Mothers in Zion - why they're leaving

[moksha]

This is from a poster at Discuss Mormonism. I thought it would be of interest here.

This weekend, my wife had a couple of friends over after a Sunday morning walk. Both of these women have stopped attending church within the past year, while their husbands remain active. They each have kids (pre-teens and teenagers). The event-path for each has been stressful, to say the least. Anyway, I jokingly asked if they had listened to the conference on their walk, and within a few moments, the topic of journeying out of Mormonism came up. I found myself outnumbered. So naturally, being trained as a Mormon priesthood holder, I asserted my privilege to start asking them questions. I led with something like, "Why does it seem like the church is suddenly losing its best women?" I guess that hit a nerve. So much came out at once. My wife joined in, sharing things I'd never heard her say before. Sensing a gift of knowledge at hand, I pulled out a notepad and pen. This made everyone laugh at first but also served as a catalyst. What followed was one of the most illuminating conversations of my adult Mormon life.

This is a summary of what I learned -- why the church is losing its women. Or, why mothers in Zion are leaving. Reassembled from my shorthand notes.

1. Feminism 2.0. Call version 1.0 the 1970s-1990s. Feminism 1.0 backfired spectacularly for outspoken women in the church. Remember when Packer declared feminism one of three great evils? Girls and women in the church were taught to be quiet sustainers, to diminish their identities outside Mormonism. No careers, stay busy in church community (free labor), stay busy raising kids and homemaking (more free labor). Women had no choice, no alternative. Men had power and status outside the church - professional identities. Women were trained to see themselves as being nothing without the church, without church service and church community. But today, women have professional opportunities. They have an online community, places where stories just like theirs are shared, analyzed, and retold on social media. The information age is allowing women to share, learn meet, and be seen. It is "totally exploding." The idea that boys are trained to have power and authority while girls are trained to diminish themselves is old-fashioned, and more mothers are refusing to pass that on.
2. Shame. Mothers in the church also beginning to realize they don't have to pass on the pain they felt as girls, when boys were taught they would have power and status, while girls were trained over and over to see themselves as bad: their legs are bad, their boobs are bad, their shoulders are bad. They have worth only if they keep those bad parts hidden and untouched. A man could go inactive, do whatever the hell he wants, then come back, repent, and become bishop with a "refined testimony." A woman who did those things would be lucky if any man would have her, no matter how much repentance. Lifelong fear-mongering about finding a good husband. The shame and fear-based teaching of youth has to end - it does actual harm. More and more mothers are learning about shame (i.e., Brene Brown) and just saying "I will not teach my kids that way."
3. Pushed too far. Ward funding was cut and cut again from the 1980s to today, but leaders expect good events, good food, at-home reminders, event drivers, modesty police, and motivational support to get the youth to attend events. But, the "offering" is less and less valuable for development and expansion, relative to what's available elsewhere. Lame activities. Expansionary outings were replaced with hangouts and firesides at Brother Leadership's house. Mothers feel pushed harder than ever, with fewer resources than ever. It is breaking down. Instead of the church providing quality experiences FOR kids, it feels like the church is more transparent than ever that it just expects mothers to incubate and prepare kids who will be used BY the church. FSY, new youth programs, all the reinvented ways for the church to give less and ask for more, endlessly tiring.
4. Safety. The systematic hiding of abuse, the NDAs, and settlements, all hidden and unreported to the public or even within wards, is so angering. No background checks. They've known about these problems for years and kept it hidden. Destroyed trust, so angering.
5. Mental health. The internet is also beginning to reveal the full scope of mental health problems caused by missions. It used to be said a missionary would come home, after a mental break, they're an exception and maybe (probably) they weren't following the rules. Now we can see that these young missionaries are pushed to the point of breaking before being allowed to go home. Letting missionaries call home weekly is a result of it. But it is a risk to send kids on a mission and there is NO guarantee that the church or mission president will put your kid's mental health ahead of their/his goals. Another thing where women have been forced to step towards saying, "No, I will not support that for my children."
6. Preemptive LGBTQ protection. More and more women are asking themselves when their kids are young or even before they have children, "if my child isn't straight, will I put my child first or the church first?" The answer is obvious: no mom wants to set a member of her family up to be potentially rejected. Making that choice preemptively. Another thing fewer mothers will stand for. ANOTHER THING.
7. Gender debate resonates. Women see themselves in the church's gender war. LGBTQ are more relatable than men because they are both marginalized groups who are treated badly. People with less important ideas than straight men. More women have developed deep empathy for the way the church says one thing, but does something completely different in practice, in belittling ways (pretending to elevate while doing anything but).
8. Patronizing patriarchy. Finally, mothers in Zion are beginning to see the lifelong harm in having their boys trained up to be patronizing toward women, not to see them as whole people with unique dreams -- autonomy, career -- beyond mothering. The church, when it comes down to it, still wants women to suppress their identities and become certain types of mothers to be valid people. Men have inherent status, even if they do very little in the church. Women are always hustling for their value. More mothers realize, looking at their boys, how this intrinsic identity outcome harms a boy's ability to develop empathy for women, to see them as equals, and to engage in healthy, equal, communicative relationships. As a result, mothers are finding a foundation for saying "no" to the priesthood construct behind it.

