I was raised Mormon, and I was absolutely taught growing up that “being a wife and mother is your highest calling in this life and the next,” in those words and more. It was always phrased as “when” you get married, “when” you have kids, never “if.” Sure, you may not outwardly be treated like a pariah if you’re unmarried and/or childless, but there’s no real alternative given to women (or, really, to men, if you think about it, but that disparity is less pronounced thanks to the patriarchal structure of the church). You’re either a wife and mother or you’re just kind of there. So much of Young Women’s and Relief Society (though I left the church before seeing too much of the latter) is framed around being a wife and mother or preparing to be one. If, as a woman, your purpose lies outside of that, the church won’t tell you that you can’t do it, but you have to find it elsewhere, because as far as the church is concerned, being a wife and mother is the only purpose that actually matters
I’d just like to mention that I have a career, education, and a home but not a husband or children. I’m also the Relief Society President in my ward and I frequently attend the temple. I wouldn’t say that I’ve ever been treated like a pariah, but once in a while (when I was serving in the stake young women’s presidency and often interacting with ward leaders who didn’t know anyone of my demographic active at church) I was treated as something of a curiosity. Representation matters. Only one reason why the church is better with you in it.
I think the biggest "secret" of Mormon Wives is that we try to show up to Church looking like we have it all together, but we were screaming at our kids an hour before trying to get them ready to go.
Or, even simpler than that, looking like they have it all together when everything in their lives are hanging by a thread. But, let's be honest, that is a cultural issue far beyond this specific religion.
Yes, the irony of going to church to "strengthen family." The worst and most violent fights my family ever had were on Sundays before church. We are so much closer now that we have all left.
@@finkydoodleyes the culture also wants you to pretend and look like everything is ok when it's not. I had a cousin comment once that people at church are fake putting on the perfect mask.
I’m a practicing Catholic. There are so many times we are misrepresented I can’t even count. I think of myself as a normal person trying my best to live my life faithfully and following Christ’s teachings. Obviously I’m not perfect but I’m trying and I would hope that is true for everyone else. I’m not going to change my beliefs but I’m always interested to hear other’s beliefs.
I'm part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I can't tell you how much I relate to everything you said. I truly believe we have more in common than not.
My coworker was morbidly curious (her words) about this show because she knew my beliefs and lifestyle and thought it was so drastically different that it couldnt possibly be accurate, so she started watching it and comes in with a list of genuine and thoughtful questions. It has strengthened our friendship tremendously to have these conversations. Im not looking to convert anyone, but im happy to try and answer queations. I firmly believe that we are spiritual creatures at our core and rhats going to look vastly different for each of us and we owe it to each other to be understanding and encouraging of one another no matter where life takes our journeys. Thank you both for being so open and so willing to share with us and for being so knowledgeable! You've impacted how i interact woth others in the most positive of ways!!!!
I grew up as a Mormon (I'm an exmo now), and we were absolutely raised in a way to fulfill specific gender roles. We had a ton of Young Women's activities where our leaders taught us to cook, sew, and provide childcare. There was one evening where we cooked dinner specifically for the Young Men, and they played basketball while we worked. As a minor, I wasn't given the option to "opt-out" of youth activities. I received harsh consequences from my parents if I expressed my disdain for the overt gender-role agenda. I never "chose victimhood." I was a victim.
Huh. Maybe it’s a ward/regional/generation thing, but this was my complaint about Girl Scouts v. YW. In GS, we were making yarn dolls in that group while my brothers were learning wood carving and leather-working. I didn’t mind the “girly” craftiness, but I wanted to learn how to build a birdhouse from a single plank of wood, too. I noticed in Youth that there was a greater effort from the leaders to make sure everyone-both YM and YW- knew how to cook, clean, sew, do laundry, keep a budget, etc… all basic adult skills.
I think it’s really unfortunate that they chose to apply their own personal experiences as universal, even talking about “lived experience” while downplaying the lived experience of the women in the show. Mikayla (iirc - not sure that’s how her name is spelled either) was married as a minor after getting pregnant by a 20 year old at FIFTEEN! How on earth are they talking about choosing to feel like a victim? Then further minimizing it with whataboutism because any religion can have bad practices and cause religious trauma. True, but some have a lot more bad outcomes than others…
It's funny, when I was called as YW president I was determined to give the girls opportunities for high adventure and sports, but at that point the church had switched to the girls planning the activities and they didn't want to!! I'd suggest rock climbing and they would want to do crafts... Putting together activities that everyone would like was so much harder than I expected. However, before you cry victim let's just remember that the victimizing you are claiming is that women in your community voluntarily provided free child care, cooking, and sewing classes 🤷🏼♀️
As someone that grew up as a Christian but decided religion wasn't for me, I found this video quite interesting. I would definitely enjoy more conversations regarding your faith in this way if you feel comfortable enough.
First off, as a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a woman, I appreciate what Alicia had to say about utilizing your relationship with the Spirit to help formulate your own standing within the church and not allowing yourself to fall into a victim mentality based on what leaders or others may say. I think that’s the biggest misconception I feel is this idea that we don’t have spiritual autonomy within the church. Second, Alicia I was also raised in the Henderson/Las Vegas area! ❤
My mom, who is a boomer, and was not LDS, told me education was worthless, too hard, and I should quit. It was she who shot down all my career ambitions. Ladies within the church encouraged me to go to school, and helped me to do it. Many had careers themselves. I mention it because I feel like lots of people have different experiences with gender roles, and how they are pushed/ taught. I also don't think it's inherently bad to encourage people to have families, or to put them first. Many people had wonderful experiences with traditional gender roles and family dynamics, and speak from the heart. It's not necessarily oppressive or sexist. I say this as a Latter-Day Saint woman, who put family first, and loved it, and went to college, and loved it, and worked whenever necessary, and loved it. I always knew I had a choice. I want everyone to have a choice, and I hope they love it.
I also had a YW leader in the 90’s who taught me the importance of education. She frequently went off-manual to touch on things she thought we needed like consent, safety in dating, how to avoid abusive relationships, etc… Definitely so different from what my parents were emphasizing, but my dad was teaching us based on the LDS teachings he grew up with from the 50’s-60’s which were very specifically heavy on gender roles and clearly defensive and counter to the feminist movements of those time periods. So basically a lot of the positive things I learned were from lovely women within the church, not the church itself.
I’m 42, was a teen in the 90’s. My dad was very devout mainstream LDS and he raised his kids with the teachings HE grew up with in the 60’s & 70’s. So, heavy on gender roles and anti-birth control which he gleaned from all the Mormon doctrine books that were written by the LDS apostles of that time period. He payed a full tithe and we qualified for government assistance but he bragged that he wouldn’t accept it because “god would provide”. I remember eating frequently from the bishop storehouse and rummaging through our bare pantry to find things to put in my sack lunch for school. Usually stale bread, grainy honey on it from the storehouse, and a wrinkly dry apple. The youth programs in the 90’s very much pushed gender roles. The LDS definition of “equal” as in the equal roles of husband & wife, was always taught as the husband presiding over the wife. So they basically made up their own definition of the word “equal”. In the 90’s the LDS church tried to package the beliefs with more politically correct language, essentially. There’s such a wide range of experiences within the same religion. One being different from yours does not make it inaccurate. It’s accurate for those people, just as yours is accurate for YOU. I’ve seen that the more devout the family, the higher likelihood of religious trauma. I had the BEST experiences and learned the most in Young Women’s when my leader went off-script and taught us lessons she wrote for us about consent, how to identify abuse, safety and boundaries in dating, how to avoid teen pregnancy, the importance of an education, etc…things I absolutely wasn’t being taught at home in family scripture study & family home evening, and would NEVER had learned as a child if she’d stuck to the gender role reinforcing lesson manual.
While I agree a victimhood mentality isn't a productive thing, I think that argument is often used to excuse actual problems in a system. We don't need to make it harder on ourselves than it needs to be! Great you were able to beat the odds but if we want to uplift everyone we should lower the odds! We should vote for people who don't want to force us back in the kitchen and we should hold abusers accountable. I don't mean this as a commentary on LDS, I'm not LDS but have grown up around many, but I think this is true for any underrepresented group
When I had my first car accident, the town's newspaper wrote a piece like the accident was my fault. It wasn't, but it felt like because I was the teenager the accident was obvious my fault, and not the grown man with no license, insurance, or the sense to not abruptly stop after leaving an exit ramp. The article radicalized me, and I was skeptical with media ever since. Not seeing any episode of Secret Lives, only the trailer, I think a more accurate title would be The Affluent Lives of Bored Utahns. It's more accurate, but wouldn't catch as much buzz.
This is the most balanced and fair response I've seen to this show from an active LDS member, which is probably also why you are the only mormon content creators I follow. You give unbiased advice based on studies and preface when something is based on your opinion and something different might make someone else happier. My takeaway from this, you are saying "this show does not represent my experience in mormonism" as opposed to some of the much harsher criticisms of the show. I agree that this show is largely people less dedidated to core tenants, but one thing is that it shows more variety of how people who follow the mormon faith live. With any religion, there are people who pick and choose what teachings they follow closely and which they decide are less important to follow. Any way you can divide people into groups will have good and bad people; labels are descriptive, not prescriptive, same applies to religion, which is a self given label. I am exmo and grew up in Utah. My experience was quite different than yours. I have a lot of trauma from that because when you take what is taught and the impact it has on people's behavior, what behaviors end up rewarded and what ones end up taken advantage of or ostracized, it's quite toxic. Genuinely good people who are loving and accepting of all in the way I believe Jesus would be is not as common as I'd like in congregations in Utah. From what I've seen of both of you based on Mended Light and Cinema Therapy videos, you are in the accepting category. You do you and support people doing what they need to do to be happy in their lives. I actively try to avoid mormon therapists because too many have tried to reconvert me to the "truth", which is even less helpful when religion is a literal trigger for me. You two seem like the kind of person that this sort of behavior wouldn't even enter your mind because you can look at someone and consider what they actually need and not project what you would need in that situation. At very least, you come across as someone who would listen. I realize I don't actually know either of you and this analysis is based on the personas you share based on edited videos. Working for the church as an accountant...I'm bound by NDAs, but I can say that you can tell a lot by an org by how they spend they money and I don't believe how they spend their money matches the values they claim to have. When I was active there was very much pressure for women to be SAH and not have careers. When I worked for the church, after a coworker had her second child, other coworkers were all discussing how long into her maternity leave before she'd quit to become a SAHM, despite the fact she'd made her intention to return to work clear and it was her second child so she was familiar with everything that went into the decision to return to work. I dated multiple men who outright said that it was more important for any hypothetical sons of ours to be educated than any hypothetical daughters because they would need to support their wives. One of them was still in school with a math degree with plans to become a math teacher while I was already working as an accountant and already had certifications and recognitions. We'd discussed marriaged (not yet engaged) and I would have been supporting us for years, but the implication in his mind was still that he would be the head of the household and manage the money. Few people at church saw this thinking as the red flag it was. Any way you can divide people into groups will have good and bad people; labels are descriptive, not prescriptive, same applies to religion, which is a self given label.
