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As I’ve shared before, my wife is only peripherally aware of issues I have with LDS church history, and she is unaware of my changed beliefs about the church. I have had very few discussions with her about issues I have with the church and have very gently approached her about only a small portion of them. Everyone else in my life has no idea about my concerns. One of the best discussions I had with my wife on this topic was when I asked her that, hypothetically speaking, if she found out the church wasn’t true if she would still go. I told her I would probably still go and she answered basically the same. I posted on here about this discussion several months ago. However, during the most recent discussion about the topic, she asked that I do not discuss my issues with the church with her again (she asked gently, not in a “mean” or upset tone).
During this most recent discussion I told her that I had purchased “Rough Stone Rolling” and was reading it to help me with some of my concerns. She asked if it is something you could buy at Deseret Book and I told her it was which seemed to satisfy her. She has absolutely no interest in reading it.
One thing I’m struggling with right now is what to teach my children. I don’t want to have my children blind-sided by the truth when they get older and I want to teach them to search for truth. I want them to be spiritual, but more importantly I want them to be happy. I want them to understand that I would love them no matter what path they take for their own spiritual growth or that I would love them even if they didn’t want any kind of spirituality in their life.
I’m struggling with how to communicate and instill this into my children, about searching for truth, and learning about the LDS church history not typically shared at church meetings, without upsetting my wife and without doing this “behind her back”. My intent is not to steer them away from the church, but to make sure they have as much of the truth as possible and let them make their own decisions. I just don’t want to have them approach me later in life and say “Dad, you knew about this, why didn’t you tell me?” Knowing all too well the negative feelings associated with finding these things on my own, I don’t want those feelings to be a catalyst for them leaving the church.
One thing I have thought about as a starting point is to share with them some of the church essays that cover the controversial topics. I have already talked to my wife about this and she is OK with it, since it is directly from the church. I would also like to encourage them to read books such as “Rough Stone Rolling” which I have found so far to be faith-promoting.
Are there any other suggestions about how to go about this?
As I was reading through your post I was thinking “He could just share the essays and JS Papers with them” and in the end that’s what you plan to do. I endorse the idea. Maybe have family home evening type discussions about the similarities and differences between the accounts of the first vision. Maybe even analyze them – things like “Joseph describes how he saw God and Jesus but he never indicates they were actually physically there” (or perhaps guiding them to that conclusion). I don’t know how old your kids are, but I think the essays are a good place to start (unless they’re toddlers). As a side note, one of the reasons I find the essays to be so wonderful is that they’re on LDS.org – the official site. People can’t just dismiss that.
I’ve thought long and hard about this. I think your goal overall isn’t to point them to any doctrinal arena — focus on helping them be good people. Neutralize the aspects of church culture that are destructive, without hurting their testimonies. Let the exposure at church shape what they think on the spiritual issues of testimony, but be there ready to catch them if they hit their own faith crisis.
Ask yourself “how can the church help my kids be of good character?” — there are ton of programs that do this — support them to the extent you feel you can.
I wouldn’t do anything that would upset your wife, so supporting them in their exposure to Mormonism and being a supportive husband/ father in the gospel will make things easier at home. At the same time, you can be unorthodox and teach certain principles:
1. Church leaders are not always inspired; provide antidote for leader worship.
2. Speak against judgmentalism and point it out to them when they display it.
3. Be proactive in shaping their values on issues that are not black and white in the church. I do it on sabbath day, on whether to accept callings, balance between church sacrifice and personal/career choices.
4. Encourage them to pay tithing so they get in the habit of sacrificing. You can be ready to help them define what sacrifice means when they get to be adults.
5. Come up with your own philosophy of whether “a woman’s place is in the home”. My daughter recognizes that approach may be flawed for some people, and is not consumed by the idea of having children and being a stay at home mother.
6. Expose them to the more unorthodox articles like Join With Us (Uchdorft), Concern for the One (Wirthlin).
7. Teach them to not confuse culture with doctrine, or the Church Handbook with scripture. Help them learn to use the handbook wisely and not with blind obedience.
