February | 2019 | Not Pinterest Worthy

I Finished Watching The Keepers

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I finished watching The Keepers this week. I started it last summer when we were still really wading through our rough patch trying to navigate all the changes in our life. I had a bit of a meltdown at my husband after episode three which subsequently triggered a much-needed hard conversation. It was good, and we got through it pretty well, I think, but I had to stop watching the show. It was just too much at that time. Six months later, I was able to finish it without getting stuck in the rough emotions it brings up. (For those that are completely in the dark, The Keepers is a documentary about the murder of a nun that ended up being wrapped up in some pretty severe abuse in the Baltimore Catholic church.)

I had a thought when I first started watching this, and it’s something that I’m not sure that a lot of people understand. I don’t even know if I can communicate in a way that will be clear enough to shift perspectives, but I’ll try. This story follows several women who tried to prosecute their abuser who happened to be a priest. One of the women, Jean, begins telling her story by outlining her family history and how she had these amazing, devout parents who were truly good and god-fearing people. She then goes on to chronicle her absolutely unbelievably horrific abuses within that Catholic faith. These were experiences where the power invested in the church had been used as the most evil and vicious weapon against this then child. I vividly remember watching this last year and having this crystal clear realization that Jean’s church was not her mother’s church and that she could never have the pure and positive experience with Catholicism that her mother experienced – it had become a poisoned well for her.

I talk to a LOT of people. People share their abuse stories with me. People share their struggles with faith with me. I think that many people do not understand what it is to navigate these experiences, and there are narratives built up around them that, while they serve to shield the teller, are really hurtful and untrue. Jean’s story is quite extreme – it goes way beyond anything I have to deal with in my daily life. Still, it illustrates so clearly that not every environment is good for every person. Jean struggles and works her entire life to connect with divinity in a way that feels safe and supportive, but it absolutely, unequivocally cannot be in the Catholic church. There are too many devils there for it to be God’s house for her – ever.

Life is NOT one-size-fits-all. More than anything else, I think most people want to share their stories with others. They want to be heard. They want to have the freedom to choose paths that are healthy and productive and whole for them. They want to do this and still have family and friends see the bigger picture with compassion and understanding and love.

I think so many people look at other people’s lives from the outside in and think, “Gosh, I feel so sad for them because they are giving up something that is so important/fulfilling/helpful to me, and I want them to have that, too.” I understand that sentiment and where it comes from. But, please understand that you are interpreting their choices through your lenses. Another approach I hear a lot is the idea that, yes, these things are hard/wrong, but XYZ Belief System is the only way and so you just have to suck it up and push through and keep dancing with the devils until God sorts it out. The simple fact is that being healthy when your background includes significant trauma is incredibly difficult in the most supportive environments, and each person’s individualized experience requires unique and creative solutions that often include thinking outside the box. Going against your entire culture to achieve that isn’t the easy way – it’s actually quite traumatizing itself, and you have to be pretty over paying a high price to maintain that status quo to be brave enough to do it anyway.

I do not inherently have an issue with religion. I don’t think Catholicism is bad any more than I think Mormonism is bad. They are very positive parts of many people’s lives. Still, that is not the case for everyone. You don’t have to wear someone else’s shoes to acknowledge that as understandable and valid. You don’t have to get comfy on their bench to concede that is seems truly healthy for them. You don’t have to give up your belief to love someone who has had to let that go. You don’t even have to be sad that they choose different priorities than you do. I believe God is big enough for all that. Are we?

I Hope I Live Like I Am Dying

I just could not get my thoughts together today. I have so much on my mind, and I was struggling to do it justice. I had almost a whole post written this morning, and it flat refused to coalesce. It’s still sitting there. I spent a lot of time this week really diving into relationships and exploring in my head what they mean to me. This isn’t the first time I’ve thought on this topic, but I was really chewing on what I want it to look like when I pass away. I know. That’s maybe morbid, especially considering the fact that I’m just settling into midlife at 41. But, you know, midlife crisis and all that.