Very well said. Just to add, I didn't appreciate how Alicia said that if someone puts victimhood on a platter regarding gender roles being taught in the Mormon church, that they are lacking integrity.
Wow! To say that women who felt like they had to fulfill and motherhood role and feel like they were victims lack integrity. That really raised my hackles and is completely not true. In the LDS church motherhood (the default female role) is paired with Priesthood (the default male role). You can bet that priesthood is considered really important, so think about the fact that it is paired with motherhood as equal importance. Even if that was not your own experience, I feel like it is victim blaming to blame others for having a different experience and different reaction and then attack their character by saying that they lack integrity. Especially in the first couple minutes of your video.
1000% I felt like she was kinda harsh… like I get that’s not your experience but let’s call a spade a spade. The church and the gospel is absolutely creating the idea of traditional wives and you are so very lucky if you have women around that help you understand that there are other options. I think we all know there are other options out there but they don’t get the same type of respect in the church. Being a mother and wife will always be top tier and we are constantly told that in church so ofc most women are going to default to that. Things ARE changing now but don’t say those women have a victim mentality like stfu that’s so sad to hear from another woman in the church. Denial at its finest or maybe she just thinks she better than other women in the church bc she didn’t “fall” for it? Idk but it didn’t come off well.
I rarely comment, but because I appreciate a lot of your content and the values that you espouse and I think that they have probably done a lot of good for people, I feel it is important to propose a different perspective on this video for you to consider. As someone who grew up in (but no longer is part of) a niche religion with similar consevative values but absolutely no "missions" or any attempt to convert people or any institutional beliefs that people outside the religion will face negative consequences in this life or some afterlife because of it, I think it's extremely important to distinguish between a) the reality of practicing a religion as an individual and as part of a specific regional culture, and b) the institutional and textual/scriptural basis of the religion. Even though I was taught to be a compassionate and generous member of society by my parents and my religious community (who were not as strict in following some of the potentially damaging scriptual rules of the religion) and that most people in my religion that I've met seem to be good people and that their "spiritual connection with a higher power and the religious community" is what drives them, not institutional rules, that doesn't mean that the institutional rules don't still exist and can't still have very harmful impacts (as you mentioned with your clients). This is distinct from saying that there are extremist sects of any religion or belief-system, because the institutional rules themselves are causing the harm, not the interpretations of them. This is also distinct from saying that I follow the law of the United States but I don't agree with all of the laws, because I don't really have a choice in the matter of following laws no matter what country I live in. This could be similar to the idea of supporting a musical artist even though their values aren't completely aligned with yours, but the harm potentially caused by that artist is nowhere near the harm that can be caused by a billion dollar religious institution (exception maybe for someone like Taylor Swift, but even that's a stretch because she doesn't have complete power over the belief system of a person throughout their upbringing). The institutional rules of your own version of a religion can still be actively harming people with less access to the resources needed to "choose not to be in victimhood" that may be necessary if their specific community and culture is not as "progressive" as yours. They may not have any close relationships with people who do not closely follow the institutional rules, including the harmful ones, and they may not have the financial independence to find other relationships and perspectives. Or they might just not be as strong-willed to reject what they were taught. I personally find it misleading and belittling to people in that position to say that they are "waiving a banner of being victimized" by pointing out the very real institutional basis of LDS encouraging women to be homemakers, and that this is "building a platform of victimhood" and "completely lacking integrity". In some ways I, too, successfully challenged a lot of the harmful notions because of my personality, but I still experienced that harm (and some of it persists today), and no one should need to be strong enough or have the right personality to avoid the harmful doctrine of a religion. In reference to a prominent LDS professional dancer saying "I was never expressly taught that my calling was to be a wife and mother.", former devout Mormon @alyssadgrenfell has said in a recent youtube video, "I don't know how you can go through childhood, adolescence, and then adulthood in Mormonism without getting that message because it is so deeply baked into, not just the culture, but very specifically into the doctrine of Mormonism". She then provides examples, including the family proclamation posted prominently in the house that includes the line that a woman's primary responsibility is to nurture their children. In my own religion, I ultimately came to the conclusion that even if I and the people I associate with might practice my religion in a way that I deem "moral"(and even though many of the values I learned still direct my life choices and who I am today), the institution that is inextricably connected to my religion is actively doing harm to others, and I am not okay with that. You said "what is hurtful and painful to one person can be enlightening and supportive and strengthening to others", but that would only be okay if the people who find it hurtful have the power to easily switch to a different approach, kind of like trying a different modality in therapy or trying a different food. But that's not true. While I can enjoy grapefruit without forcing someone else to eat it who doesn't enjoy it, the aspects of religion that benefit some people cannot exist without the harm to others, unless the harmful institutional rules are changed. On the other hand, finding spiritual connection and finding community is possible without a religious institution, so the hurt is not necessary (you probably have to shift your religion to do so, but not the fundamental beliefs of being a good person). In my experience, people do not make this switch because the potential personal loss of community is more salient than the possibly distant harm to someone else caused by the religious institution, even if it is possible to find community and spiritual connection elsewhere. But because religion is literally a matter of ethics and integrity, that harm eventually became salient enough for me as I gradually had more access to the resources and outside perspectives to not just "choose not to be in victim-hood" in regards to some aspects of the religious doctrine, but to choose not to enable an institution to put that burden on others as well. I don't need to avoid being friends with people from my church and I don't need to give up a spiritual connection, but to maintain my own integrity, I cannot actively support it, whether financially or through volunteer work. In conclusion, the TV show you mention may not portray a realistic depiction of your personal experience with your religion, but how do you resolve the conflict inherent in living your own personal interpretation of a religious institution while not being able to avoid supporting (financially and socially) the harm that is actively done by that religious institution?
I don’t know if this is the “correct” answer, but I would like to respond to your question about the inherent conflict of living my religion a certain way even when it implies my support of the harm done to others by our shared religion. For me it is a matter of faith and repentance. The faith comes from having a personal relationship with God and believing that God wants me to learn and grow in a particular church. I don’t believe that I am responsible for what someone else has or has not learned from this environment. But I am responsible for what I get out of it. Repentance is a gift made possible by the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It is not just an incidental blessing like an eraser on the end of a pencil to be used if needed. For anyone born into this life who reaches an age where they can discern between right and wrong repentance is an absolute necessity. All of us do (or say or think) things that require the grace of a Savior to bring us back into God’s perfect presence. I find that the awareness of the universal need for a Savior is a blessing that gets me past the inertia and indecision of anxious perfectionism. It really helps me take the next step of faith without being overwhelmed by the possibility that my footfall is crushing some unseen creature below. I know that if my faith or connection with God is lacking then I can access the Savior’s Grace through repentance. If I can aspire to petition Jesus Christ for His help overcoming my shortcomings then how can I deny His compassion on someone else who does the same? Including those who have been entrusted with a degree of responsibility or authority within a particular religion?
Thank you so much for this episode! I'm a queer, religious (but not Orthodox,) Jewish mama. I've actively studied Torah my entire adult life and I'm also fascinated to learn about any group of which I'm not a part. I don't know how this fascination began, but it helps me to be a more tolerant, open minded version of myself. Aside from the obvious, ugly stereotypes, people of not-my-faith have boldly TOLD ME what I do and do not believe in! Excuse me, but it works to ask someone about that, not just make assumptions! 🙏❤🏳🌈🏳⚧🟦
I mean, didn't Alicia herself tell something like her parents had a certain overview of how a girl should be and she had to go against it and learn to love herself Plus, she had to become a stay at home mom, also because of these social expectations put on both of them (Alicia and Jono)
Me i grew up Mormon in Utah. It is my trauma actually. being Mormon you are told strict rules as a girl. So yes When I was a Mormon we had a book “ personal progress for women “ on things to do that would make us the perfect wife. We had rules to follow for celestial dating. We could not be alone when we are on mission. We are not allowed. During a ceremony I had a veil on with an outfit and a lot of things were happening I had to learn some codes so I can meet God and I was told that I can’t tell anyone about this ceremony. Actually after a few years I stop being mormon now I am healing. But yes i was mormon and I know that the show is definitely a joke. Mormon cannot drink alcool and need to dress modest and not be focus on making a lot of views and having husband is your priority. You are expected to be a certain way as a girl not a choice for you. So this show is really not real. I know.
I loved the term "religious manipulation" I think it perfectly defines that barrier we should have between having our own beliefs and faith and understanding of our life and the world around us, and when we've used it disrespectfully, and need to keep ourselves accountable for being empathetic and supportive of our fellow man. I think the stereotypes around Christians might be more easily dismantled if more people could know and understand that concept. And also possibly go further in living harmoniously despite differences of faith and spirituality.
If your records are in the church= you are a Mormon. Just because they don’t fit what you might be use to seeing as a Mormon doesn’t dismiss that they are in fact Mormon wives. Also the judgement shown from a fellow woman in the church towards other women in the church is 100% the correct representation of how women in the church are so thanks for that perfect example.
I’m physically disabled and holy crap are we underrepresented. And then when we are, it’s treated as inspirational or something to be overcome (which is beyond disgusting)
I am also physically disabled and also agree with the under representation, however, in my own opinion the reason why it is seen as inspiration is because there is a disconnect between what people think of us verses who we are. My physical disability is not something I overcame, it is just something that is normal to me or just life in general. Though, I don't believe it is disgusting, is it a misrepresentation of the disabled community? Yes, however, we are need to be respectful here and see how they got to that conclusion. This way it is easier to fix that mistake and move on from it. (Just in case anyone is curious, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I know it is unrelated but I just wanted to clear that up.)