Well, this is a lot to process. So much feels like interconnected, layered trauma. Writing it down here has helped organize pages of scattered notes, for which I am grateful. I hope it is helpful to others.

[Advocate]

Interesting list!

As a man, I feel that the church is unhealthy for anyone that doesn't fit the mold. It makes sense that women are more empathetic, and often feel like part, of that group that doesn't fit the mold.

As a NOMer, I want to know how I can get my wife to start talking to those women!

[Red Ryder]

Interesting list!

As a man, I feel that the church is unhealthy for anyone that doesn't fit the mold. It makes sense that women are more empathetic, and often feel like part, of that group that doesn't fit the mold.

As a NOMer, I want to know how I can get my wife to start talking to those women!

Have her start listening to the At Last She Said It podcast!

Cynthia and Susan are both active members who started a podcast for women. They eloquently discuss all of these issues. My wife started her journey down the rabbit hole around the same time she found the podcast from a friend recommendation. They have expanded into monthly Zoom meetings where 300+ women join and openly discuss why and how they are giving themselves permission to do things their own way. If you are interested, I would be happy to gift you a subscription to their paid content which includes access to Substack and a discussion board they call Friday Chat. PM if you are interested. In the meantime, start listening to their podcast to get the feel and then find a way to get Eve to partake!

Here’s episode 5 from season 1. It’s so he one that hooked the wife.

https://atlastshesaidit.org/episode-005 ... hurch-bag/

[Red Ryder]

There is currently a wave of Mormon women redefining how they choose to interact with the church.

Here is an excellent article

https://open.substack.com/pub/atlastshe ... paign=post

The Mormon Boy Crucible: A Mother’s Lament
by Mer Monson

In yet another summer of endless missionary farewells
and homecomings, I’m grateful for this space to express, out loud, a storm that’s moving through me.
Even in the face of ever-evolving deconstruction and nuance, my hubby and I have fully engaged with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints our entire lives. We have both served as full-time missionaries and in nearly every other calling over the past 35 years, including raising our three boys from all the way on the inside.
Five years ago, my oldest son, after nine months of internal wrestling, chose not to serve a mission. Even with the unconditional space we tried to create for him, it took him a long time to say no to something he did not feel was right for him. At one point in the struggle he said, “Mom, I just wanna be a good guy.” His words broke my heart. I have felt peaceful about his decision from the moment he made it.

Two years ago my second son came to us a few months before High School graduation and said, point blank, “I’m out. I don’t get anything out of church, they constantly ask me to do things that stress me out, and it’s not working for me.” This kid only draws a line when he means it. He stopped going to seminary and church and has never looked back.

My youngest son, now 18, is drawn to the huge opportunity for growth and service but is not sure he can fully get behind everything he’ll be expected to teach as a missionary. I get it, and I trust him completely to figure it out as he starts college this fall.

As I watch my third son navigate this social and cultural crucible, I feel more torn than ever. Of course I want him to fall more in love with God. Of course I want him to dive into another world, a new adventure, a rich recipe for so much learning and growth. And of course I want him to unwrap the gifts of loving and lifting so many flavors of people.

And…I worry he will miss the breadth of God’s love amidst a cacophony of beliefs, laws and rules, or get lost in corralling people to heaven and miss the astounding presence of God already here. And I loathe the thought of him being acutely pressured to see, feel and speak about himself, God, and other people as though there is only one exact way to be good, to thrive, to embody the essence of the divine.

