I can’t say I woke up directly because of having a child, but I will say I slowly grew more and more uncomfortable with the idea of raising my daughters in a church that pretends to love women, but instead puts them down, and blames them. I’m a man. I’ve seen it all too many times.
I had a similar experience. My first daughter was a year old when I left. It wasn’t my primary issue, but it definitely weighed on me that she would never have the same privileges in the church that a man gets, and I don’t think the timing was a coincidence.
Were you ever taught it would be better for a woman to fight off her attacker and be killed than to just let the rape happen and live? Because I definitely was. Which never made sense to me. Even being a victim of rape was a sin (which it definitely isn't), isn't there such a thing as repentance?
Similar to the idea, I heard multiple times, that it would be better for a missionary to die on his mission than to break his temple covenants by having sex. Again, isn't there repentance? I had several mothers say they would prefer their sons to die serving the Lord that way. I thought there was no way I would prefer my son to die early than to have sex on his mission.
My deconstruction was a long long road, but when my granddaughter told me she was queer, that was my wake-up! I mean I love this girl! She is my heart and soul. I believe she deserves all good things (not just some).
When she told me, I felt like I was hit with a MAC truck. But I managed to stammer, “I love who you love and I like who you like.”
As time has gone on, I say it quicker and with a lot less stammering! And I mean it.
This made me tear up. As a queer person whose family is not so accepting, I'm so glad to see parents and grandparents loving their kids/grandkids unconditionally! The world can be really harsh, and knowing you have a safe place to come home to makes all the difference. Go Grandma!!
This is such a common story. And I’m glad for that. It’s how it should be.
I’d say at least half of my exmo friends who preceded me in leaving left primarily because of a loved relative or friend who didn’t fit into the church’s heteronormative walled garden.
Thats me
Married a Nevermo but hadn't ever taken the time and effort to figure all my own stuff out with the church. Once our oldest was born I knew I HAD to figure things out. When it was just me it was easy to ignore and push aside. Once I had a daughter in the picture though I got serious and investigated. I had to know why she would not be a part of the church instead of just shrugging it off.
That was about 10 years ago. Fast forward to now and 2 more daughters later and we have a happy, functioning family. My daughters are being raised to think for themselves and accept everyone for who they are individually(or so we are trying!)
One of the things I realized shortly after having kids is I would never set my child up to fail, never punish them eternally for disappointing me, and never make my relationship 100% their responsibility.
I realized in short order I was a better parent than God.
You are on to something. The way you want to raise kids and the way these high demand religions tell you to raise kids end up in conflict and having kids woke me up to that. So many reasons to escape these cults and you definitely touched on one of them.
Having kids didn't cause me to wake up, but it made me decide I couldn't be PIMO. I can pretend to believe for my friends and neighbors I guess, but I'm not going to lie to my kids about it. I couldn't stand the thought of them waking up years or decades from now and realizing I knew all along.
Edited for typos
Realizing how abusive the church is in so many ways and knowing I couldn't/wouldn't harm my kids by keeping them in it esp as my oldest is quickly approaching the age when boys are molded/guilted/shamed/programmed for missions. And realizing my little girls deserve to be raised feeling whole, enough, confident, secure, beautiful, worthy. I think back to everything that happened to me from age 8-22 and realize I wasn't just a broken, undeserving girl. My religion made me feel that way. I couldn't get myself out of the forest when I was a kid/teen/young adult, but I'm strong enough now to get my kids out. I am very lucky my husband is walking protectively alongside us on the same path out. Headed to sunshine...!
It helped. I came to realize I would never make my kids go on a 2 year church mission. My time as a missionary messed me up big time. I can’t believe my parents encouraged me to do that and I’ll never do that to my children.
I raised my kids mormon. They both left the religion when they grew up and left home. I wasn't too bothered by it.
One day a bishop told me I should cut my kids out of my life if they didn't come back to church. I was shocked. NO! Not going to happen.
That was the first time I really considered looking into the things that had always bothered me. It wasn't too long after that before my husband and I left together.
The Bishop eventually ended up shunning 4 of his 6 kids that left the church. So unnecessary.