I have a couple different groups of good friends that I spend a good amount of time with socially. I had two different girl’s nights close together last summer, and my 11-year-old asked who I was going out with. When I answered, “My friends,” his reply was, “Which ones? You have a ton.” I sat in that space for a minute just feeling so much gratitude for that statement. This hasn’t always been the case, but my life over the last 10 or so years has developed such a richness in this area.

This week was a good one for this to pop up. My husband spent some time helping take care of the belongings of a man from church that passed away and really had very few connections. He’s virtually a stranger to my very friendly husband, and it really struck him how sad it would be to leave this world without a full life in your wake. I spent last weekend away with some girlfriends, had a play date today with another friend and her girls and spent numerous hours connecting with a high school friend (really, more of a brother) around his writing. It isn’t necessarily common for me to engage so much in such a short amount of time, but, man, it was so good! These people and many more like them deeply enrich my life. I feel blessed beyond measure that they choose to share their journeys with me. They are all so different, and we have different things in common, but that fact is really one of the things that makes it all so meaningful to me.

So, when I die, what do I hope? I hope, first and foremost, that my kids will come together in love without drama or hard feelings or hatred. I know that can be such a hard one for families, and I hope to have raised my kids to be kind, loving and forgiving people that overlook small slights in favor of the bigger picture. I hope that they recognize how hard their father and I have worked to launch them well and carry the tools we gave them into their own successful and flourishing families. I hope they learn by example what we have fought so hard for.

I hope that I am widely missed. I’m not under the illusion that every person who crosses my path will be awestruck and heartbroken, but I hope that my character shines through and that the majority of people who met me remember me as a good person who had integrity, kindness and love.

I hope that my friends grieve me deeply. (I’m just assuming that my husband will go first. He’s 5 years older, and women live longer.) I hope that I am there for them when they need me and they know that I tried to show up as my best for the relationships that meant the most to me. I hope that I hold the confidences they trust me with as a sacred honor and never betray that. I can be careless and selfish and imperfect, but I hope that my actions reflect the fact that my love for them was stronger than that, and I truly tried to give them as much as they brought me.

I hope that even my acquaintances remember me as generous – someone who would take some time for you if I could and offer a skill or a hand or an answered question for something I had knowledge of. I hope they see me as impeccably honest.

I’m not all these things today, I’m most sure. But, I sincerely want the world, even if it’s just the small part I travel in, to feel it as a loss when I’m no longer here. I want my life to be rich and full and meaningful and to leave a hole where I once stood because I didn’t just breathe, I LIVED. Out loud. Fully. Completely. Deeply. Without apology. But, with love. Above all, with love. This is what I want to be when I grow up, and luckily, I have a good 40 more years to get there. It might be just enough time, I think. I hope.

FAQ on Escaping Polygamy

Because of our connection with the Escaping Polgyamy episode that I blogged about a month or so ago, I have wanted to address some of the FAQs around this episode for a while. I guess today gets to be that day. Like I have already said, I can’t speak to all the circumstances that are portrayed, but I can offer some behind-the-scenes insight into the AUB with some of the false narratives that the show perpetuated. Shall we?

Was the featured family in danger from their church/community/the wives’ family?

No. Not only that, I don’t even believe they felt they were in any danger. Living in their community had become uncomfortable because the husband in this story had made bad business deals, taken advantage of people and just generally stopped interacting in a way that promoted neighborly feelings (lied, stolen, failed to keep commitments with no communication.) He was in hot water on multiple fronts (including a legal dispute with his non-member brother over ownership of the home they moved from) and wanted a quick and easy out. In addition, his wives come from a very close-knit family, and he wasn’t a huge fan of what he felt to be too much influence there. I’ve always found him to be very controlling and personally feel that if the wives are in any danger, it’s from him.

How hard is it to leave the AUB? How do people generally leave this group?

Most people quietly move away or just stop attending. While there is definitely cultural pressures to stay and comply with the lifestyle expectations, there’s no overt threat employed to ensure people do. In fact, if you want to go back to one of the earliest episodes featuring the AUB, they set up a scenario where the “young girl” was getting “picked up at church” to get away when this woman had left the church years before. (They showed the hosts “helping her shop for new clothes” when the reality was she had not only piercings and tattoos but a baby and had never worn a prairie dress as anything more than a costume. She certainly didn’t need help shopping for “regular clothes.” Please understand that I don’t care about the tattoos, piercings or the baby, but am merely illustrating that she left the church as a teenager on her own volition.) I still live right in the middle of a predominantly AUB community. I have never felt in danger in any way. My neighbors are still kind to me, and my kids still play with their kids freely.