I'm Catholic and I believe my faith gets misrepresented all the time! There have absolutely been terrible priests and laity who have hurt others and members of their congregation (and I'm Canadian so there is a long history of residential schools), and those stories absolutely should be heard. But I think living by the day-to-day values and culture of my faith, it's not about excusing abuse, performing exorcisms, or being hyper-conservative. I'd say the majority of us live by doing the best we can for our community, volunteering for food banks, nursing homes, and parish committees, and using our love for God to fuel kindness and generosity and compassion for those in need. My grandparents are very devout and they encouraged me to do anything I dreamed of. My aunt (their daughter) has a degree in biology and law enforcement and I'm going to go towards a Ph.D in literature once I finish my undergrad. I love the scholastic traditions of my faith and it encourages me to always seek out new knowledge and new people. I feel like sometimes my peers in class are surprised to discover my religion, and find that I can be studious and open-minded and also Catholic, when those things are so not mutually exclusive. (My favourite Catholic representations though are in Netflix's Daredevil, Derry Girls, Les Miserables, and Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame).
You say they are not an accurate representation of LDS church members, but I've known LDS church members that would say being tolerant or encouraging of LGBTQ+ or trans identities - which the two of you very much are - is not in alignment with LDS values. Alicia says it isn't accurate, that the LDS church isn't patriarchal and women aren't subjected to pressure to become mothers or homemakers, but I've known many people who say that's exactly what their experience of LDS culture was, and I am not ready to dismiss their accounts as 'victim mentality' - so who then is the arbiter of which Mormons are 'real' Mormons and which are not?
I would say there is a difference between the church and what it teaches and the culture. As for an "authority" as for what is a real [insert group name] and who isn't, I imagine the closest you can come to that for any group is to ask the folks who are a part of it. To make that question awfully uncomfortable, put some groups in there, like "Jew" or "black" or the like.
Thank you! I recently watched a video with the leaders of the Mormon church talking very specifically about being anti-LGBTQ. & don't they regularly support political candidates that are more extreme conservatives? I see those values aligning with Traditional views of gender & women's role in society
absoulutely. I watched many videos by Alyssa Grenfeld and either Jono and Alicia are in a very different community or they are trying to cover up the bs that's going on in the LDS church.
I’m a Baptist, and my denomination has definitely been misrepresented. People automatically think all of us are racist bigots who hate the LGBT community. We’re also seen as people who can’t dance, drink, play cards, or generally do anything remotely fun. Of course, there are Baptists that fit all the things I mentioned, but that certainly doesn’t describe me or anyone I know.
Same. And yes, I was told to get education also, but it wasn't such a big deal to drop out of college and start a family, leaving school or career behind. For sure motherhood is emphasized
Same here. My. whole. life. In fact, my mom even told me once that I could have a career "as long as it didn't interfere with raising my children." So, yeah, I'd say it's definitely pushed heavily on women to be a housewife before personal career aspirations. I mean, our whole lives are spent preparing to get sealed in the temple so that we can raise a family in the gospel.
I would love to see a more in-depth and critical discussion of the insane pressure that a lot of LDS members are under, especially women, also in terms of looks, and the juxtaposition of being expected to look gorgeous but also be modest. I think the show displays a lot of this pressure with all of their talk about plastic surgery etc. And I mean, doesn't Utah have the highest number of plastic surgeons per capita?
I have to ask, who is applying this pressure, and what purposes would be served by submitting to the pressure? What purposes would be served by not submitting to the pressure?
So one of my best friends/sister from another mister is LDS. I am also friends with her mom. My experience with them is that they were raised to be demure (original definition) house wives that are subservient to their husband's. My friend does not have some of the same beliefs as her mom, thankfully, as her mom is extremely homophobic and quite literally went on stage at my grandfather's funeral to preach an entire Mormon sermon on the importance of purity.
Up until recently in the Temple endowment ceremony women promised to obey their husbands. Even still it is implied or critics would say "God's covenants changed!" Before 1990 it was even more direct and called, "The Law of your Husband". What I'm saying is Mormon culture has been slower to conform to societies' progress of treating women as equal which explains older generations acting the way they did.
I don't think many people are going to see this, but this feels like a safe place for me to put some things out there: 1. I am part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and it is part of me. All of the misconceptions, criticism and negativity toward The Church can be really hurtful. It's very much like someone talking badly about your mom. It can be really hard to face. 2. I genuinely don't look at my faith as "rules" that I "have to" follow. That's not what I'm looking for to fill my soul. The way I see it is more like... God knows me and loves me, He knows and loves all of us, and He keeps telling us ways to find happiness, avoid regret, and prepare ourselves to see Him again. We can show that we love Him back. I live my life to show God that I love Him back. I know I'm not perfect, but I do try really hard to cultivate and share goodness. That's different than, "I have to follow all these rules, ugh!" Well... Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. ❤
I love this. I get that it’s hard. I hope no one is unkind to you because of your faith. Not everyone has had great experiences with the LDS belief system. That isn’t your fault. It is however your responsibility to know what your religion teaches and defends, and acknowledge that some teachings can hurt people. No belief system is so special that it is above criticism. Every belief system has pros and cons. What you describe as being so positive in your life sounds a lot like my own relationship with God, which remains in tact even after not being LDS anymore.
As soon as you said the thing about my group being misrepresented in pop culture, I thought of all the times eating gluten free had been a joke. Even recently, in the video teaching for the women's Bible study in in at church. If I don't eat gluten free, my body literally attacks itself. I wish I didn't have to be so nitpicky about my food & make such a pain out of myself, but I do. It hurts when I'm made a joke. 😢
I'm sorry they joke about your condition. A student of mine told me that it's called Crohn's disease and it's a real thing - when you can't eat any bread, cookies, cake, and so on your food choice becomes quite limited. However there are also people that don't have that problem but abstain from gluten because that makes them look cool or something. I think the joke is supposed to be on them.
Crohn's disease is another digestive issue, yes. The problem is that when someone jokes about it, they don't say "I'm only picking on the fad dieters". They just blanket statement joke about "picky eaters".
Picky eaters are another easy target for jokes. There are many people, at least where I come from, especially in the older generations, that think you have to eat everything except the kitchen sink. Then they mention something about how there should be mandatory military service for everyone so that they're not that picky with their food.
I also have celiac disease, and I hate the gluten-free jokes. Before I was diagnosed I lived my life trying to be as low maintenance for other people as possible. I'm very independent, but this disease forces me to be high maintenance. It's exhausting, and I hate it. The jokes make dealing with the social stigma so much harder.
I’m active LDS, 6-7 generations in, not from Utah but moved here in my late teens. While this show is typical “reality”show material, a bit manipulated and sensationalized, and while it isn’t representative of the mainstream LDS people, I know that this show represents a sub section of the LDS here in Utah. People I know personally. They are in your wards. Some come regularly, some occasionally and some not at all, but they are very much a part of our community. While it’s important to note neither they nor polygamist groups are representative of the bulk of the LDS, they do exist and we could learn a lot about ourselves and them and ways to support one another better by just learning from the experience they have. When I first moved here, it was a complete culture shock and this show awoke every last trigger from that time in my life, but now I just feel compassion for all the ways we misunderstand and hurt one another. Hoping this will be an opportunity for a lot of healing for a lot of people.
I grew up mormon I am now an exmo I watched this mostly because I was curious why they were claiming they were Mormon 😂 because that is definitely not the correct portrayal. I think a few of the girls are exmo so I felt like the way they marketed this was wrong. It is entertaining to watch as a reality TV fan but definitely not anywhere close to the “Mormon wife’s” I know and love. I’m excited to see more reaction videos to this show 😅
I highly recommendthe in depth reaction to this show by Alyssa Grenfell. It's a thorough in-depth analysis from someone with a very clear head and good view on tthe LDS church community.
I think an important thing to underline in your video is the statement that whats uplifting to some is damaging to others. While the LDS church does say its important to find for yourself your answers there is still an "ultimate answer to follow" from the top 15 in church leadership. That ultimate answer on how a family looks or should look like is specified in the Family Proclamation to the World document and absolutely does specify traditional gender related roles in the home. Or if those gender roles for the time being is not in the home now, it will be in the afterlife. How has that document specifically affected your relationship? Or your children's expectations for their spouses someday?
Growing up LDS, I hated the Proclamation to the World. It was used as a cudgel against me to invalidate my perspective on what I wanted the opportunities for myself and women to be.
Seriously. The gaslighting in this video is real. “The Mormon church doesn’t teach traditional gender roles!” Bullshit. It’s baked into the theology. It’s taught on an institutional level. Honestly, as a recovering Mormon, this video was so incredibly triggering.
I was raised to be a stay at home mom in the LDS church. Homeschooled or no schooled taking care of my 5 younger siblings. Yes it really exists in it. I didn't have a choice to not have education growing up. I had the lessons in church the most important thing is to be a mom and wife more than anything else . So the anything else was skipped on me. It is very much LDS church driven. The show does not represent LDS people or beliefs.
With nothing but respect, I would really implore you to not react to any more of this show or other content about the LDS church unless you are better able to approach it without defensiveness or judgment. Reacting blind on the fly probably not a good fit for this topic. There’s a difference in spelling out how your experiences are different from those shown on the show (there should be plenty of material for that 😅) and *questioning* their own experiences being raised in the church. One of the wives was impregnated at 15 by a 20 year old. This is documented. And it wasn’t even commented on in this video when she said she was married at 16, though I’d think for most of your viewers, that would be more extreme than drinking or seeing a man’s bare chest. These experiences have been corroborated by many other Mormon and ex-Mormon creators. I assume you’re probably familiar with several such creators, but I’d recommend Alyssa Grenfell and Zelph on the Shelf, who both actually covered this show, or Nemo the Mormon (now ex as he’s recently been excommunicated) who makes it clear in his videos that he LOVES the LDS church and that’s why he wants it to do better. Again, it’s OKAY if your experiences are different, and to call out those differences, but not to get defensive and in doing so minimize their experiences and suffering because they don’t match up with your own.
100%. A lot of us were traumatized by our experiences in the LDS church, which is a High-demand religion in every sense of the word. Hearing this victim blaming and holding up the gaslighting we experienced from the leaders of the LD S church from this therapy channel is incredibly upsetting.