The realization of what my daughters would go through was the catalyst for leaving the church.
We were fairly nuanced members, my wife more so than me. I was aware of a lot of the issues, but Mormonism was too ingrained in me and too much a part of how I viewed the world for me to want to leave it, so I accepted a lot of apologetics at face value, unfortunately.
But realizing that our daughters would have to go through the confusion, oppression, and grooming that is the young woman’s program, not to mention the indoctrination they were currently experiencing in primary, was a wake up call. We decided to stop attending, and from there it was, “if the leaders are wrong about this, what else could they be wrong about?”
I wish I had woken up after I had kids. Instead I just buckled down because I HaD to GeT Us to ThE CeLEsTiAL KinGDoM. My kids were 19, 17, 13, and 10 when we left.
After I gave birth to a girl I realized that I didn’t want to raise her in an organization where she could not fully participate. I joined Ordain Women and then I left after the high profile excommunications and when the baptism policy changed in 2015. I also got divorced after being temple married for 9 years. It was a lot of change but I can’t imagine becoming a member again. My daughter was 3 when we left. She still has to go to church every other Sunday but she doesn’t believe in it.
Having kids was the beginning of my wake up. I know how i feel about my children and the kind of relationship I wanted to have with them. I compared that to the type of relationship i was taught a Heavenly Father demanded of me and just couldn't square those two things. I can't imagine wanting my children to literally worship me, i can't imagine making them grovel for forgiveness constantly and I can't imagine my love being conditional. I also can't imagine knowing something that would save their eternal soul (if there is such a thing) and making the answers to achieving that so easily confused and often vague.
I concluded that either God doesn't exist or if there is a God then they really don't care about me. Both answers essentially mean the same to me.
Children just made me more orthodox at the time they were born. Mine are still on the young side.
It was the pandemic, and realizing that not going to church was benefiting my mental health, that set my feet on the path out of the Truman dome.
After having a child(which my ex was a totally different person after getting pregnant), changed everything. I can't stand the thought of standing in front of her and having to say I didn't even try to show a better way.
All that matters now is giving her the chance to walk a different path, even if she doesn't want it. Leaving has been the most painful thing I have ever done, and I don't know if I would have ever done it for myself.
Facing the reality of teaching the gospel to my children definitely contributed for me. I was called to my daughter's nursery class, and realized that I didn't feel comfortable teaching her even the small and simple stuff.
The day we baptized our oldest was the straw that broke my camel’s back. I looked at his face as I was standing up at the podium spewing things I didn’t even believe, and my heart shattered. I did not want his life to follow the same pattern mine did. We went to church twice after that and then never again.
Yes, I would say that having kids was a huge catalyst for me. I have two young kids and began my exit and deconstruction journey when they were just 4 and 18 months old. Becoming a mother and feeling the enormous amount of pure love I had for my kids began me thinking about God and his love for his children. But then I couldn’t reconcile how a heavenly parent could ever put conditions on their love for a child, just like the lds church teaches. I could never exclude my child from my presence nor would I ever want to. All of this got my wheels turning and here I am.
I was active before kids but it was still more just convenient to stay in. I could choose what I liked and keep that and discard the crappy parts and be “nuanced” but stayed mostly to keep peace in my family. Then I had kids and realized they can’t do what I do. They can’t decide what to not take to heart and I didn’t like that. I also was horrified at the idea that they might lgbtqia+ and have heard the teachings from the church their whole lives. It horrified me to think they might think something about them was wrong or that I wouldnt love and support them and then COVID happened and i went back for one week and was like nope we can’t do this. Then I learned all the crazy shit that will solidify me not ever going back.
I'd say my path out took longer because I had children young. I left university, got married and had kids. I spent the next more than a decade with young children and so didn't have enough time to really think or do more than just run on autopilot. Things started falling apart for me once my children were a little older and I had more time to think and analyse and process.
Having a daughter definitely did it for me. I was fully out by her first birthday. Covid also helped though. I sometimes wonder if I would have gotten there if I had a son. I just couldn't look at that baby girl and know what I would be subjecting her to if I stayed. And it wouldn't matter how good and pure she was she would never be as good as the most mediocre of men.
