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Our ward has had a big push to have all the youth go to the temple once a month. The temple is an hour (at least) each way, and the whole shebang takes at least 4 hours. This has been happening for two years now. Tomorrow is another temple trip, they are meeting at the church at 6:30 a.m. (After a week of early morning seminary). My daughter has gone on every trip, but doesn’t want to go tomorrow. She wants to sleep in, have a relaxing Saturday that she rarely gets. But, the YW President told the YW that if they don’t want to go to the temple it is because Satan is trying to keep them away. If they decide not to go to the temple the are succumbing to the wiles of the evil one. Heavenly Father wants them in the temple and Satan doesn’t. Blah Blah Blah
Why must people do this to children?
Because that’s how they see it – and because it works for them. It really isn’t more complicated than that in the VAST majority of cases.
It doesnt stop with kids, I hear that from my bishop as well. To me, it reminds me of a parent I hear at the store yell at her kids, “because I said so, that’s why.”
It is an easy answer and with fear and authority can get the kids to do what they want them to do. But it is immature and does not have long term benefit to the child. Eventually the kids get old enough those responses wear off and have little to no meaning to them.
I would think your daughter should have a weekend off now and again. She needs it, if she can then return to enjoying the temple another time. But how can you ensure your child will not just always want Saturdays off and never go back? For some people, that fear makes them think it is just easier to always go go go and never take off, for fear it is a slippery slope.
As Ray said, for them…it works.
People in other churches ask similar questions: is it right for a parent to force their kid to go do church? I suppose that if a parent believed that hell existed and that going to church would keep their kid from going to hell, the parent has an ethical obligation to make their kid go to church. In LDS theology, a person can be held responsible for the apostasy of another, so people feel they have an obligation to make others go to the temple. If the YW leader really believes that Satan will get to people who don’t go to the temple and that she will be held responsible for YW who apostatize because of her negilgence, then her actions make complete sense. The hard part with this is that it will be hard to demonstrate that Satan will not get to people just for not going to the temple, so changing the YW leader’s mind will be a challenge. it works because telling children that their normal behavior is a result of satan is “fear conditioning”. it is also very manipulative and wrong. that it is commonly done is no excuse. fear, desire, and hardline dualistic thinking is the provenance of the amydala, our lizard brain. we have two of them, one specialized on fear, and the other, desire/happiness. they work in concert to consolidate memory based upon the depth of emotion. if you are fearful, the associated memories to your fears are firmly implanted in your brain. by creating artificial fear of satan, by creating a four hour “ordeal” around frequent temple experience, by conditioning children that the temple is the most joyous place on earth, your child’s YW leaders are conditioning your child to emotionally lock into the temple-ritualistic aspect of mormonism. later in life, fear of not going to the temple, of not getting married in he temple, of not being part of the TR elite, will motivate your child to the accept, without questioning, the completely illogical constructs of the mormon correlation schema.
the irony of these abusive leaders’ behavior is that the way of obligatory compliance and deception (lying about satanic influence) is exactly tye plan if Satan from the premortal existence.
as a parent, i believe we have the obligation to teach faith in the context of critical thinking. i believe it is very imortant to encourage our children to recognize manipulative behaviors, to question bogus claims of satanic influence, and to seek appropriate spiritual experience.
Quote:as a parent, i believe we have the obligation to teach faith in the context of critical thinking. i believe it is very important to encourage our children to recognize manipulative behaviors, to question bogus claims of satanic influence, and to seek appropriate spiritual experience.
I have told people before that I would rather have my children choose to do wrong than be forced to do right.