Didn’t he imply that the church could take his wives?

Anyone can pressure anyone else to leave their spouse, and it happens here on occasion (and is wrong) in the same way that it would anywhere else, but “taking spouses” and “reassigning wives” does not happen in AUB culture. That’s just not a thing. If the family wanted to stay together, there is nothing anyone in the church could do to stop them outside of advising them that they think it’s not a good choice.

Is there an AUB militia?

This assertion that the husband in this episode made is based on a half-truth. Like many mainstream Mormons and even Christians, fundamentalists are apocalyptic in their beliefs. Jesse belonged to a church-sponsored preparedness group for a time that practiced self defense, first aid and community protection in the event that the world fell apart. (There are lots of similar, private groups among the mainstream LDS church membership, especially in our area.) Their approach was always defensive in nature with the main goal of being able to safely move people from other in-danger communities to safer, more rural areas like ours when things collapsed. The group was completely disbanded about 3 years prior to the show’s filming when new leadership took over and no longer exists, to my knowledge, in any fashion. His claim that this survival group was partially to control members and they were coming after him for turning on them is a blatant lie.

Is there a God Squad??

This was probably the funniest untruth in this whole show to me. There is nothing that could even be construed or rebranded as a God Squad. We have nosy neighbors that will probably peek out their windows if you drive through our subdivision, but that’s about it. The vehicle they showed that they said was watching them is an old, dead International Scout that belongs to my pack-rat neighbor. It literally had not moved from the spot they filmed it in on the side of my road for as long as I’ve lived here. We live in a regular subdivision with a public, county road running right through it. All our houses are privately owned and there are no church spies. (We have a very tall fence, but that’s because the freaking deer eat everything in sight if you don’t set up defenses. Ha ha ha!)

Was there a gun pointing at the family when they were moving?

I addressed this in a my first post, but the short answer is no. Absolutely not. This was a pretty disgusting lie, and not just because it implicated my family. Though they have plenty of actual problems, the AUB is arguably the most peaceful, mainstream, open-minded and non-violent fundamentalist group. Nobody I know would have ever done such a thing, and we certainly did not. The fact that he targeted this claim at my home is ironic considering the pretty public disagreement I have with the church. I have zero motivation to protect the public face of the AUB at this point. But, I do care about my friends and neighbors. They’re good people.

Was anything this episode said true?

There were a lot of cultural things that were portrayed fairly, in my opinion. Polygamy is difficult for the staunchest believers, and that was discussed in a way that wasn’t dishonest. Whether or not I think Jesse was genuine in his criticisms is another thing and really just my perspective based on our long-time acquaintance and my pretty low opinion of his personal integrity.

What did this family get for being on Escaping Polygamy?

I don’t know what all the arrangements for financial compensation were. At the very least, their moving expenses were covered, and the show secured and paid for 6 months of housing for the family with separate homes for both wives. Upon their move, they were completely isolated and disconnected from their families, though they have since reestablished contact.

What’s your opinion on the show in general and the work the hosts do?

I have kind of mixed emotions about this. I definitely believe that no one should feel trapped and that everyone should have resources should they make a choice to move on. I believe that there are some circumstances where these women do a lot of good and provide an out, and I applaud those efforts insomuch that the stories are true as presented. Still, the fact that I have first-hand knowledge of dishonesty and the perpetuation of stereotypes with an agenda makes me really question their motives and the truthfulness of anything they present. I believe that the show’s producers, hosts and other crew knew that they were creating narratives that weren’t actually, ahem, reality. I think that is kind of a shame. There is enough complexity surrounding fundamentalist culture that just telling a story without embellishment is compelling enough – there’s really no need to lie.