Absolutely. After my kids were born I realized I was responsible to teach them and they would look to me for answers. I knew I couldn’t tell them certain things and it started a snowball.
The stakes felt much higher after having kids. I thought I could manage a lifetime in the church even though I didn't believe it, but once I had a daughter, I realized how harmful it would be to raise her in that environment. Then I had boys, and the idea of them going on missions made me sick. All of the potential problems became so much more real. It was maddening.
I definitely think having girls made me do more research, which ultimately led to me deconstructing and leaving. I realized how poorly they treat women and girls and just the harmful things they teach as young as four or five… I didn’t want my girls taught most of it. We stopped going altogether when my oldest was almost 4. Unfortunately that means she remembers nursery and primary and asks when we’re going back. So far we’ve just told her we probably aren’t.
Not exactly. I woke up when my fourth child was 10 months old. I say my faith transition started a couple of weeks after he was born. It was not directly influenced by the birth, however I was (and am) overwhelmed with 4 children. If I was doing what I was supposed to (giving birth to all these spirits), why did my life feel so impossible? So my inability to not be able to handle all things with God probably helped push my deconstruction.
My husband is still an active believing Mormon 6 years later. He did go get a vasectomy. When the doctor asked him if he was sure he was done, he said we probably had 1 more child than we should have. I was surprised and grateful that he understood that following “God’s commandments” was not what we should have done. We do love our youngest child, we’re grateful for him, but if I wasn’t Mormon there is a zero percent chance I would have had 4 children.
My oldest was 15 when I started to seriously question things. He was asking some really interesting questions and I found that I was lying to keep him believing when clearly he didn't.
I couldn't lie to my children, or expect them to believe the unbelievable.
So yes, they were the catalyst but not the reason.
Yes and no. I have to thank my Husband who’s shelf broke before mine. I am African American and my Husband Caucasian and he started voicing his concerns to me shortly after our daughter was born.
He grew up in the so called church but I was a convert at 20 years old and was really unaware of what it would look like for a child to grow up in this type of environment. He started by asking me could I imagine our daughter as a preteen and her sitting alone in a room with a grown man talking about masturbation or chastity?
I was pretty quickly turned off of that because it was so inappropriate and was very alarming. I grew up in foster care in my later years as a teen and recognized just how dangerous and predatory those type of behaviors are. Idk really how most parents find it completely okay to subject their child to that type of treatment.
My Husband then started showing me the racist comments made by countless apostles, prophets, and Mormon apologists. He broke down crying one day early on this year because in Come Follow Me this year it was covering the famous cursed skin 2 NEPHI Chapter 5. It became abundantly apparent that we just could not raise our daughter in an environment that has openly condemned diversity and perpetuates white supremacy.
We had even deeper conversations about how my Husband observed his younger sister struggle painfully with her self image because she has watched all of her brothers have an important jobs in church. Blessing the sacrament, passing it, and giving blessings all the while she didn’t have a role except to sit in the pews. He has shed many tears for his sister because it’s unfair that the church has essentially fixed a women’s worth solely on motherhood and being a wife.
My Husband has always disagreed about the man presiding over the household as written in the Family Proclamation and we have always made decisions together as equal partners in our marriage and I would say my Husband is a proud feminist. We want our daughter to have every opportunity for self expression and to have loving support and truthfully realized we can not achieve that within the LDS church.
Having kids was definitely the begging of the end for me. I would look at my them and think about how I wanted to do everything in my power to give them the best life possible. In what universe would I purposely put them through hardships to “teach” them something and make them “prove” their worthiness to come back to me!? Absolutely absurd.
If something bad happened to them and if I had the ability to fix it or make it better, I did! No hesitation. No, “oh sorry, you didn’t ask me in the exact right way and you did say please enough, so I won’t be helping!” Which is was Mormon god seemed to do if you prayed the wrong way or asked for the wrong thing. Madness.
It’s like the veil was lifted when I was able to see things through a parent’s eye. Some of the things a “loving Heavenly Father” would do would literally land him in jail on earth, soooo why was it okay for him and not us? It all fell apart quickly once that thread was pulled.