I’ve felt everything from embarrassment to relief to pungent grief watching my sons’ friends, cousins and classmates leave and return home from missions over the past five years. I wonder if and how I went wrong. I so love that my boys have followed their own knowing even in the face of a big social cost, and I feel relief at not being pulled further into a church I already struggle to make peace with. And…I mourn the loss of belonging, friends, and a well-paved path for them overflowing with purpose and meaning. I feel burned, having given my whole life to a people and an organization that couldn’t step up, love and nurture my kids in an expansive enough way for them to receive its gifts. It cuts deep to be steeped in a faith where my beloved, intelligent, huge-hearted sons no longer belong.

Last week, in yet another round of the “Did we mess up?” conversation with my hubby, he said something that flipped my heart. “What if God’s just been turning us into the parents our boys needed us to be?” Ahhh, yes. I’m soooo grateful for all the internal shifting that’s helped me love and enjoy my sons without any church-shaped wedges between us. It is so wild to feel more peace, fun, love and friendship with my own kids than ever before and yet feel isolated, second class, deficient and off-track the moment I step beyond our sanctuary into circles of extended family, friends and church. To be honest, I feel a little insane.

My heart finally cracked last week as I sat with my middle son (in church for the first time in two years) at his best high school friend’s homecoming talk. His friend’s entire talk was about the lostness of every soul who stops going to church. I wanted to scream.

I turned to my son at the end of the meeting and said, “Hey bud, do you feel lost?” “No,” he said. I responded, “You don’t feel lost to me either. I think you’re doing awesome and exactly in the right place for you.” I saw a hint of tears in a kid who never cries.

I want to celebrate all the kids, no matter who they are or where they’re adventuring with God in their life. I want to wrap my arms around them all, even the kids who return home from their mission thinking they’ve got it all figured out. I want God to stretch us, from the inside, into a larger and larger space of revolutionary love where we can all thrive in the truth that every soul and every experience is worthy and belongs. I want a church with big enough arms to hold us all.

May there be peace, and lots of it, on the other side of this prickly, bruising, exhausting storm.

[Hagoth]

I'm seeing some of this in my ward too, including several women turning to psychedelics for emotional/spiritual healing.

[RubinHighlander]

Thanks for sharing this Moksha. I'm glad to see more members, recognizing the toxic culture of TSCC, outside all the facts against the history and dogma. I'm guessing a lot of these women will be less afraid now to ask more questions, dig a little deeper and perhaps pull on the historical and truth claim threads that quickly destroy the sweater. This is likely further accelerating membership loss.

This reminds me of the Faith Crisis report that Dieter had in his hands in 2013. Seems like that report may have fallen on def ears with the rest of the boys at the top. Might have been one more reason Dieter got demoted. Would be interesting to run that research again and see how the reasons for leaving have expanded, as shown in the post above.

https://faenrandir.github.io/a_careful_ ... s_R28e.pdf

[alas]

Thanks for sharing this Moksha. I'm glad to see more members, recognizing the toxic culture of TSCC, outside all the facts against the history and dogma. I'm guessing a lot of these women will be less afraid now to ask more questions, dig a little deeper and perhaps pull on the historical and truth claim threads that quickly destroy the sweater. This is likely further accelerating membership loss.

This reminds me of the Faith Crisis report that Dieter had in his hands in 2013. Seems like that report may have fallen on def ears with the rest of the boys at the top. Might have been one more reason Dieter got demoted. Would be interesting to run that research again and see how the reasons for leaving have expanded, as shown in the post above.

https://faenrandir.github.io/a_careful_ ... s_R28e.pdf

I think the categories will remain the same. We have feminist issues, includes all the problems with patriarchy, and those have been around in various forms for 50 years. We have LGBT+ issues, whether you start thinking about it as “what if my child is gay?” Or “what about George and Fred’s right to make their 20 year relationship legal?” Or, “My friend was shamed into suicide.” The issue is the same label. We have shame, whether it is men being shamed for normal feelings or women being shamed for having normal bodies, that ends up still being shame. History is still history. So, if you find out the truth about polygamy or the truth about the first vision, it is still history that triggers your faith crisis.