I would avoid exposing them to testimony-weakening articles and books, and steer away from the controversy, but be open about church history (like Mountain Meadows) when it comes up, but don’t destroy testimony.
They will likely come out of Mormonism believing in God, Jesus, and maybe some form of JS testimony. I wouldn’t expose them to things that nullify all three kinds of “testimony”. I wouldn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
When they become adults, you can have conversations with them about the unorthodox when you know what their own temperament is and whether such discussion is going to help, or hinder them.
I believe that just because I’m unorthodox, doesn’t mean my own children have to be. TBM Mormonism worked for me for over 20 years, and I’m not going to rob my kids the experience if they want it simply because I personaly hit a wall after almost 3 decades of Mormonism being important to me.
Teach them what you do believe, but do it in a positive framing. (“I believe xyz,” not, “I don’t believe xyz.”). It is possible to discuss what you don’t believe with that format, as in, “Actually, I believe . . .” Actually DJ got me thinking. He has a son in the mission field and to tell the truth I’d be 100% supportive, spiritually and financially, if my children decided to serve. I still see the church as a positive influence. In fact in some ways I see it much like baptism, a door that I had to enter to start down the spiritual path I’m currently on. It may not have happened had I not joined the church.
If you go back to Fowler’s stages of faith don’t you have to be in a box (stage 3) before you can start to see outside the box (stage 4)? Don’t you have to have some foundation (stage 3) to be able to return to symbolism and myths to rediscover meaning in life (stage 5?)? Can someone skip immediately from stage 2 to stage 5 in order to avoid the growing pains of stage 4? I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve largely convinced myself that the church is just fine because it fills its role in my spiritual journey. What’s good for the goose is good for the gosling.
Deepthinker wrote:I just don’t want to have them approach me later in life and say “Dad, you knew about this, why didn’t you tell me?”
I’d hate that too, but I’d probably try to explain to them why I felt it was necessary. Kind of like what heavenly father would do… only reveal something when we are ready to handle it.
Even then I wouldn’t perpetuate half-truths and I’d do my best to steer my kids in the best direction I know.
The other day my son asked me… did people used to live to be 900 years old? I told him what I currently understand to be the truth. “I don’t know” … but I did follow up in saying that some things in the bible are true, some are just stories to help us remember how to be good people. Ultimately it doesn’t matter whether something in the bible happened or not, what matters is what the stories teach us and what we do about it.
I would like to teach them to avoid blind obedience and scrupulosity. Stress personal revelation above revelation from any external source. Like… yes, the prophet said this but you need to have your own personal revelation to confirm. Something along those lines.
The real issue is that children only listen to their parents but so much. A lot of what they pick up come from peers, from the culture. I don’t know to what lengths I’d go to course correct incorrect beliefs – heck, maybe mine are incorrect and I’m the one that needs changing
I posed a very similar question when I first joined this forum. I don’t have time to find it but you can probably find it easily enough with a little searching. I got lots of good advice in that thread. DarkJedi wrote:As I was reading through your post I was thinking “He could just share the essays and JS Papers with them” and in the end that’s what you plan to do. I endorse the idea. Maybe have family home evening type discussions about the similarities and differences between the accounts of the first vision. Maybe even analyze them – things like “Joseph describes how he saw God and Jesus but he never indicates they were actually physically there” (or perhaps guiding them to that conclusion). I don’t know how old your kids are, but I think the essays are a good place to start (unless they’re toddlers).
As a side note, one of the reasons I find the essays to be so wonderful is that they’re on LDS.org – the official site. People can’t just dismiss that.
Anything from Deseret Book or LDS.org I know my wife will be fine with. My children are 17, 15, 13, 10, and 7. So, at least the teenagers would be OK to have these discussions. In fact, I recently had a discussion with my teenage daughter about racism, the n-word, and the church’s priesthood ban.
SilentDawning wrote:I’ve thought long and hard about this.