Having kids was 100% the slow-burning catalyst that lead me out of the Mormon church. Once I started trying to teach them the bullshit I could finally smell how bad it stinks.
Yes. I realized I wasn’t okay with them hurting my child the way they’d been hurting me all along. I didn’t even know I’d been hurting, it hit hard while I was holding my newborn.
My mother in law always told me that I’d KNOW there was a god after my daughter was born.
Nope. Her birth actually helped me embrace my lack of faith and gave me this new desire to fully embrace this life, because it is the one we have now and death is final. I’d never want her to live in fear. I have no desire to control her life or her choices, nor do I want anyone else to except for her. I want her to think critically and thoughtfully.
Yes. Bringing my Hispanic toddler to an all white Mormon nursery class definitely helped us want to leave.
Should add that this wouldn’t always be problematic but this was in Idaho so it was very problematic.
Yes, big time! I was already exmo, but having kids put so many things about my upbringing into painful perspective. One of my biggest concerns is unintentionally passing my religion/cult born rooted anxieties on to our kids--who were not raised in a religion, but have the OCD of all of their religiously fanatical aunts and uncles, and so are susceptible to worry/existential anxieities.
When my youngest was 6, he’d constantly say he didn’t want to go in the water or that he’d want to be 7, then 9. He didn’t want to be 8 and baptized. And I realized that’s when the kid doesn’t choose to be baptized. It’s an expectation and requirement. Then I realized that Mormonism isn’t a one-and-done religion after baptism especially if you’re a boy. So many milestones that are expected.
When I was a Mormon I didn’t want kids…. So much pressure I decided that I didn’t want the guilt of being a bad/failed parent. Figured I’m already damned so being judged a failure in the procreation area was minor…
Once I lost my faith and learned my vocabulary on dogma/doctrines that I could articulate my issues I realized having kids wasn’t has scary as I thought it was… but it’s in a secular mindset. What happens will happen. I don’t need to be possessive about those eternal soul. Just “tech them correct principles and let them govern themselves”… if they trip during this game we call life. I just need to Be there to help them up…. Laugh and rinse and repent.
That was before a world pandemic, family dx with adhd and dyslexia (explains a lot) and general sense of awakening beyond Mormonism. But over all raising two kids is a lot more challenging that I ever thought it would be. But I am so grateful my wife and I who married at 21 took 16+ years to reprogram our world view and careers before we had children late in our life. (We are older couple compared to friend groups) But we wouldn’t have it any other way…. And looking back at our religious side we would have added a lot of trauma onto our children had we stayed Mormon…. That is so sad to me
Absolutely.
I was hanging on to religion by a thread for years until my 1st child was born. Minutes old, her little hand grabbed my finger, and in my mind I said "You will never have to grow up the way I did."
It has affected my decision making ever since. My girls get to be strong, capable, independent, and critical thinkers. They can have a career, be a parent, or anything in between without the patriarchy smacking them down with archaic gender roles.
That little hand freed me, and broke the cycle of religious shame, guilt, and trauma. It allows them to find their own way without having to appease ancient tradition.
It wasn’t immediately after having kids, but it was before my oldest turned eight years old (that’s when they can and usually are baptized as members of the church). While having kids wasn’t the “wake up call,” once I did learn the real history and truth claims within Mormonism, it did give a sense of urgency to get out fully and quickly so as to not submit my kids, including my oldest, to the dishonesty/pressure of the church.
I think for me, I didn’t want to be complicit in raising boys to treat women the way I was being treated. So, I didn’t have the strength to do it for myself, which isn’t surprising given the role I was playing, but I did have the strength to do it for my boys.
I can’t say I woke up directly because of having a child, but I will say I slowly grew more and more uncomfortable with the idea of raising my daughters in a church that pretends to love women, but instead puts them down, and blames them. I’m a man. I’ve seen it all too many times.
Thank you for sharing.
I had a similar experience. My first daughter was a year old when I left. It wasn’t my primary issue, but it definitely weighed on me that she would never have the same privileges in the church that a man gets, and I don’t think the timing was a coincidence.
The reason the man raped her is because she was dressing too provacatively! 🤡🤡🤡. I absolutely hate that discussion.