I think there are gender roles in the church, but they are different from what people think, and they are explicitly said to be flexible and "whatever works best for your family is best" The first thing I think of is education. A culture so intent on women being homemakers wouldn't be so intent on sending their girls to college. Every woman in my life growing up had a degree. My mom, all my aunts, every church teacher and young women's leader. One grandma had a nursing license and my other grandma has a master's degree and she's 82. We had YW activities about changing a tire and other car stuff cause we wanted to know so the leaders did a whole Wednesday night in the parking lot for it. Yeah we also had a lot of craft things too, but that just taught us to be proud of things we make and what we can create. We had activities on personal finance, and game nights, and service projects and a ton of other things. It definitely wasn't a "let's pick out baby names and learn how to fold laundry"
I was a YW president once. I did a car maintenance activity and had my husband helped out since he knew a lot about cars. The YM president also did an activity teaching his YM how to cook a simple dish and iron clothes. The irony about this is that, we're not just Mormon, we're also an ethnic group that grew up on beliefs that women belong in the kitchen but it's thanks to the church that my parents are more open minded.
I left religion behind years ago, but I would say my mental health diagnosis is so wildly misrepresented in media that it makes me afraid sometimes. I have DID, and the portrayal of us as either murderers OR the common belief among people that it's all made up is incredibly hurtful. This diagnosis only comes about through surviving horrific child abuse. It's not a fun thing to deal with and the public makes it worse
Thank you for sharing! It's so difficult and scary, but I'm so glad you have the courage to be vulnerable. It really does help spread understanding to have someone with first hand experience share so the rest of us are not misinformed about what's really happening! {{HUGS}}
Mended Light's sister channel, Cinema Therapy, covered DID and how it's portrayed across a couple of videos. One episode is about Split, and it's related movies, and another is Moon Knight. Maybe that's something you'd be interested in?
I've recently become friends with someone who has DID... they were kind enough to send me a resource with accurate information that condemns the stigmas and improper uses of the term "Multi-Personality Disorder." It's been very enlightening to research on... both about the disorder, but also enlightening to realize the sheer amount of things I did not understand about it. 😮 All the things I thought I knew were wrong. 😧 It’s so much more complex and nuanced than many media creators tend to realize. I also found a website ranking movies on DID in order of movies with the most realistic and accurate representation of the disorder. Shockingly, Split was the lowest ranked one. 😅 That's incredibly concerning, since Split is probably the most popular one with the most views on IMBd. 😰 I'm currently halfway through "Sybil" (1976), which is the highest ranked one for accuracy. I'm watching a TH-cam upload of it. It is quickly becoming one of the most meaningful movies I've ever watched. I'm learning a lot from Sybil's actual biography via a very respectful and intriguing movie that really helps capture the experience rather than merely describing it. I wish there were more movies with accurate potrayals of DID. It deserves more respect and sensitivity than it has garnered from mainstream media. 😮💨 You have my sympathies. 🙏 DID's mainstream media portrayal is quite possibly one of the worst and inaccurate portrayals you can possibly get. 😟
I am also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and I am also single. I feel like that yes, my religion is often portrayed inaccurately, but also that there are a lot of pop culture movies that don't portray single like accurately as well--either someone falls madly in love in a romcom, or they are a lonely weirdo/lab rat/misfit, or a crazy cat lady. The overall message is that single people are not happy being single. I feel that I can be happy in whatever relationship/marital state I am in, so inaccurate representations are part of this as well.
I was raised Mormon, and I was frequently abused because I openly hated church as a child. I left the church in early adulthood and never looked back. I don't think it's fair to call this show a "misrepresentation." No, it's not an accurate depiction of the "average" Mormon (and maybe the producers of this show could have found a better example of Mormon wives), but it is a perfect and tragic example of the kinds of mental gymnastics, cognitive dissonance, and outright apologetics one has to endure to be in this faith at times, especially when who you are or who you want to be as a person does not align with the Mormon doctrines and/or Mormon cultural practices. And leaving the church can be so heavily stigmatized that a lot of people struggle to do it for fear of the backlash they will get from friends and family. Depending on your situation, it can be better to be Mormon in name only in order to avoid conflict with loved ones. I also think that there are a lot of people who believe in the church and want to be included, but the framework doesn't allow for them to be both "in" and be their authentic selves (i.e. a member of the LGBTQ+ community). I see all of that sort of represented in this show to varying degrees where you have a group of people who are essentially trying to fit themselves into a framework that isn't really working for them, and their reasons for doing so are complex. I don't think it's a misrepresentation to say that, while their experience is not typical, it's also not uncommon in the sense that a lot of people struggle with Mormonism as an extremely high-demand religion.
I feel like everyone I know that was Mormon feels similarly. Also, I recently saw a video of clips of Mormon leaders & they were all grossly anti-LGBTQ. I don't know how anyone reconciles that with the religion & claim to be accepting of all walks of life
I'm so sorry you were abused as a child. The Church is very clear about abuse; it is not to be tolerated. They even now have training for protecting children and youth, which is mandatory for those in related callings.
@@cinderbelle22 My mom abused me because she truly believed that her salvation was tied to mine, and I was having none of it. I'm not excusing the behavior, but I find the idea that the church doesn't condone abuse to be laughable. They literally created and upheld the conditions that caused the abuse to happen to begin with. And because my mom was doing her religious duty, people turned a blind eye to it. It's funny how abuse isn't justified until it is...
@@fairywingsonroses The Church most certainly does not condone abuse. I'm wondering what conditions you are talking about. Any religion, any institution, can be twisted by evil people to hurt its members despite the best intentions of it's founders. Christ taught us to "love one another" and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", so if anyone is not doing that, they need to repent and be held accountable. And I'm sorry, but your mother was just plain wrong. Salvation is personal. Maybe she would have felt like she failed as a mother if you didn't comply, but that's her own insecurity and not on you. That really is awful that you had to endure that.
@@cinderbelle22 The Mormon church literally teaches that a woman cannot go to heaven if her children and/or husband don't. Women who don't have husbands or who don't have religiously faithful husbands are assigned one in death. The woman does not get a say in this. So, yes, the church created the conditions for which I was abused. Perhaps the church itself doesn't condone abuse, but they sure are good at making excuses for bad players and refusing to communicate doctrines and practices in such a way that it limits opportunities for abuse and harm to happen due to misinterpretations. A lot of churches sweep this kind of stuff under the rug because they don't want the bad reputation, and church leaders either take matters into their own hands instead of going to authorities/officials, or they downplay it as a problem with imperfect individuals and not a problem with the overall culture in the church. In my opinion, it's a problem with the overall culture of the church.
This is so refreshing! I’ve been watching your videos for the last year and didn’t know you were also LDS, so it’s really nice to see some positive representation! Keep up the good work!
As someone who grew up lds, I would also say this an extreme representation of moromon women. Most moromon women look like soccer moms . But i disagree with you on the statement they use of we are raised to be homemakers. because I see mom very stuck in her upbringing in the church of the house has to look a certain way and your children need to act and look a certain way. This perfectionist mindset, that is really damaging to people if you are constantly hearing lessons in church about this and you need to do more. Even if you are doing all the things. I was taught to basically be a homemaker and a career is secondary to that. If you look at the proclamation to the world it states the roles of women and men. The women is basically the one in charge of the home. The teachings were more heavily taught to the boomer generation and got more relaxed as for gen x and millenials, I see gen z and alpha being able to wear clothing i would have never been aloud to wear. So yes things have changed over time but the basis of the teachings are still the same even if it has changed in some areas.
This articulates it very, very well. I would add that the very specified gender roles from the proclamation to the nation can also be harmful as the things someone is being told they have to do and be is fundamentally incompatible with their personal skills, abilities, and who they are. I watched this wreck my mom. It also added to the harmful divorce stigma.
Only watched the trailer as part of your video, but... the duality looks really familiar to what was going on in our young women's class growing up. There were a lot of teenagers who would clean themselves up for Sunday but would act loose and raunchy at school during the week. Also, "victimhood" comments arent really called for when it comes to abuse and religious trauma. I/we were regularly tied up, beaten, gaslit, coerced, criticized, etc, by parental figures who also served in RS presidencies and bishoprics. We are LDS and also have dissociative identity disorder due to the prolonged, severe traumas suffered in childhood in a very devout family. You can be devout, read the scriptures every day, attend church weekly, go to the temple monthly, devote yourself to your family and genealogy, feeding and driving the missionaries, visit the sick in the hospital, and still entirely lack empathy and kindness...and be covertly narcisstic and awful. There is so much that does go on behind closed doors because there is so much emphasis on achievement, what you _do_ to be righteous, and not who you _are._
Saying these girls “aren’t Mormon” feels disingenuous. They’re young members. Maybe a little wild but they still fit under the supposedly ever encompassing umbrella. Maybe not your slice of it…maybe not how you’d prefer to be known as…but they’re Mormons. The overarching themes of the show, certainly the misogyny, are very accurate and universal to my experience. It is a fact that women can’t do anything in the church without a man’s approval. It is a fact that women are told being a mother is your highest calling and thus implicitly your only calling. It took me years to rip that kind of thinking from my brain leaving BYU unmarried and feeling like a failure with no genuine plans for my own future because of what I was told I was supposed to do. Be a happy little wife. It made me accept unacceptable behavior from men because that’s what being a woman is! A helpmeet. Keeping them on the straight and narrow. A side character in their story. An invisible, voiceless matriarch like Heavenly Mother. So though I may not have lived like these girls, we’re CERTAINLY experiencing the same undertows. We both have heard stupid shit from men because of the programming of the church. We both have felt the pressure to perform as pretty and likeable. We both have overcompensated when we didn’t fit that role. That IS Mormonism, dawg.
The disappointment in yourself that you express is heartbreaking. I am a convert member, born and raised in VA. I want you to know that, as an outsider, I see all of these things as more of a specifically Utah-culture problem. It’s almost like a dream world in Utah. It doesn’t feel real here in some parts of the state. (I now live in Utah btw, bc of a job, so I see both sides) And frankly, I feel it’s being called to repentance recently in conference talks. The warping of truth has not gone unnoticed. On a side note, I never desired to go to BYU. I don’t think it’s a good place anymore sadly. I think its moral compass has gone all askew. I am sorry that you came out of it feeling like a failure- bc you weren’t one. You are an individual, on your own path. And that alone makes you special and gives you worth. I am sorry for the negative experiences you have had. I wish you well.