I think your goal overall isn’t to point them to any doctrinal arena — focus on helping them be good people. Neutralize the aspects of church culture that are destructive, without hurting their testimonies. Let the exposure at church shape what they think on the spiritual issues of testimony, but be there ready to catch them if they hit their own faith crisis.
Ask yourself “how can the church help my kids be of good character?” — there are ton of programs that do this — support them to the extent you feel you can.
I wouldn’t do anything that would upset your wife, so supporting them in their exposure to Mormonism and being a supportive husband/ father in the gospel will make things easier at home. At the same time, you can be unorthodox and teach certain principles:
1. Church leaders are not always inspired; provide antidote for leader worship.
2. Speak against judgmentalism and point it out to them when they display it.
3. Be proactive in shaping their values on issues that are not black and white in the church. I do it on sabbath day, on whether to accept callings, balance between church sacrifice and personal/career choices.
4. Encourage them to pay tithing so they get in the habit of sacrificing. You can be ready to help them define what sacrifice means when they get to be adults.
5. Come up with your own philosophy of whether “a woman’s place is in the home”. My daughter recognizes that approach may be flawed for some people, and is not consumed by the idea of having children and being a stay at home mother.
6. Expose them to the more unorthodox articles like Join With Us (Uchdorft), Concern for the One (Wirthlin).
7. Teach them to not confuse culture with doctrine, or the Church Handbook with scripture. Help them learn to use the handbook wisely and not with blind obedience.
I would avoid exposing them to testimony-weakening articles and books, and steer away from the controversy, but be open about church history (like Mountain Meadows) when it comes up, but don’t destroy testimony.
They will likely come out of Mormonism believing in God, Jesus, and maybe some form of JS testimony. I wouldn’t expose them to things that nullify all three kinds of “testimony”. I wouldn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
When they become adults, you can have conversations with them about the unorthodox when you know what their own temperament is and whether such discussion is going to help, or hinder them.
I believe that just because I’m unorthodox, doesn’t mean my own children have to be. TBM Mormonism worked for me for over 20 years, and I’m not going to rob my kids the experience if they want it simply because I personaly hit a wall after almost 3 decades of Mormonism being important to me.
Some excellent advice, thank you SD. I do want to expose them to some unorthodox things, but not to the point that it could weaken their testimony.
Like you, I would be just fine if my children aren’t as unorthodox as me.
nibbler wrote:
Deepthinker wrote:I just don’t want to have them approach me later in life and say “Dad, you knew about this, why didn’t you tell me?”
I’d hate that too, but I’d probably try to explain to them why I felt it was necessary. Kind of like what heavenly father would do… only reveal something when we are ready to handle it.
I really like this advice, thank you. The only issue is trying to determine when they are ready to handle it.
I guess I will know when they are ready, if I start out with a gentle approach exposing them to unorthodox beliefs and certain aspects of church history.
Daeruin wrote:I posed a very similar question when I first joined this forum. I don’t have time to find it but you can probably find it easily enough with a little searching. I got lots of good advice in that thread.
Thanks Daeruin, I will look for it.
By the way, regarding Mountain Meadows, I have actually taught the older children about the history of this already. Not everything, but the basics, with some of my thoughts about it. We have visited the site a few times. In fact, my father-in-law is related to John D. Lee, so there is a genealogy aspect to learning about Mountain Meadows for us.
Deepthinker wrote:Some excellent advice, thank you SD. I do want to expose them to some unorthodox things, but not to the point that it could weaken their testimony.
Like you, I would be just fine if my children aren’t as unorthodox as me.
Last night DW said that she could see our children leaving the church. 8 yr old DD is too outspoken and 6 yr old DS is already saying that he can’t believe in a God that he can’t see.
They may leave the church and that will be OK. I hope that the principles that we parent with will be just as true and valuable regardless of religious affiliation.
I cannot parent based on fear that my children won’t choose my path – especially when there are multiple worthy paths to choose from.
:thumbup:
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