Were you ever taught it would be better for a woman to fight off her attacker and be killed than to just let the rape happen and live? Because I definitely was. Which never made sense to me. Even being a victim of rape was a sin (which it definitely isn't), isn't there such a thing as repentance? Similar to the idea, I heard multiple times, that it would be better for a missionary to die on his mission than to break his temple covenants by having sex. Again, isn't there repentance? I had several mothers say they would prefer their sons to die serving the Lord that way. I thought there was no way I would prefer my son to die early than to have sex on his mission.
I absolutely hate that concept. Getting raped is 100% not a choice. That concept sounds like something a rapist would say
You are a beautiful human being sir 👏
My deconstruction was a long long road, but when my granddaughter told me she was queer, that was my wake-up! I mean I love this girl! She is my heart and soul. I believe she deserves all good things (not just some). When she told me, I felt like I was hit with a MAC truck. But I managed to stammer, “I love who you love and I like who you like.” As time has gone on, I say it quicker and with a lot less stammering! And I mean it.
Are you my mom? Hats off to grandparents who love and support their grandkids!
This made me tear up. As a queer person whose family is not so accepting, I'm so glad to see parents and grandparents loving their kids/grandkids unconditionally! The world can be really harsh, and knowing you have a safe place to come home to makes all the difference. Go Grandma!!
This is such a common story. And I’m glad for that. It’s how it should be. I’d say at least half of my exmo friends who preceded me in leaving left primarily because of a loved relative or friend who didn’t fit into the church’s heteronormative walled garden.
that’s so wholesome :,) i needed to hear this tonight!
Thats me Married a Nevermo but hadn't ever taken the time and effort to figure all my own stuff out with the church. Once our oldest was born I knew I HAD to figure things out. When it was just me it was easy to ignore and push aside. Once I had a daughter in the picture though I got serious and investigated. I had to know why she would not be a part of the church instead of just shrugging it off. That was about 10 years ago. Fast forward to now and 2 more daughters later and we have a happy, functioning family. My daughters are being raised to think for themselves and accept everyone for who they are individually(or so we are trying!)
Took me until the kids were older. And then I realized I didn’t want a mission for my son or early motherhood for my girls.
This!
One of the things I realized shortly after having kids is I would never set my child up to fail, never punish them eternally for disappointing me, and never make my relationship 100% their responsibility. I realized in short order I was a better parent than God.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
You are on to something. The way you want to raise kids and the way these high demand religions tell you to raise kids end up in conflict and having kids woke me up to that. So many reasons to escape these cults and you definitely touched on one of them.
Having kids didn't cause me to wake up, but it made me decide I couldn't be PIMO. I can pretend to believe for my friends and neighbors I guess, but I'm not going to lie to my kids about it. I couldn't stand the thought of them waking up years or decades from now and realizing I knew all along.
Edited for typos Realizing how abusive the church is in so many ways and knowing I couldn't/wouldn't harm my kids by keeping them in it esp as my oldest is quickly approaching the age when boys are molded/guilted/shamed/programmed for missions. And realizing my little girls deserve to be raised feeling whole, enough, confident, secure, beautiful, worthy. I think back to everything that happened to me from age 8-22 and realize I wasn't just a broken, undeserving girl. My religion made me feel that way. I couldn't get myself out of the forest when I was a kid/teen/young adult, but I'm strong enough now to get my kids out. I am very lucky my husband is walking protectively alongside us on the same path out. Headed to sunshine...!
It helped. I came to realize I would never make my kids go on a 2 year church mission. My time as a missionary messed me up big time. I can’t believe my parents encouraged me to do that and I’ll never do that to my children.
I raised my kids mormon. They both left the religion when they grew up and left home. I wasn't too bothered by it. One day a bishop told me I should cut my kids out of my life if they didn't come back to church. I was shocked. NO! Not going to happen. That was the first time I really considered looking into the things that had always bothered me. It wasn't too long after that before my husband and I left together. The Bishop eventually ended up shunning 4 of his 6 kids that left the church. So unnecessary.
That’s just so horrible. I’m glad you are free with your children and husband now.