Yeah same, I was like… why is it that when a famous mormon is doing things opposite of the church, the members automatically are like “oh they aren’t actually mormon anymore”but when a famous mormon is doing something cool and pro mormon (even if they’re not practicing anymore) the members are so quick to be like “oh look they’re Mormons!” 😂
@@MendedLight I’d love to hear about the stereotypes and where you both feel they are true or wildly off base. I know you don’t speak for the whole community, but hearing how you practice your faith. Again thank you for sharing this with us. 💜
I love your channel (both), I'm not sure where y'all were raised (AZ and NV?), but we were absolutely raised to be housewives/stay-at-home-moms. It's literally in our doctrine i.e. The Proclamation to the Family and hundreds of General Conference addresses. Women were shamed for working outside the home. Perhaps outside of Utah, it's not emphasized as much, but within Utah, it absolutely is. I was taught the only reason to get a college education is to meet a well-educated man who will be able to provide for the family and allow us to stay at home with the kids and because "what if your husband dies, and you need to support your family?" etc. You guys are usually very fair minded and aware of these specific cultural and church issues, so I'm actually surprised you denied that at the beginning of this video. I understand the defensiveness regarding this show. I do not feel these women represent how I was as an active Latter-Day Saint, but they reminded me of other girls/women I did go to church with. Are these women representative of Mormon women? Yes and no. I believe they were all married in the temple for their first marriages, and you know to get married in the temple there are very specific standards you have to abide by and hoops to jump through. Temple prep classes to attend, many interviews with your bishop regarding temple worthiness, etc. So though they may be more of the "inactive" Mormon now, they are absolutely representative of Mormons, because they grew up as such and got married as such. Please don't erase and invalidate their past by a small snippet of their present. I think many of us hard-core Mormons (as you guys are) knew of these types of girls who "went through the motions". Do they currently abide by all the rules and standards of the church? Obviously not. Also, other religions don't quite judge their attendees by "activity" or frequency of church attendance as much as we do. I see so many of my friends and family speaking badly of these women, and I know their ward leadership has notes and likely assigned specific home/visiting (yes, I know it's called Ministering Sisters now) teachers specifically to inactives like these women, to befriend them and try to reactivate them. I am no longer an "active" member of the church, but I have held callings in 3 different ward presidencies (YW, RS, and Primary), my ex-husband was YM pres as well. I know the intricacies of how the church operates on a ward level and the large differences you can see between wards, states, etc. I've lived in Texas now for 12 years, and my young women had 3 female doctors in their presidency, I was so happy for my girls (that I was over) to have this representation because I NEVER had it in Utah. I specifically made sure to teach our girls about practical and important topics like how to pay for college, and finances, etc. Not the activities I was given as a youth about which qualities to look for in a guy and "oh yeah, make sure he's an RM!" (Returned Missionary). I'm happy there has been some evolution in the messaging of the church (mostly because it is required for both parents to work within this economic climate), but please, don't invalidate the lived experience of 90% of women who have grown up in the church.
Thank you for making this video. I was diagnosed with religious trauma in my early 20s, in part because of abuse from my pastor father. However, my faith was also how I survived my trauma and is central to who I am today. Most people I know can’t make room for that kind of complexity; they call it Stockholm Syndrome or just plain stupidity.
Thank you for sharing this. Sometimes the pain is too much for people to reconcile, but if they turn to God, there is healing, peace, and understanding. When people have said things to me that were hurtful, whether intentional or not, I struggled, especially when it came from someone that I trusted and admired. But in praying, and meditating, I was able to see the person and the situation more clearly and gain a sort of religious independence from them. Even if they were a member of my faith, I could separate them from my faith. The same goes for scriptures and doctrine that I don't understand. I've had many questions that at times would just have to be put on the back burner, but eventually they would be answered.
It's interesting how differently you guys over there in America see Christianity. You talked about the importance of religion being personal and not letting any religious leader tell you who you should be. I was raised to listen to religious authority and to put what they say above my own opinion. It's kind of the point of having a pope (I'm Roman Catholic). Now, this is obviously fuckin' difficult as a closeted queer (nvm my username, I just don't wanna be outed as trans, in case my family sees my account or sth). Especially as an Eastern-European. For most of my life, I didn't know where to look for help and support: I only found suicidal thoughts in both my faith and my culture. I guess your view on this is WAY healthier, and thanks for sharing it. I really needed that positivity, even though I'm almost okay now that I found my community.
Yeah, listening to LDS Leaders is like hearing really good advice, then deciding between yourself and God if it's advice you want to follow and/or what God wants you to follow. There's so much freedom and everything.
They both have mental health degrees and I feel are healthier for it. I was taught "when the prophet speaks the time for thinking is done." What is the point of having a Prophet, who speaks for God, if one cannot follow their counsel?
@BoromirTolkien which is ironic, since the current prophet/leader of the Church Russel M Nelson wrote an autobiography called "Heart of the Matter." while he was still the leader of the Church. He, himself, wrote that everyone may ask God if the prophet is stating true things. There's nothing wrong with that. It's apparently encouraged by the prophet himself now, so we probably SHOULD think and ask God.
Finding out that you’re LDS has made my day!! I have been watching your Cinema Therapy videos for a long time now. I am also LDS and I appreciate this so much!!
It took me a while to process this- and I wasn't sure why, because I mostly agree with your statemens. However, to think that 10% of your income from this channel goes to a church that actively spreads hate, racism and covers up abuse - this is where i feel so disappointed. Sure 'your level of mormon' is accepting of all sorts of people but all this money is going to spreading beliefs that are harmful. 'yes but every church has people in it that suppress women' is not an excuse, you have a choice to not be with any church. Joseph Smith was not a saint, he was a polygamist who married 14 year old girls.
I grew up going to a Catholic church and decided in my teens that religion was not for me and have identified as Atheist ever since. I think Atheists are misrepresented as people who exclusively hate religion and want it banned. I believe in separation of church and state as well as the freedom of religion. I don't think our laws should be based off of one specific religion. I think people should have the freedom to worship as they see fit. The problems I have come from people trying to force their religious beliefs on others and those using their religious beliefs as excuses to harm others.
I'm a practicing Latter-day Saint and was born and raised in the church. My parents taught me (and showed me every single day) that marriage is a partnership of equals, both of whom love, honor, respect, and serve the other. Yes, I was taught that motherhood is a wonderful thing. IT IS. It's the best thing in my life. But it's not my ENTIRE life. I was also taught I could do anything I felt called to do. I was encouraged, NAGGED -- especially by my mom -- to get a degree, to have a career. I've been taught good values. I've made good choices. While I'm not a career-driven person, I've done everything I ever wanted to do with my life and my employment and the way I bring in money. All of it with the full support of my (also lifelong LDS) husband and kids. I am a free woman with a wonderful life. Yes, I have hardships. Everyone does. But I have no regrets.
Probably the most Mormon thing about the show is casting these woman as outsiders. I feel the show did a great job of casting from someone who had their records removed to having endowed, temple-going members (it is very nuanced above this level of activity on who is doing more for the Kingdom of God). While we can judge them for not wearing clothes that cover where the garments would be, they are still going to church. It also seems the true secret lives of Mormon wives is trying to find fulfillment with many kids. There cannot be a range of member experiences while disavowing these women's experiences. They were raised with the Church. The judging is very holier-than-thou. While there is a movement toward more women working and autonomy, the general direction of the church is that women are "by divine design, .... are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children." They are told not to have careers. These women are breaking that model. More than the dancing on MomTok, I think them being the primary breadwinners is what separates them from modern Mormon women.
Can you give your thoughts on the difference between a religion's teachings/doctrine and a congregation's culture? I find it fascinating that within any sort of community (but especially the religious ones) you can teach the same core values, but apply them so differently from area to area. Having lived all over the US, my congregations have had different vibes everywhere, even when the teachings are identical. There have been places where people could care less that I was single, and others where people felt they could nag me about getting married. Both can exist in the same religion (and at times in the same congregation). I have friends that felt pressured to get married and are now divorced. I personally never had that experience. It seems like for several of my friends that have left organized religion, it's less about the teachings and more about how it's taught and applied in the culture the congregation creates.
I think that comes down to the family/community culture within the specific geographic region. Far too many times it's the old hypocritical - the "do as I say, not as I do," leadership.
Don’t love the “living in victim hood framing” it’s great you didn’t experience that in the church but there are plenty of ex Mormons or ex Christians (including me) out there that did. It’s not “living in victimization” if you’re just stating a pattern of behavior you experienced all growing up that had actual effects on your life.
I am a queer Latter-Day Saint. On the queer side I get judged as a homophobic and transphobic person. And on the chuch side i get judged as being a sinner who hurts kids. I can be queer and still be in good s5anding with the church. Its not a choice to have th le queer feelings i have but i do choose if I act on those feelings. I have been afraid of starting both my channels for fear of the comments hating on me from both sides.
I'm so sorry for judgment and closed-mindedness on both sides. If you ever start that channel I'll be your first subscriber! You can be both queer and Latter-day Saint, and your heart is so good.
I was a practing Mormon up until last year and the ad for the show made me think, "Um, did they even get Mormon women, or is this a poorly researched pretend reality show?" Why? 1) Yes, our young women are taught that we need to be married to live with God in the after life. Depending on your ward (congregation) and area, the pressure varied. The church has been more understanding that not everyone has the opportunity to get married or stay married so it hasn't been as harsh on this teaching. However, it is a common topic in the young women's Sunday group. 2) Yes, there is pressure to have children and as many as you can afford. Again, there has been more understanding that not everyone can physically have children, but if you can, you should. Having children in a marriage is only permitable. No requirement to have kids before 21. 3) The women in the video drink alcohol - Mormon women don't. They don't even drink coffee or tea. That's why there are so many soda shops in Utah. 4) The women are showing shoulders, upper thighs, stomachs, cleavage and wearing tight clothing. In reality, Mormon women, especially if they went to the temple, don't wear these clothes. They wear underwear from the late 1800s that include a chemise (originally made to go under a corset) and bloomers with modern design changes to fit under t-shirts and jeans. 5) Mormon women are only sexually and mentally faithful to their husband. They follow the 10 commandments, which include: thou shall not commit adultery and shall not covet. 6) Women are encouraged to be stay-at-home moms, but aren't required because of family circumstances. 7) Women do not have to follow every desire of their husband. They can decide if they agree with their husband's actions.
