I was a Hell raiser and the class clown at church growing
up. I had opinions. I remember when I
turned 12 going to my first young woman’s activities. The activity was making a list of all the
quality’s you wanted in your future husband.
Remember the part where I said I
WAS 12! So all the girls around me
were writing things like, served a mission, temple worthy, hold the priesthood. I was stumped. Absolutely mind
blow. My list had one thing. That he
loves me and I love him. The young
woman’s leader keep pressuring me to write other stuff but I couldn't. I was
not going to lie. Those other things didn't matter to me. Eventually I slipped out to spy on the boys
who were learning how to change a tire.
It got worse as I got older.
I remember coming in late to a mutual activity where the “activity” was
getting lectured about marriage. I made sure to ware my authentic Cub Scout
Shirt I got at Good Will. It had merit badges and everything. Ha Ha Ha. That always pisst off my Bishop. I loudly took a seat in the back and tried to
find a way to not pay attention. Then I heard something I couldn't ignore.
“Young ladies you all should want to have children. It should be your main purpose in life to
have kids”
My hand shot up like a rocket.
“Yes sister,” said Brother Old-man
“Yeah, what if we don’t want to have kids? I personally want
to have a career,” I said.
“Well sister let me tell you a story. My son was dating a
young lady and they were thinking about getting married. But he discovered that
she didn't want to have kids so he broke it off with her-“
“GOOOOD!” I interrupted.
“They shouldn’t be together. That would be a teeeerrible match!”, Old man
was stunned. He really didn't know how
to reply. So I continued, “I mean why should a woman give up her dreams to clean
up after some Poop Monster? And why can’t
the husband stay at home? Am I right ladies?”
Everyone is just staring now. Just staring. My biggest fan Military Bishop
piped in.“It is our job to multiply and replenish the earth. Genesis 1:28.”
Well that shut me up. I learned you can’t win against someone
who quotes scriptures unless you can quote back. But I sat back in my chair beaming. I knew I had spoken truth.
I had an experience very similar to this (also at the age of 12 - 13). Oh, YW curriculum 0_0.
ReplyDeleteLike your church mates, mine were writing things like "worthy priesthood holder" and "return missionary."
I wrote a nice long list (that I keep in my journal to this day) which included:
"handsome"
"educated"
"makes me laugh"
A few years later, as I went through my "omg I don't think the church is true" crisis, I penciled in "worthy priesthood holder" -- I was trying to save myself by holding true to my list.
I scratched it out a day later, and wrote "I just want to marry someone I love."
Today, I'm married (almost a year now) to a never-mo. The indoctrination doesn't always work!
Thats Cool! Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI had a similar lesson once. One of the only YW lessons that REALLY sticks out to me (the others are just blurs of CTR's and "be temple worthy"s) was when my leader got up and talked about a woman's place being in the home nurturing her kids. Now, I have no problem with the nurturing kids part--if you're going to bring children into the world, you'd better love them with all you've got and take care of them as well as you know how. But the other part of the lesson was about how women should be "homemakers" (a large portion of time was dedicated to the distinction between housekeeping and homemaking) and make the home a warm, loving environment where the family could feel the spirit and be safe from outside influences. My leader spent a lot of the time talking about how careers get in the way of such things, and should be avoided if possible. It's the husband's (and only the husband's) job to provide for the family, even if the wife was able. This was around the time I was 12 or 13, and still a TBM. I felt so darn guilty for disagreeing with the lesson. Today, I'm glad I had enough sense to see how foolish it was.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 12 I read, for the first time, how Joseph Smith said an angel stood over him with a sword and commanded him to have sex with more than one woman (I know he said marry, but to a 12 year old boy it's the same difference).
ReplyDeleteAnd then, it just popped in there..."he sounds just like the King and the Duke," (from Huckleberry Finn). HaHaHa. What a funny coincidence, I thought. I made a pretzel of it and went on my merry way.