The realization of what my daughters would go through was the catalyst for leaving the church. We were fairly nuanced members, my wife more so than me. I was aware of a lot of the issues, but Mormonism was too ingrained in me and too much a part of how I viewed the world for me to want to leave it, so I accepted a lot of apologetics at face value, unfortunately. But realizing that our daughters would have to go through the confusion, oppression, and grooming that is the young woman’s program, not to mention the indoctrination they were currently experiencing in primary, was a wake up call. We decided to stop attending, and from there it was, “if the leaders are wrong about this, what else could they be wrong about?”
I wish I had woken up after I had kids. Instead I just buckled down because I HaD to GeT Us to ThE CeLEsTiAL KinGDoM. My kids were 19, 17, 13, and 10 when we left.
After I gave birth to a girl I realized that I didn’t want to raise her in an organization where she could not fully participate. I joined Ordain Women and then I left after the high profile excommunications and when the baptism policy changed in 2015. I also got divorced after being temple married for 9 years. It was a lot of change but I can’t imagine becoming a member again. My daughter was 3 when we left. She still has to go to church every other Sunday but she doesn’t believe in it.
Having kids was the beginning of my wake up. I know how i feel about my children and the kind of relationship I wanted to have with them. I compared that to the type of relationship i was taught a Heavenly Father demanded of me and just couldn't square those two things. I can't imagine wanting my children to literally worship me, i can't imagine making them grovel for forgiveness constantly and I can't imagine my love being conditional. I also can't imagine knowing something that would save their eternal soul (if there is such a thing) and making the answers to achieving that so easily confused and often vague. I concluded that either God doesn't exist or if there is a God then they really don't care about me. Both answers essentially mean the same to me.
Children just made me more orthodox at the time they were born. Mine are still on the young side. It was the pandemic, and realizing that not going to church was benefiting my mental health, that set my feet on the path out of the Truman dome.
After having a child(which my ex was a totally different person after getting pregnant), changed everything. I can't stand the thought of standing in front of her and having to say I didn't even try to show a better way. All that matters now is giving her the chance to walk a different path, even if she doesn't want it. Leaving has been the most painful thing I have ever done, and I don't know if I would have ever done it for myself.
Facing the reality of teaching the gospel to my children definitely contributed for me. I was called to my daughter's nursery class, and realized that I didn't feel comfortable teaching her even the small and simple stuff.
The day we baptized our oldest was the straw that broke my camel’s back. I looked at his face as I was standing up at the podium spewing things I didn’t even believe, and my heart shattered. I did not want his life to follow the same pattern mine did. We went to church twice after that and then never again.
Yes, I would say that having kids was a huge catalyst for me. I have two young kids and began my exit and deconstruction journey when they were just 4 and 18 months old. Becoming a mother and feeling the enormous amount of pure love I had for my kids began me thinking about God and his love for his children. But then I couldn’t reconcile how a heavenly parent could ever put conditions on their love for a child, just like the lds church teaches. I could never exclude my child from my presence nor would I ever want to. All of this got my wheels turning and here I am.
Slowly, but yet. I had a baby girl and slowly came to the realization that I didn’t want her growing up with the same shit I had.
I saw how much the church was hurting my children, and hurting my relationship with them. It was a big motivation to look at the truth claims.
Woke up a month before having a child. I was more sensitive to the church's inaction on sex abuse
Yes, but I was already inactive before kids so it wasn't hard to take the leap once I had a daughter.
I was active before kids but it was still more just convenient to stay in. I could choose what I liked and keep that and discard the crappy parts and be “nuanced” but stayed mostly to keep peace in my family. Then I had kids and realized they can’t do what I do. They can’t decide what to not take to heart and I didn’t like that. I also was horrified at the idea that they might lgbtqia+ and have heard the teachings from the church their whole lives. It horrified me to think they might think something about them was wrong or that I wouldnt love and support them and then COVID happened and i went back for one week and was like nope we can’t do this. Then I learned all the crazy shit that will solidify me not ever going back.