Though to be fair, as a Mormon woman, I “covenanted” in the temple to “obey my husband as he obeys God.” He did not promise the same to me. This was the standard, until they changed the temple covenant a few years ago to make it more politically correct. I was devout. I took it all seriously, as I was raised from birth to take it seriously. And that seriously messed with my head.
@@rachellevigil9004 Also, pre 1990 you would've covenanted to obey your husband directly to him which explains the way my parents acted towards each other.
I'm a Protestant Christian, specifically Pentecostal and in the Church of God denomination. Drives me crazy how so many non -religious people see the fringe of religious groups and the scandals and assume all of us are like that. I think most religious people are just doing the best they can at being the best versions of themselves and seeking God. There's definitely religious abuse in all groups, unfortunately. But there are abusive people in every community. Even though I'm not Mormon I hate shows like this because while I don't agree with the book of Mormon I think that just like the rest of us, you all are moral people looking to love God and each other and do the right thing. I'm honestly just as frustrated with this show as I'd be if it were about Pentecostals.
I don’t know if this counts as religious manipulation, but growing up I was fine learning about Evolution and the Creation. I never questioned how to reconcile the two and thought it wasn’t a big deal until people around me (social media, fellow church members, mission companions, etc.) made it a big deal. One of them even brought up an old Bruce R. McConkie talk saying that it’s an unforgivable heresy to reconcile the two (this was before I knew about James E. Talmadge’s relationship with science and the Church’s current position on the matter), basically discouraging me from believing in Evolution. I tried to convince myself Evolution was fake, but it felt like I was lying to myself just to appease these dogmatic people. I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief when I found out that not only did the CES teach Evolution, but there were professors who actually believed it AND were able to reconcile the two despite the angry phone calls and emails from parents. Creation vs Evolution was just one aspect of what I think was religious manipulation in my life, but it has had me asking what it is I truly believe and what I’m just saying that I believe in order to fit in. And I feel that I understand that trying to fit in is a betrayal to what you value.
"Why not both?" This is something I live by because when one person says one thing is true and another person says the opposite, instead of just saying one person is right and the other person's wrong, I try to think about how they can both be right. Truth is a big concept that can really only be understood completely when it is whole. As puny mortals, we only have bits and pieces, maybe some chunks of the truth, and even those pieces cannot fully be understood without the context of the whole. But we still do our best with what we have. So as long as people are humble and willing to learn from each other, I think we'll be okay.
@@finkydoodleI remember hearing about that book, and it was pretty liberating knowing there were faithful Church members out there willing to engage in science without it harming their faith.
@@cinderbelle22I definitely like that approach as opposed to the all-or-nothing mindset. I’m not sure I’m on the same level of “both being true” as you’re describing (and don’t let me convince you otherwise, I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind), however that doesn’t mean I’m going to throw the entire story of the Creation out just because I don’t believe in it’s historicity. At the least, it helps me understand humanity’s relationship with God and (with the Latter-day Saint flavor) helps put into perspective our purpose here on Earth.
@@sketchygetchey8299 Yeah. I for one have never understood the idea of limiting God to the creationism theory. Truth (with the big T) is Truth. The fact is that evolution is real and observable and replicatable, and that we as mortals and humans and scientists don't even begin to understand the realities of the universe or the extent of science, and any good scientist understands that you have to keep space for learning that you are wrong. Most don't, because we are human and we hate having to be humble enough to admit we are wrong, nevertheless, that is key. Given that, I have never been able to fathom the idea of someone insisting they know exactly how God works the fabric of the universe to the extent of denying what is before their eyes. I cannot fathom the idea of refusing to consider that God used the principles *of science* to create the world. Why couldnt He have taken a bunch of matter and set it spinning? Then thrown more matter at it until it became a sun, and planets? Then thrown a comet at one of the planets to nudge it into the goldilocks zone and throw out a moon? Why couldnt He have sent comets to deliver water, create a heavy atmoshpere that didnt show the stars, induce esrthquakes and rains, breathe LIFE into the primordial oozd and then nudge it this way and that to breed all of creation, the same way we breed dogs? Why insist that God couldn't have created huge dinosaurs with the intent of giving us fun clues to how He created the universe and easy fuel for us to enter the age of industry? I am absolutely vaffled by people who think He couldn't have done that, wouldn't have thought that far agead, could only possivly have done it the way their limited minds can imagine it. God made all the Wonders of the universe, and as an LDS person, I believe he left us clues like a doting parent leaves a fun puzzle out for their kids so that we could learn HOW, so that we can grow. We are meant to think and expand our minds. Lol, I get off my soapbox now. 😀
As a Latter-day Saint, who loves the church and loves God, I want to say that some people in the church are not perfect. No one is, however, our church and religion was founded by Jesus Christ, a perfect man. So even if the people around you make mistakes, are judgmental, are ex-lds, or even claim to be LDS but do not act in accordance to the Gospel, the church, established by a perfect man, it likewise perfect. If anyone wants to know more about church history and what we believe, I would highly encourage you to read the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. I’m not trying to convert anyone, because at the end of the day, we don’t convert people, the Holy Ghost does. But, this scripture is amazing, and has helped me develop my own faith. Alma 32: 27 “But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.”
I grew up with Mormons (like half of my friends were LDS and I routinely went to church, youth programs, and other events with them) and I actually enjoyed the show! When I first was watching I was like “wow these are NOT like the people I grew up with”, and I definitely found the trailer misleading and not representative of the faith nor the ladies on it (but I guess the purpose was just to garner attention) but I feel like the women on the show across the season were very transparent about where they were at on their faith journeys and with their alignment to the church. It’s reality TV so of course the drama and such was played into, but like you said, for some of the women, their identities as LDS aligned more with how they grew up vs them being “devout” with the core values of the church.
I'm a Southern Baptist Pastor. Our media portrayal that we cringe at is kind of the opposite of this. 3 more recent ones: Westboro protesting military funerals, Steven Anderson saying that there is no salvation for homosexuals and recommending suicide, and the rise, scandal and fall of the Duggar family (with Bill Gothard's IBLP cult in the background). The irony is that whenever a Baptist Church reaches national news, somewhere buried in the article is when the Southern Baptist Convention kicked them out. It's always the ones that refused to repent and agree to cut ties and support with the thousands of other Baptist churches that then end up in front of a news reporter as the representative of the Baptist Faith It gets old.
Oh, yes. I worked at a job as a traveling bank teller and people asked if I was like the Westboro morons. I refuuuse to put the word "church" to their name.
If you are going to talk more about the show Alicia really needs to watch it. The trailer is really just for shock affect and doesn't really show what it is about. At least a couple of the women say they are a 9 or 10 out of 10 for being devout. Also, the show is much more boring than the trailer makes it look. It shows different degrees of Morminism just like every ward hows members of different degrees. Everyone is a cafeteria mormon and a lot of it depends on the era and region you grew up in.
So somehow despite me having watched Cinema Therapy for a while and this channel more recently and vaguely knowing you were from Utah, it had never crossed my mind that you guys could be Mormon. 😅 Really curious to hear your perspective because so far all the reviews I have seen on TH-cam are from people who have left the LDS church and no longer believe in God at all. Never Mormon myself but am Christian and have always been curious about different churches and different beliefs. I feel like Hollywood tends to represent Christians as either Catholics or really strict fundamentalists (thinking of Footloose) and doesn't show the wider variation in between! (I'm Episcopalian, although I have been part of other Protestant churches over the course of my life, and can't think of any examples of Episcoplian or Lutheran representation off the top of my head.) Also among my friends and family who are or have been Catholic, there's a wide variation in how much of the actual Church teaching they actually follow, like you said wirh your friends regarding the LDS church. Also, I knew about the alcohol thing because when I was in my cousin's wedding, the best man was a practicing Mormon (not sure if he still is) and he didn't believe the rest of us at first that the sparkling apple cider we were going to be toasting with was non-alcoholic. Someone had to show him the bottle for him to read it for himself.
Thanks for doing this; I've always had questions about the LDS religion. I have quite a few friends who are ex-mormans and that they felt like they were in a cult. It makes me happy to know that the religion has gotten more progressive. From what I've heard from people is that the faith is very sexist and controlling; it's good to know there's a better way to practice your faith As for misrepresentation my personal grievance is the making of wiccan/witches are all evil devil worshipers here to steal your children. Hardly ever is the Wiccan faith every shown properly; it's such a peace loving religion that most people know nothing about.
I'll never understand how intelligent, educated people can be religious. Don't you ever wonder if you're wrong? I had to leave Christianity because I couldn't stop all the doubts and questions, which started when i was a child, and continued into early adulthood, no matter how much I prayed or read the Bible.
Internet comments tend to be difficult to have nuanced conversations in, but ... My parents broke faith with the catholic church before I was born, and they let me go my own way when it came to spiritual issues. As such I never really developed any sort of religious belief. I consider myself an atheist leaning agnostic; as I certainly don't feel I can know for certain one way or another. Portrayal of atheism in popular culture swings back and forth a lot. It can be positive or negative, depending on the narrative the writer is trying to convey, and the biases of the writer as well.
I'm a Catholic and have experienced spiritual abuse by Jesuits citing my traditional beliefs. So to not only have found this channel because of a Jesuit family is a blessing, also to be candid on how we can represent ourselves in a non-invasive or harmful way!
Idk if you guys have been watching the Apple+ show Shrinking, but I think it’s up your alley, definitely worth a watch for a therapist and good potential for a video.
Personally, I've seen a series of video of a former Mormon who has left the cult, and they were pretty concerning. Also, this person and some research done by one if my former schoolmate confirm a serius of things that really don't qualify that as a religion but, as I say before, as a cult. To be clear, I'm from Italy, so, never direct expirience with any of this. If your expirience inside the religion is different, good for you. I would have some question about some rites that this person was referring about, and some other about the source behind some other belives. I would appreciate a focus on this, but I understand if you wouldn't. I'm personally skeptical because I already had a direct expirience with another cult, and heard of really bad dinamic that happened there, plus the bad effect that leaving it has left on so many people, because of its roules. Really interested in hearing your expirience in ditail, by the way.
I’m glad you’re covering this- there’s a huge problem with media covering any number of belief systems incorrectly. I couldn’t believe they were trying to say that *that* is who we really are…🙄😐🤨
Being Indigenous, seeing our iconography used as cartoon school mascots and HALLOWEEN COSTUMES worn by the descendents of abusers living in systems that benefitted directly from massacres and forced Long Walks is pretty damn obnoxious.