Again, I do not intimately know the ins and outs of all fundamentalist communities. I can communicate what is generally considered to be credible rumor that circulates among the spectrum of fundamentalism about the hierarchical structures involved, and I can say what I know to be true of the AUB by direct experience. I will not claim that Escaping Polygamy is all a lie, but I can say unequivocally that it is most definitely not all the truth. At the very least, take it with a grain of salt.

Just Say No to Amateur Surgery!

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Happy Valentine’s Day!! I hope you’re enjoying your day with your loved ones, showering them with gifts and kisses. My amazing husband brought me breakfast in bed (a bowl of cereal, y’all!), and I’m leaving tomorrow for a weekend away…with my girlfriends. Ha ha! My 7-year-old quizically said, “Oh, is it Valentine’s today??” So, that about sums up our level of over achievement with minor holidays.

When you get to my stage of parenting, you have a lot of lasts. This last fall, all of my kids were school age with no babies or toddlers. I’m hitting a lot of childhood milestones with my youngest for the last time, including losing teeth. My 5-year-old had his first loose tooth just a month or so ago. He wiggled it out when he woke up in the night, put it in a safe place and went back to sleep – easy, peasy, right? Just a few weeks later, the tooth just next to it also started to wobble, and we were on for round two!

Except this one was a little more memorable. He had been wiggling the tooth for a few days, and I figured it was about half there. It was still a bit tight on the front, but I was sure it would pop out within the week. I hopped in the shower a few days ago and had just gotten dressed when I heard my little guy start wail, “It’s bleeding! It’s bleeding!” As he ran down the stairs holding his mouth, my 7-year-old daughter followed closely behind and informed me that my 11-year-old had tried to (ahem, unsuccessfully) pull the tooth. I have no idea what his preferred technique was, but it wasn’t great.

I got a short glance of his sad, little, hangy-down tooth before my little guy clamped his mouth down on a piece of tissue. He curled up in a little ball in the fuzzy blanket on my bed as I inquired as to what had happened.

“Did you ask him to pull your tooth?”

“Noooooo!” (In a very sad and slightly wailing voice.)

“So, he just convinced you to let him do it?”

“Yesssssss!”

My older son slunk into the room looking a bit sheepish, to his credit, and I forbade him to manipulate any more children into allowing him to practice amateur dentistry.

The youngest spent a good part of the day moping around with that tissue stuck in his mouth, refusing to eat. (I had to insist that he change it when it started to stink. I know, gross.) He finally fell asleep around lunch time, and sometime between that and me making dinner, he walked in with his mouth clear and no tissue or tooth. The last little piece had pulled off at some point, and the tooth was free. (Yay, because he wouldn’t even so much as let me look at it again, even when I promised profusely that I would not touch it.)

The moral of this story is to just say no to amateur surgery. While my son will probably remember this experience for a long time (he has the most ridiculous memory for a 5-year-old), I am pretty positive that he will never fall for his brother’s medical claims of expertise ever again. Also, kids are freaking hilarious. We’ll throw that one in for the parents.

Wait – Are You a Mormon? Or What?

I’m sorry I missed posting last week! That’s a first since I started the blog, but I was really sick with a bad cold/sinus thing, and something had to give. We’re all on the upswing now!

This blog is a sometimes awkward space for me. I originally started it completely on a whim as a way to speak to people who I actually know in real life, and I have sometimes written in a way that assumes the reader has at least some basic context. However, a good part of the readership growth does not fit into this category, and I find that the missing details sometimes cause confusion. Hopefully, I can do a better job of providing context, starting with today’s question. Am I Mormon?

While this seems to be a simple question, it’s kind of not. The answer is both yes and no. I was raised as a member of the AUB or Apostolic United Brethren which is a fairly liberal-leaning Mormon fundamentalist church, so I have never been on the rolls of the mainstream Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I was, however, baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints because that’s how fundamentalists do that – there’s no “AUB baptism” or “FLDS baptism.” I also attended the modern LDS church for portions of my teen years and was probably more active as a non-member than a lot of my officially-baptized peers. I heard John Bytheway speak live at a stake youth conference in my father’s California ward when I was an older teen, played ward basketball and had plenty of bishop’s interviews. (Non-members have to have a new interview for every activity because guest recommends are one-time use.) In addition, my own church culture was pretty much identical to the mainstream church down to the manuals we used, except there was also polygamy. So, yes, I’m very Mormon while no, I’m not considered a member by many in the LDS church.