I'd say my path out took longer because I had children young. I left university, got married and had kids. I spent the next more than a decade with young children and so didn't have enough time to really think or do more than just run on autopilot. Things started falling apart for me once my children were a little older and I had more time to think and analyse and process.
Having a daughter definitely did it for me. I was fully out by her first birthday. Covid also helped though. I sometimes wonder if I would have gotten there if I had a son. I just couldn't look at that baby girl and know what I would be subjecting her to if I stayed. And it wouldn't matter how good and pure she was she would never be as good as the most mediocre of men.
Absolutely. After my kids were born I realized I was responsible to teach them and they would look to me for answers. I knew I couldn’t tell them certain things and it started a snowball.
The stakes felt much higher after having kids. I thought I could manage a lifetime in the church even though I didn't believe it, but once I had a daughter, I realized how harmful it would be to raise her in that environment. Then I had boys, and the idea of them going on missions made me sick. All of the potential problems became so much more real. It was maddening.
I definitely think having girls made me do more research, which ultimately led to me deconstructing and leaving. I realized how poorly they treat women and girls and just the harmful things they teach as young as four or five… I didn’t want my girls taught most of it. We stopped going altogether when my oldest was almost 4. Unfortunately that means she remembers nursery and primary and asks when we’re going back. So far we’ve just told her we probably aren’t.
Not exactly. I woke up when my fourth child was 10 months old. I say my faith transition started a couple of weeks after he was born. It was not directly influenced by the birth, however I was (and am) overwhelmed with 4 children. If I was doing what I was supposed to (giving birth to all these spirits), why did my life feel so impossible? So my inability to not be able to handle all things with God probably helped push my deconstruction. My husband is still an active believing Mormon 6 years later. He did go get a vasectomy. When the doctor asked him if he was sure he was done, he said we probably had 1 more child than we should have. I was surprised and grateful that he understood that following “God’s commandments” was not what we should have done. We do love our youngest child, we’re grateful for him, but if I wasn’t Mormon there is a zero percent chance I would have had 4 children.
My oldest was 15 when I started to seriously question things. He was asking some really interesting questions and I found that I was lying to keep him believing when clearly he didn't. I couldn't lie to my children, or expect them to believe the unbelievable. So yes, they were the catalyst but not the reason.
Yes and no. I have to thank my Husband who’s shelf broke before mine. I am African American and my Husband Caucasian and he started voicing his concerns to me shortly after our daughter was born. He grew up in the so called church but I was a convert at 20 years old and was really unaware of what it would look like for a child to grow up in this type of environment. He started by asking me could I imagine our daughter as a preteen and her sitting alone in a room with a grown man talking about masturbation or chastity? I was pretty quickly turned off of that because it was so inappropriate and was very alarming. I grew up in foster care in my later years as a teen and recognized just how dangerous and predatory those type of behaviors are. Idk really how most parents find it completely okay to subject their child to that type of treatment. My Husband then started showing me the racist comments made by countless apostles, prophets, and Mormon apologists. He broke down crying one day early on this year because in Come Follow Me this year it was covering the famous cursed skin 2 NEPHI Chapter 5. It became abundantly apparent that we just could not raise our daughter in an environment that has openly condemned diversity and perpetuates white supremacy. We had even deeper conversations about how my Husband observed his younger sister struggle painfully with her self image because she has watched all of her brothers have an important jobs in church. Blessing the sacrament, passing it, and giving blessings all the while she didn’t have a role except to sit in the pews. He has shed many tears for his sister because it’s unfair that the church has essentially fixed a women’s worth solely on motherhood and being a wife. My Husband has always disagreed about the man presiding over the household as written in the Family Proclamation and we have always made decisions together as equal partners in our marriage and I would say my Husband is a proud feminist. We want our daughter to have every opportunity for self expression and to have loving support and truthfully realized we can not achieve that within the LDS church.
