Family Values

[a revised version of this post is at the exponent.]

I've had several conversations with individuals who continue to attend the LDS church, even though they may have serious doubts about the theological/doctrinal claims, because they like the church's emphasis on family.

It finally clicked for me (yeah, took me a while) that it was the church's particular emphasis and teachings on family that first cracked open my nice comfortable safe belief in the church.

To be specific;

I think the church's focus on gender rolls and the spiritual mandate to marry and have children are extraordinarily damaging to individuals who do not fit so nice and neatly within that lifestyle. Those who are single or childless are treated with tremendous pity, except if they are single or childless by choice, then they are the recipients of condemnation. Likewise, the church, ignoring it's own history with unconventional and controversial marriage practices, continues to promote homophobia as a way of propping up their "family values" claims (also trying to earn a place at the table of the Religious Right).

Even for those who fit nicely within the heterosexual nuclear family model, I find the church's practice of extending labor intensive callings to parents with young children a harmful tendency that particularly adds to the stress of the wives/mothers in the family. I'm remembering a conversation with a ward member who counted it as a mark of his faithfulness that he rarely had an evening that he could spend at home with his wife and kids. This remark of his was concerning a "less active" member who had stated his desire to spend evenings home with his family (selfish unenlightened man).

Particularly damaging is the teaching spread around (especially amongst the singles) that any two people can be compatible in marriage as long as they have a firm testimony of the Gospel. This rhetoric is stultifying (intentionally I'm sure) to any sort of spiritual questing/questioning as partners risks being legally and financially tied to someone with whom the only things they have in common are a bunch of children and a hefty mortgage. (Likewise, I think the imperative to not put off childbearing is an intentional step to lock couples into a situation in which it is harder and harder to get out of. Especially considering how many very very young kids at LDS collages get married within months or even weeks of knowing each other.)

And that's just the stuff off the top of my head at this moment.

So, yeah. I think the church's record on Family Values suck.

Granted, there is much about the culture and teachings that encourage strong family bonds and togetherness, but these things are not at all particular to the Church. (of course, neither is a lot of the aforementioned damaging stuff.)

Now, having said all that, if individuals (thinking here particularly of the ones I have had conversations with) find participating in the church is a good thing for their family, more power to them. And I wish them well. There are a lot worse things you could do.

(I'll do a more family-positive post later, one about how my DH and I got down on our hands and knees together to scrub each tile in our kitchen floor by hand. Whoa, that was fun!)