For many years, I hated this question, dodging and avoiding it. I felt embarrassed by my background and, frankly, found it very complex to answer. If I said “no,” it was completely overlooking the fact that I have deep-rooted cultural context in Mormonism. I have maternal family that goes all the way back to the first Mormon converts in England. My family was born, married and died in Nauvoo and on the trek west. (Not the same ones at the same time – ha ha!) I was raised on LDS primary and Sunday school, learning the same things from the same resources as my member schoolmates in Utah. On the other hand, answering “yes” in my circumstances felt dishonest and like I was pulling one over on people. While my husband thoroughly enjoyed engaging with missionaries that came to our door, I hated it and avoided it at all costs. Because, really, what do I say? Having any kind of open conversation required a level of transparency that I was just not comfortable with among strangers.

Taking my place as someone who has a rightful place at the table of Mormonism with something to add to the dialogue has been an interesting journey. Some of my first deep research I ever did into the history of Mormonism related to polygamy because it was a pretty huge catalyst for me (for some strange reason – ha!) In the process, I discovered the Year of Polygamy podcast and Lindsay Hansen Park who is now one of the top researchers on the history of polygamy and fundamentalist culture. I remember the first time I heard her interviewed (and I really hope this is the right one!) One of the things that struck me the most was her assertion that the entire spectrum of Mormon thought belonged at the table, and the mainstream church had neither the power nor the right nor the ability to insist that the conversation be a vacuum that they determined. This honestly blew my mind. It was the first time that I had heard someone who came from a mainstream LDS background say that my story was part of the picture and valuable and worthy of seeing light. As someone who was pretty traumatized as a child by LDS friends that were forbidden to associate with me when their parents heard about my background, this was a Big Deal and changed my perspective significantly. It continues to shape my approach to my engagement with Mormonism today.

So, I am a Mormon, culturally. I do have a Mormon Story, you could say. When I talk about things that are pretty consistent across all Mormon society, I don’t always even discuss the fact that I have a more complicated history. However, I do bring up the complexity when it’s pertinent to what I’m discussing, so you’ll also hear me talk about my fundamentalist background and the things that are unique about it. I apologize if that’s sometimes confusing for people – especially those of you who are not versed in the complexities of Mormon culture as a whole. Hopefully, this will clear that up and provide some context.

I Don’t Always Love Being a Mom, and That’s Okay

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I’ve followed Shelia Gregoire, a Christian blogger at To Love, Honor and Vacuum for a long time. I really appreciate her stance on sex in marriage, focus on healthy churches and take-no-prisoners stance on abuse advocacy. I deeply respect this woman and her kind, but honest approach to the very hard questions that can pop up in life. She posted this blog earlier this week. I’m not someone who can really relate to this reader’s question – I was very excited to be a mom and definitely wanted to have kids. Still, I’m not the most, um, maternal person, I guess? It really wasn’t so much the question this reader posed or this blogger’s answer that made me stop in my tracks, but more the question she posed when she shared this post on her Facebook page. Sheila effectively asked, “Why are so many moms exhausted, and what can we do to help?” That’s what really made me stop and think.

I don’t always love being a mom. I like to succeed at things, and there are too many stubborn variables in parenting for me to always knock it out of the park. I’m not someone who would ever say that I savor every minute of motherhood and always look at my children with awe and wonder. I don’t like to play with kids, really. I wouldn’t even say that my emotional life revolves around my kids, though a good part of my time is spent with and for them. Though I didn’t hate pregnancy, per se, extreme morning sickness made me dread a good part of it. I had postpartum depression that got so severe that it led to the decision to stop having kids. (C’mon, 7 is a LOT!) Still, if you asked me what the most meaningful part of my life is, it would be parenthood, hands down. I cannot ever imagine NOT being a mom, and I wouldn’t want to try to wonder who I would be without what I’ve learned from my kids. Not the same person – that’s who.

