get.
NightSG wrote:
SilentDawning wrote:The strange thing about the RM stigma is that whether you served a mission doesn’t really matter in the marriage, in my view.
And yet “you will marry a RM and have ___ children” seems to be preprinted on all the patriarchal blessing forms for women.
Met more than one woman who got borderline-or-worse suicidal for a time upon finding out she was incapable of bearing children in spite of what was on her PB. Each took it as a sign she’d done something bad that she could never overcome, that caused her to lose such an important part of what she was supposed to get.
I saw the anguish it caused my wife when for various reasons, she didn’t have children. She got flack for finding a job during that period as well, which made it even harder. I wish they would just butt out of our lives frankly. let us make our own decisions without cultural censure and back off. We had some phrases meant to make people back off. When they would ask us about children we would say “WE could talk about why we have no children, but it means we have to start talking about [insert plural form of male genetalia here] and [insert plural form of female genetalia here]. Do you want to talk about [insert plural form of male genetalia here] and [insert plural form of female genetalia here]?
They would shut up when we did that.
And it was kind of funny too to see their reactions.
NightSG wrote:And yet “you will marry a RM and have ___ children” seems to be pre-printed on all the patriarchal blessing forms for women.
My PB does not say I will marry an RM (I did btw). It actually refers to children in generic terms without a number.
Funny thing is, my husband wasn’t interested in dating a RM because we are too “bossy” and intimidating. The fact that I was a cute redhead overcame that (mostly).
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.