I would love to get your opinions as insiders on the show, as Alyssa Grenfell (she is no longer part of the LDS church) already made a great video from her perspective. Being a complete outsider in terms of culture and religion, it is really interesting to learn about this different way of life. Lots of love! ❤
I am excited to watch this series and hear your perspectives, because I absolutely cannot bring myself to watch this show that comes across as a popularity grab leveraging media attention and mixed opinions on the LDS church after things like "I'm Glad My Mom Died", but I also know it's likely to come up in a lot of online spaces. I'd love to hear realistic and open discussions about some of the topics that are bound to come up. I've seen a repeated pattern on your different channels of being willing to consider multiple perspectives and sides of different issues, so I'm looking forward to your perspectives. I did grow up in Utah, am in a variety of groups for discussing careers of 'Mormon' women or creating partnership relationships within the church culture where I've seen a lot of discussions from people who work at church schools, as institute teachers, or for the church directly, and have experienced it myself in my own life and in looking at volunteer opportunities at church headquarters. My experience has been that there are absolutely stull a lot of gender role expectations in some areas of the church, or an assumption that having children and being a homemaker first is a default, that education for women is great as a backup measure of security but not really required as the default is that you'll be supported by a spouse. That being said, I don't think this series is going to prove to be an accurate representation of anything other than their own lives in a reality tv format.
I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’m a convert to the Church from a family of Baptists, I’m also a childless widow, sealed to my late husband. There are a lot of things I have experienced, some good all the way to devastating. No one in the Church has identical lives, everyone goes through their own gethsemanes, we are supposed to be supportive of each other without the judgment. The judgement belongs to God and no one else. My goal is to become the woman God wants me to be, not someone else’s idea of who I should be. My opinion of this program is that it looks like it is focused on the materialism of the world. The great and spacious building. JMHO.
The idea of everyone doing what works for them as individuals and as couples SOUNDS great, but it's a little hard to swallow given the stories of coercion and trauma coming from those who have escaped the church, and the context of women being under attack by the far right on a national level. Would you really embrace your children's lifestyle choices if they opted to go non-traditional? Would they still be welcome in your community? I hope I'm wrong to be skeptical and that your community is as diverse and tolerant as you claim.
It sounds strange to me to hear "escape the church" seeing that the church is voluntary. One of its main teachings is that men are free to choose according to the dictates of their own conscience. If you choose to be baptized and continue in the church, then yes, there are certain expectations, but use of force is contrary to the doctrine of Christ, and if somebody in the church does that to another, they need to repent. As for children and teens, they are subject to their parents; as long as abuse is not involved, parents have the right to take their children to church, even if they don't want to go. Unfortunately, like you said, abuse does happen and causes trauma. To those who are suffering, I hope they can find healing and peace.
@@cinderbelle22 I was not raised in organized religion so I don't think it's my place to disagree, I've just heard those who left the church describe it that way. I do sympathize though, if they had to sever life-long relationships and leave a community to get out, I can see how hard that would be to do.
No kidding. As a member of the LGBT community who was raised in the LDS church, I have to say my adolescence was extremely traumatizing with the shame I endured. I’m now raising my kids outside the church, and one of them is non-binary. Their grandparents still attend church, so I keep up on the policies. The current church-wide policy is that my nonbinary child is not even allowed to use the restroom in an LDS building without an escort. There are other fun restrictions too-they are not allowed to be baptized or even teach Sunday School or work with kids. They are literally given fewer privileges and more restrictions than known sex offenders are in the LDS church, just because of their gender identity. How’s that for a healthy, inclusive environment? Oh, and by the way, people in the LDS church who are in same-sex relationships are liter excommunicated over it. Yet Jono is over here claiming everyone can do what they want. It’s a bold faced lie, or else willful ignorance.
I was raised in evangelicalism and it definitely left me with a lot of trauma. I drifted for more than a decade. Now in my mid-30s, I’m finally able to find my own faith outside the evangelical dogmas.
Hey Jono and Alicia, it would be very interesting to hear your thoughts on the South Park episode that features a Mormon family. I think you would both hate and love this episode. Yes, they do take the micky out of the the origin story of the religion but please stick with the episode because they have an equally wholesome message about being tolerant of religious differences and not being so quick to judge people. It's a well done, thougt provoking episode. By the way every religion has the micky taken out of by South Park. No one escapes it lol 😂. I kinda love it for that. Everyone is game, puts us all on equal footing.
I’m a Catholic and I’ve wrestled with the negativity of the Christian church in general. I’ve got lots of problems with Catholicism stance on issues like birth control, and women being priests and abortion. But I love my faith overall and I’m at a good place with it. I love that there’s a catechism to give me guidelines. I just love my faith. My mom is Catholic my dad was Baptist. I love God and I also find God in other faiths like Barbara brown Taylor who wrote a book called holy envy
As someone who’s not Mormon and never been Mormon. I’d say the biggest representation of Mormonism I’ve seen have been Warren Jeffs and his group, Daybell, Valow, Frankie, Hildebrant and the Sister Wives, in other words. While I know two sets of those are fundamentalist and not main stream I’d still say, mormonism isn’t looking too good out here. 😬
I'll counter with authors Brandon Sanderson and Brandon Mull, dubstep violinist Lindsey Stirling, The Piano Guys, "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" author Stephen R. Covey, Donny and Marie Osmond, Brandon Flowers from The Killers, Jeopardy host Ken Jennings, hall-of-famer Steve Young, Grammy-winner Gladys Knight, TH-camrs Mark Rober and Emma McAdam (from Therapy in a Nutshell), legendary animation director Don Bluth, and Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid as well-known, devout members of the faith known for doing a lot of good in the world.
@@MendedLight I’ve never heard of most of those people. The few I do know of from your list Lindsey Stirling is the only one I knew was Mormon but I only found that out a couple of months ago. I’m definitely not saying that all Mormons are bad or that the people I named are the only famous Mormons. I’m just saying those people are the ones I’ve heard of the most.
@@lesliesheppard6112 oh for sure. The ones you listed are definitely not a good look, I agree. And they are prevalent. Apologies if I came off defensive.
@@MendedLight I think it’s probably because I’m not Mormon so I’m not thinking about peoples beliefs or religion when I hear about them. If I like a band it’s because I like their music so it doesn’t matter to me if they’re baptist or Mormon or Hindu. When the news comes on though, they tend to talk about exactly who the perpetrators of the crime they’re reporting on are, in great detail. So as someone who doesn’t live in a predominately Mormon state or area the only ones I know about have mug shots lol😂
Part of me just wants to say being a latter-day saint is about survival. But as was mentioned many times, that goes for everyone else too. Here as of late, I have faced challenges about being a gospel teacher and teaching doctrine and yet wanting to communicate to students and my own children how important it is to find out for yourself what being a member of this church means. I have done a lot of private soul searching and prayer about what it might mean to me, but I can't feed those ideas to others for fear of leading them astray. Particularly this time of year, I am hyper aware of the stark differences and diversity between members of the church. Our membership cannot be painted with one brush, and often not only those outside our faith try to do so, but I have often been told in various ways by people inside the church that I need to be painted by a particular brush only. I am starting to have a little hope that there is a way to be true to the doctrine of our faith and yet still strive to just not love and support those that are close to me who don't see the value of that doctrine, but also thrive with them, grow with them, but it is a challenging needle to thread.
I want to put forward the misunderstanding of people with PTSD. I've seen lots of bad portrayals that were very clearly done by people who have zero experience with trauma and PTSD as the characters end up very shallow and are written to come off weird and thats everything. Also the misconceptionthat still exists (because ive encountered it recently), that only militaryveteranscan have PTSD. Bad reputation is so pervasive that I'd rather characters that were very well done, that I personally felt were a good represenation. (There's other good representations for other trauma experiences that arent mine and I don't relate to as much, so im not listing at this time) Hunter, from the Owl House. So extremely well done, from the way it impacts everyday life and self care things to the awkwardness it creates in social situations and not knowing how to interact/not realizing that while you're working off of what you were given, what you were given was bad and there's better ways. Kawaki from Boruto. I haven't kept watching, but the introduction of him. Theres a VERY good episode that extremely accurately displayed what its like living with PTSD. From experiencing triggers to how your peers react to you just trying to exist, and being misunderstood and judged because they don't have the same experience and are naive/ignorant and the way they'll react to you because of it.
Mormon women were raised to be housewife for men and to take care of their desires? Very well educated mormon mom and wife here! I am not this dumb or ornamental!!! This women are desperate for money, fame and attention.
People would say the secret life of a mormon wife if they actually saw it as boring. It wouldn't be made into a show. My mom worked, took her kids to their sports, read scriptures, taught us to be like Jesus, graded, and then repeat. Mine is I wake up get kids to school, read scriptures, plan our lesson that afternoon, pick up kids, make bread, play, clean, cook dinner, and then repeat. It looks completely different than the extreme you see in the media for obvious reasons. It's not interesting and doesn't portray the misconceptions Hollywood really likes to sell. I always shock people when they hear I grew up in a home where it was a team, the priesthood was exercised but my mother had authority as well, and we were given agency taught the Bible and book of mormon doctrine. I then seeked those same qualities I grew up in and found an amazing man who respects my input on how to make our home like a temple. Who doesnt conduct himself in what I call unrighteous dominion and actually calls out other men when they do so. The church is true the people are not because unfortunately people are not perfect and when they are learning from their mistakes people take it and think that's the church. I assure you what you see in the media or in some individuals who follow the old culture, cause their is a old mormon culture we are trying to combat, is not what the doctrine teaches. It's not what the book of mormon teaches and it's not what christ taught. The church is true, the people are not. For all religions though I feel that statement applies because we go to church to become like Jesus to be perfected through him. Media will never showcase the real life of a religious person because a true member working hard to live the teachings of jesus is boring and doesn't meet their biases they wish to continue spreading despite the people it's hurting. They don't care as long as it makes them a lot of money.