I think really why women are leaving now as compared to 30 years ago is that the church cost benefit analysis has gone into the debt category. As long as people of any gender get something out of church they are willing to overlook a lot of crap. And when you are getting something from a church, you develop loyalty that lasts even after those benefits end. But eventually that wears out. Guilt, shame, and duty work great for motivation as long as the person feels basically loved, because the positive of the love reduces the harm of the guilt and shame, and duty is really repaying what has been given to you. You have a duty to your country for the services it provides, you have a duty to your parents for raising you. But you do not have any duty to something that takes and takes and takes.

So, the church used to be a social organization the whole family participated in. That was probably more important to women than men. Women stayed for social reasons, not just for themselves but for the family. That is why there was not a massive exit of women when things shifted to the majority of women working outside the home and having other social outlets. Women looked at how important the youth program was to them growing up, and said, “I want that for my kids.” But now the youth program is not what it was in the 80s, so women took a long time before they started realizing that no one in the family is getting anything positive from church. The women’s program is horrid. They sit around and talk about old men who gave boring talks. It doesn’t meet any needs women have. The youth program is pathetic. Sacrament is boring. Sunday school is the same old same old. And sex segregated Sunday school (priesthood and RS) is just more of the same boring boring crap. The young women coming up have never had anything much good from church. They were raised by parents hanging on to the good things the church used to be in their lives.

So, where 30 years ago it really took a lot to destroy someone’s faith, now it doesn’t take near as much. There were scandals 30-60 years ago, general authorities being excommunicated, general authorities being caught telling faith promoting lies, not of the little kind of exaggerating the facts, but stories of miracles totally made up. And 60 years ago, there were people who said the “doctrine” about blacks was dead wrong and would change, but we didn’t leave the church over it. We just knew it was wrong and kept our mouths shut, so as to get on the church’s radar. Now, you have people who disagree with the church’s doctrine about LGBT and they leave. What is the difference? The difference is community.

Women just lagged a bit behind men in the leaving because community for the family is more important to women. So, I think leaving has gotten easier for a lot of reasons, not that the reasons for leaving have changed all that much. I mean, how much difference is there between racism and sexism and homophobia. All are just putting one group of people as more important to God than others. Same poison in different flavors. Shaming people is not a new thing. But when you are given reasons for pride, with road shows, pageants, music productions, then the shame isn’t as damaging. The shame isn’t new, but the lack of positive things is relatively recent.

That is part of why church leaders don’t get it. They never needed the Manti pageant to feel positive about church. They didn’t need monthly socials that were just for fun, say getting together for bbq, with no churchy message. They didn’t need to perform in Jesus the Christ to make friends and learn skills and be spiritually fed. So, not needing all those extras themselves, they canceled them as too much work and expensive. So, they slowly killed the community, the culture, and the pride in being Mormon. Now they can’t understand why all these things that have always been there, like measuring the YW’s skirts and shaming them for being walking porn, are causing people to leave. Gee, they did that 50 years ago and women didn’t leave the church over it.

Also, it is easier to leave because Internet gives you people to talk to in ways that didn’t exist 20 years ago. So, you can throw out there, “I am uncomfortable with the endowment.” And someone is going to say, “me too.” So instead of being alone and thinking you are the only one who feels that way, you find that you are not crazy, but there is a real problem. You couldn’t do that until the last 20 or so years.

And women are socialized more than men to internalize things, so instead of saying “this church is evil.” Women turn it inside, to “I must be evil.” And these other anonymous people you find on line tell you, “no it isn’t you. I feel the same. It must be the church.” So, women for the first time in forever are talking about some of the taboo subjects, figuring out it is the church with the problem, not me. And they are leaving.

So, the problems haven’t changed. But the reason for ignoring problems has. And the ability to talk safely about the problems has changed.

[moksha]

... are willing to overlook a lot of crap.

Like in the story, if the Golden City of Omelas is predicated on the misery of its gay children and that weighs heavily on your conscience, then it might be time to walk away from Omelas.

[alas]

... are willing to overlook a lot of crap.

Like in the story, if the Golden City of Omelas is predicated on the misery of its gay children and that weighs heavily on your conscience, then it might be time to walk away from Omelas.

The majority of people stayed in Omelas, very happily enjoying life. I should have said the majority of people are willing to overlook a lot of crap, and don’t mind that others are being hurt, until it hurts them personally. Then they realize that what they have been getting isn’t worth the cost and walk.

[Gatorbait]

Thanks for sharing Moksha, and I must say, I've enjoyed the comments on this. When I have time I will look into this further.