Yes, they are pushing pretty hard with this experience, for exactly the reasons you state, although they would frame it in a different context of teaching and giving them positive experiences about the temple.
rebeccad wrote:But, the YW President told the YW that if they don’t want to go to the temple it is because Satan is trying to keep them away. If they decide not to go to the temple the are succumbing to the wiles of the evil one. Heavenly Father wants them in the temple and Satan doesn’t. Blah Blah Blah
I would explain to my daughter that these are two valid possibilities, but they are by no means the
onlytwo possibilities. It is entirely possible that other valid personal needs may also keep someone from a particular temple trip. I would say “it is your choice to make” and without implying guilt I would explain that a choice to go or a choice to stay may feel right, or in the end you may wish you had chosen the other. However it works out I hope you will remember any lesson learned and apply that knowledge when faced with your next decision. wayfarer, I agree with the principle you taught in your comment completely – but not in the characterization of the leaders as liars. I was not trying to excuse that sort of black-and-white thinking as “right” in any way – but the vast majority of people in this world (inside and outside the LDS Church) are black-and-white in much of the thinking, and we need to recognize that and not condemn them for it if we want to avoid the opposite extreme. Iow, we can work to help change that mindset without categorizing those who see things in that way as liars. We need to understand the effects of that type of thinking, but we can’t swing to the opposite extreme and condemn with similarly broad, all-inclusive strokes.
Because of millions of years of social evolution. It serves to give one a survival advantage…which allows for a higher rate of reproduction. Chad Waldron
Bend Oregon Stake
In case you are curious…she ended up going because the boy she liked was going…but he slept in so he wasn’t there. Life is so funny sometimes. Oh, the curveballs life throws at us. 🙂 yeah I remember the temple trips. Up here in the Seattle area it was usually once a year for the youth. It was considered a huge deal in the gossiping circle of who wasn’t going.
I think my home ward was worse than most wards when it came to gossip. Since it was just a yearly trip people remembered who didn’t make it. 9 months later there is a new baby in the ward and the gossipers wills say ” OH well no wonder why S/HE didn’t go because they were SINNING!” People would think back to others who didn’t go and think say ” Well I wonder if those other kids were DOING the same thing. Maybe they just got lucky this time
GADGET NEXT TIME NEXT TIME!MEOW!!As if the only reason why a youth wouldn’t go to the temple is to Sin.
Why don’t the youth go to the Temple Could it be
MMMMM STATAN!!
Simma down NA! church lady that’s not the only reason.
It is unfortunate that people do think so black and white. Those of us who dare see things in color end up on websites like this
:angel: Green[/color] “> [/color] [/size] The world is complex — there are unforseen consequences for our actions, random events throw curveballs at us…people search for order and reason for the things that happen. I think the dichotomous thinking provides them a sense of comfort and order through our religion that they can’t get anywhere else. I once sat outside the bishop’s office with a gentleman waiting for this TR interview. He boiled safety in the next life down to one thing — hold a current temple recommend. As long as he had that, he knew he would be fine in the next life and felt at peace. At the time I was a traditional believer and I left feeling this sense of security that it was a simple set of rules, and a bit of conscience — that assured me of eternal life.
I now think differently, but I think this is one possible explanation for why people can be so black and white — they are looking for structure in complicated, unstructured world.
Quote:In case you are curious…she ended up going because the boy she liked was going…but he slept in so he wasn’t there. Life is so funny sometimes.
Sounds like a match made in heaven! As I recall, which boys I thought would be going figured heavily into my willingness to go on ward temple trips, and ours were all-day affairs, 2.5 hours drive each way.
People are too prone to attribute choices they dislike to unforeseen forces rather than personal choice. It’s just human nature. But people who think in black & white are also extremely prone to error.
rebeccad wrote:In case you are curious…she ended up going because the boy she liked was going…but he slept in so he wasn’t there. Life is so funny sometimes.
So…did Satan cause the boy to sleep in? Is he going to hell?
…or did he just sleep in and everything is ok?
It can be a good chance to have your daughter release the fear and realize some things are no big deal, so next time she should not feel pressured. She should do what she thinks is right, and realize it is ok to sleep in sometimes. Life goes on.
THanks for the update.
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