So, how does someone like me – someone who I think you could reasonably assert isn’t the most ideal candidate on paper, mostly do okay? That’s the question this post made me ask myself. I think there are a few things that have made my journey a bit smoother and helped me be a more effective parent.

I am real. I think so many moms get caught up in having everything look good on the outside and not showing any cracks. Can you imagine if you just thought that everyone’s marriage, for example, was sunshine and roses and nobody ever fought but you, and oh, my gosh, if my husband leaves his socks on the floor one more time, I’m going to throat punch him! – WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME?! Nothing. You’re normal. I think moms hold themselves to an unrealistic standard of perfection, when the truth is they’re normal and life isn’t always pretty. Embracing that as a strength is probably the best thing I’ve ever done as a mom because it takes SO much pressure off and frees up my energy for things that are actually helpful and productive.
I don’t really care at all what other people are doing. Most of my friends have their kids in tons of sports and activities, and I just don’t. It doesn’t work for me. If my kids really want to do something, I will help make it happen, for sure, but I honestly feel zero pressure to push them to do things because “it’s the thing to do.” And, if they’re resistant and it’s unessential? Pssh…not even going to spend any energy there.
I try to look at the big picture. The fact that I don’t always love being a mom doesn’t really bother me because I really don’t consider that the point at all. I find fulfillment in motherhood, but it’s no picnic. At the end of the day, raising kind, decent productive people and learning a lot about myself in the process is more the point for me.
It’s not about me, necessarily. I think one of the biggest points in Sheila’s post was that being a parent means being the adult. I struggle to always wear my big girl pants as a mom, but it is always my goal. I think we’ve become a society that wants everything quick and easy rather than difficult and lasting. I think the trick here is to be willing to do things that are actually best for your kids and their future and not necessarily the things that make you LOOK good.
I know that it is vogue and, I don’t even know what, to completely sacrifice yourself for your children to the point where you feel bad about having “your own life.” I’ve pretty much rejected that. I have hobbies that I spend a lot of time on. I spend money on myself without guilt. I go out with my friends and give a lot of focus to my husband when he’s home. While I can see how someone might perceive this as being in conflict with the prior point, in my experience, this makes me a better, more stable and more available mom to my kids.
Independence is literally my best mom friend ever. I remember being pregnant with #4 and visiting my husband’s friend whose 10-year-old spent a good 15 minutes nagging his mom to GET HIM A DRINK. Sorry to yell, but I just cannot even wrap my head around that. My 11-year-old regularly makes his siblings breakfast and can pretty much follow any recipe. My 5-year-old can make toast and peanut butter sandwiches. I encourage my kids to do whatever they can for themselves as soon as possible because there’s lots of them and one of me, and we’re all happier and more confident when the load is spread around. Being a slave to the whims of one kid let alone multiples just isn’t sustainable, and that’s nothing to feel bad about. A less-stressed mom and capable kids is a win-win in my book.
I have community. I have lived around my sister pretty much my entire adult life. When I didn’t have built-in help at home, I had her to depend on. I’ve always sought friendships for advice, support and commiseration. As a bit of an introvert, it definitely helps me feel less alone and more supported.
I’m adaptable and willing to change up anything that is causing angst for me or my kids. I’m pretty committed to the idea of homeschooling, but my 15-year-old is my second child now that has gone to public school. Both decisions were for the absolute best for both me and my sons. I was super nervous both times, but I had zero regrets in the end. I am pretty stubborn about my kids being good people, respecting boundaries and taking care of responsibilities, but most anything else I will change up or let go when needed.

Like I always say in posts like this, none of this is to suggest that any of these ideas are right for every reader. I’m not anything special. I don’t know more than any of you. I’m not a better mom, and I don’t have it more figured out. Some women really thrive in environments that register as “traditional mom things.” I think my biggest point is that not all of us do, but that you can still be successful and find ways to thrive anyways. I’m a big believer that we’re all the “right mom” for our own kids, and that whatever strengths we bring to the table can be employed for own good and for the future of our children. While I don’t always love being a mom, I’m a pretty okay mom. I don’t have to always love my job to love my kids.

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Life Doesn't Have to be Perfect to be Beautiful!

Month: February 2019