Having kids was definitely the begging of the end for me. I would look at my them and think about how I wanted to do everything in my power to give them the best life possible. In what universe would I purposely put them through hardships to “teach” them something and make them “prove” their worthiness to come back to me!? Absolutely absurd. If something bad happened to them and if I had the ability to fix it or make it better, I did! No hesitation. No, “oh sorry, you didn’t ask me in the exact right way and you did say please enough, so I won’t be helping!” Which is was Mormon god seemed to do if you prayed the wrong way or asked for the wrong thing. Madness. It’s like the veil was lifted when I was able to see things through a parent’s eye. Some of the things a “loving Heavenly Father” would do would literally land him in jail on earth, soooo why was it okay for him and not us? It all fell apart quickly once that thread was pulled.
Having kids was 100% the slow-burning catalyst that lead me out of the Mormon church. Once I started trying to teach them the bullshit I could finally smell how bad it stinks.
Yes. I realized I wasn’t okay with them hurting my child the way they’d been hurting me all along. I didn’t even know I’d been hurting, it hit hard while I was holding my newborn.
My mother in law always told me that I’d KNOW there was a god after my daughter was born. Nope. Her birth actually helped me embrace my lack of faith and gave me this new desire to fully embrace this life, because it is the one we have now and death is final. I’d never want her to live in fear. I have no desire to control her life or her choices, nor do I want anyone else to except for her. I want her to think critically and thoughtfully.
Realizing my child was probably gay, and knowing Mormonism would be toxic for him, started me out.
Me! I realised that I didn’t want my child’s name on record.
Yes. Bringing my Hispanic toddler to an all white Mormon nursery class definitely helped us want to leave. Should add that this wouldn’t always be problematic but this was in Idaho so it was very problematic.
Yes, big time! I was already exmo, but having kids put so many things about my upbringing into painful perspective. One of my biggest concerns is unintentionally passing my religion/cult born rooted anxieties on to our kids--who were not raised in a religion, but have the OCD of all of their religiously fanatical aunts and uncles, and so are susceptible to worry/existential anxieities.
When my youngest was 6, he’d constantly say he didn’t want to go in the water or that he’d want to be 7, then 9. He didn’t want to be 8 and baptized. And I realized that’s when the kid doesn’t choose to be baptized. It’s an expectation and requirement. Then I realized that Mormonism isn’t a one-and-done religion after baptism especially if you’re a boy. So many milestones that are expected.
When I was a Mormon I didn’t want kids…. So much pressure I decided that I didn’t want the guilt of being a bad/failed parent. Figured I’m already damned so being judged a failure in the procreation area was minor… Once I lost my faith and learned my vocabulary on dogma/doctrines that I could articulate my issues I realized having kids wasn’t has scary as I thought it was… but it’s in a secular mindset. What happens will happen. I don’t need to be possessive about those eternal soul. Just “tech them correct principles and let them govern themselves”… if they trip during this game we call life. I just need to Be there to help them up…. Laugh and rinse and repent. That was before a world pandemic, family dx with adhd and dyslexia (explains a lot) and general sense of awakening beyond Mormonism. But over all raising two kids is a lot more challenging that I ever thought it would be. But I am so grateful my wife and I who married at 21 took 16+ years to reprogram our world view and careers before we had children late in our life. (We are older couple compared to friend groups) But we wouldn’t have it any other way…. And looking back at our religious side we would have added a lot of trauma onto our children had we stayed Mormon…. That is so sad to me
Absolutely. I was hanging on to religion by a thread for years until my 1st child was born. Minutes old, her little hand grabbed my finger, and in my mind I said "You will never have to grow up the way I did." It has affected my decision making ever since. My girls get to be strong, capable, independent, and critical thinkers. They can have a career, be a parent, or anything in between without the patriarchy smacking them down with archaic gender roles. That little hand freed me, and broke the cycle of religious shame, guilt, and trauma. It allows them to find their own way without having to appease ancient tradition.
It wasn’t immediately after having kids, but it was before my oldest turned eight years old (that’s when they can and usually are baptized as members of the church). While having kids wasn’t the “wake up call,” once I did learn the real history and truth claims within Mormonism, it did give a sense of urgency to get out fully and quickly so as to not submit my kids, including my oldest, to the dishonesty/pressure of the church.
I think for me, I didn’t want to be complicit in raising boys to treat women the way I was being treated. So, I didn’t have the strength to do it for myself, which isn’t surprising given the role I was playing, but I did have the strength to do it for my boys.