As a big Lindsey fan, I’m quite certain Lindsey Stirling is Mormon & she’s very proudly religious. She doesn’t like push it on ppl but she embraces it & incorporates it into her concerts & some of her music. Idk anything about Mormonism but I’ve heard it being looked down on with a negative connotation & I’ve had no idea why (likewise with Jewish ppl). I guess the traditionalism has something to do with it but that definitely just sounds like that average strict/tradition Christian upbringing, not sure why Mormons are singled out. Lindsey is an amazing person & has only spread beauty & kindness with her religion so no red flags there!
I'm Roman Catholic, and my experience has always been the furthest from the scandals involving priests & young parishioners that have become so prevalent. My mom has been on camping trips with the former archbishop & the lady who first accused him, & she doesn't believe any of that ever happened. Of course, he might have shown a different face to my prim & proper mother (even as a kid she was primarily & proper), than to a group of kids on a camping trip, than to a single nubile female in a private room The closest I've ever seen to such activity is from another priest that my mom knew growing up when ge transferred to our parish. Nothing specific, I was just never comfortable with him. After he had transferred to yet another parish, he picked up a hitchhiker, who SA'd and murdered this priest & dumped his body on the side of the road. There were hints that this wad a revenge thing, though I don't accept that excuse because he could have chosen to take revenge in other ways. I do, however, accept his claim that Father Armando mistreated him & that it was part of how he started down a horrible life path. I don't accept that thus was the case for many or most children in the Catholic church. I am also subscribed to the TH-cam channel Cults to Consciousness. Shelise Ann Sola grew up LDS in Utah, & had a very culty experience. When I was growing up, we had several LDS families that were friends, & from my perspective, they were all happy & healthy, though definitely human. My sister dated at least 2 missionaries in high school, one of whom later converted to Catholicism (probably NOT related to my sister's influence). My current partner was LDS for a while, though he's currently unattached to any particular path. I have friends all over the religious map, & everyone has their good & bad experiences. From this, I gather that we're all human & what works for one person may not work for another. Each person's practice is between that person and the God (or however you choose to call that entity) that they interact with, and my place is to accept that they're doing what's right for them at the moment.
Thanks for this reaction! My question about LDS culture is: how to properly refer to y'all? I think it is now taboo to use the name "Mormon" (I think due to the current prophets revelation maybe?), but you did introduce yourself thus. Is it rude to use the title Mormon referring to the religion and/or those who practice it? Or just best to always use LDS? Thanks!
Great question! While "Latter-day Saint" is the preferred term (and the one least-likely to ruffle feathers among the faithful), the fact is we've been called Mormons for almost 200 years and most of us aren't the least bit offended by the term. For us personally, we prefer Latter-day Saint but Mormon is also fine.
The main idea of why the prophet encourages us to use the full name of the church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) is to remember that it’s Jesus’ church. :) When called Mormons, He is left out of the name.
The change in the LDS church from the “I’m a Mormon campaign” To now where people will tell you to use the full LDS name It is basically a change in leadership. During the “I’m a Mormon campaign” the prophet was Gordon B Hinkley. Now the emphasis on using the full LDS name comes from the current prophet Russell M Nelson. So it’s basically personal preference of the prophet. People who grew up when Gordon B Hickley was in power are less likely to be offended by the term Mormon. People who grew up with Russell M Nelson are more likely to be offended by the term Mormon.
The current prophet claims God is offended when people use the word “Mormon,” and that to use it is a “major victory for Satan.” Funny, because just two prophets ago the LDS church spent millions on an advertising campaign promoting the use of the word “Mormon.” Apparently God changed his mind.
I'm an Orthodox Christian. One of the biggest misconceptions about us is that our church is *only* for certain groups of people. While it is true that Orthodoxy came to America with immigrants from Orthodox-Majority nations the idea that someone cannot be Orthodox or wouldn't be welcomed at one of our services unless they had a certain ancestry or spoke a certain language is absolutely false. The second biggest misconception is that there's a lack of a personal relationship with God in our faith, which I almost laugh at because that's the biggest thing, I've gone to Sunday service and had the importance of that personal relationship be the topic of lesson. In media we're often the villains or the weirdos with the weird, foreign religion but we're just regular, God-fearing people, and anybody who shows up on Sunday is more than welcome to participate and to come downstairs after and get to know us for themselves.
I'm an ex-Catholic from Germany and I left my church/religion as soon as it was legal in Germany, i.e. my 18th birthday. I never missed it since I experienced faith and religion as oppressive especially for women. I also think that every religion is misrepresented in the media from time to time. I would like to hear your perspective on the Mormon faith because it is a religion Eurpeans encounter mostly via television or media since there are so few Mormons in Europe. Apart from the occasional young men in black suits on their missionary tour you never meet Mormons. So the general picture is "Sister Wives", scandals, pioneer dresses and that tictoc stuff. And these are all extreme cases. I doubt that more than a few people over here know anything about the Mormon faith and way of living. So I'm looking forward to learn about your perspective on things.
9:28 How have I been misrepresented? Well... I'm a member of the LDS Church, same with Jono. That's the same thing as being a Mormon btw, it's just that "Latter-Day Saint" is the more appropriate term. As an Latter-Day Saint, I've had someone ask me, "Do Latter-Day Saints hate gay people?" It was an innocent and curious question, but the answer is no. That can be confusing for many people because it's true that Latter-Day Saints disagree with the concept of engaging in a homosexual relationship, but that doesn't justify us to hate all gay people. 😑 That's just wrong. 🙅♂️ In fact, the Latter-Day Saint leadership counsels the Church to be kind to and platonically love all people everywhere, especially LGBT+ individuals. ❤ Disagreeing on LGBT+ matters is not something to ruin a friendly relationship over. We can be friends and still disagree, it's totally possible. I'm also grateful that this video helps set some things straight, since radical and polarizing examples in media are almost always the examples that grab the most attention thus getting the most views thus getting the most money. 🙃🤑 These radical and polarizing examples confuse and negativity impact people outside of the culture, but also do the same for the members of the culture themselves. Nearly all Latter-Day Saints are going to condemn the behavior in "The Secret Wives of Mormon Lives" just like the rest of society. It’s not like we approve of the stuff in that show. There's actually some really messed up crap in there that is really disturbing for most Latter-Day Saints. But in general, random anecdotes about a few women are never going to accurately portray a culture that includes more than 17 million people. It's just not possible.
I really value this perspective and think it’s very necessary to always approach all groups in society with reason and the desire for understanding, and especially not to let one portrayal define how an entire group is perceived. However, while I agree with the principle of what you said, I think it’s important to acknowledge that disagreeing with the concept of queer relationships can still (rightfully) be interpreted as a form of hatred, even if it isn’t intended as such. I’m a queer person, and one of the main contributors to me leaving my religion was their “hate the sin not the sinner” attitude with LGBTQ+ people. Just because you don’t directly hate us or disagree with our existence, your disapproval of our relationships demonstrates that you don’t recognise the validity of our love, or in the case of trans people, our very identity. It’s all well and good to say that it’s fine for people to be LGBTQ+ as long as they preferably don’t act accordingly, but that’s essentially saying that we would be sinners for acting on the same inner desires of love and personal expression that are seen as being examples of Gods’s work for straight or cis-gender people. I don’t mean to be overly blunt, but since we are all divinely made and our love is Jesus Christ (in the perspective of many Christians), surely being LGBTQ+ isn’t a burden to be overcome, but instead another purposeful choice of God? After all, all the listed sins in the Bible are a choice, but being LGBTQ+ isn’t a choice. Some would argue that it is a choice to act on it, but again I reiterate that that just reinforces that we “should’ve” been straight and cis, and we should instead be uncomfortable and unfulfilled in our lives to comfort an eternal, omnipotent being who probably doesn’t even hate LGBTQ+, because He would’ve made them and all the texts dictating that LGBTQ+ identities should be suppressed are hundreds or even thousands of years old, and would’ve been translated and transcribed innumerable times from their original context by imperfect men with an agenda. In conclusion, thank you for your contribution, just be mindful that just because you don’t have an actively hateful attitude to gay people, doesn’t mean they don’t have the right to disregard you as a friend on the basis of your disagreeing with their existence as righteous, because even if that’s not your intention, that is the way it is received.
@AB-qt6uw I appreciate the comment. I admit that it is pretty sad that we disagree about something that may be extremely important to LGBTQ+ individuals... but it's a person's right to disagree as long as we're respectful about it. We try our best to be nice about it, but we also want to make sure we don't compromise our beliefs by condoning same sex behavior. It's hard, but we try. And btw, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints does differentiate between same sex attraction and same sex behavior. Simply feeling gay/lesbian/bisexual feelings is totally acceptable in the Church, as long as you obey the Law of Chastity, which is a Commandment from God. I think it's significant to step back and remember that straight people can commit sexual sin as well. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints defines sexual sin as any sexual activity outside of a married relationship between a man and a woman. So, if you are straight and engage in sexual activity before marriage, that's a sin. If you're LGBTQ+ and engage in sexual activity before marriage, that's a sin. It's really not discriminatory in any way since the Church condemns BOTH LGBTQ+ individuals AS WELL AS straight individuals when they break the Law of Chastity. The only real issue is that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints does not allow same sex marriage. 😰 This is a massive problem for LGBTQ+ people who want to practice the religion. I wish it wasn't as difficult for them to follow the Law of Chastity as it is right now. 😟
I mean, CA is only just now getting around to removing Prop 8 from the CA constitution. The LDS was pretty influential in putting that on the ballot to begin with. So it’s not simple disagreement. It has actually affected peoples’ lives who are not LDS.
It would be interesting to see a break down of secret lives of mormon wives similar to Cinema Therapy. What are your thoughts on the portrayal of the men in the show? Can you comment more on the differences between LDS culture in UT verses other states? It definitely feels different in "the bubble", lol.
I was raised Mormon, and I was absolutely taught growing up that “being a wife and mother is your highest calling in this life and the next,” in those words and more. It was always phrased as “when” you get married, “when” you have kids, never “if.” Sure, you may not outwardly be treated like a pariah if you’re unmarried and/or childless, but there’s no real alternative given to women (or, really, to men, if you think about it, but that disparity is less pronounced thanks to the patriarchal structure of the church). You’re either a wife and mother or you’re just kind of there. So much of Young Women’s and Relief Society (though I left the church before seeing too much of the latter) is framed around being a wife and mother or preparing to be one. If, as a woman, your purpose lies outside of that, the church won’t tell you that you can’t do it, but you have to find it elsewhere, because as far as the church is concerned, being a wife and mother is the only purpose that actually matters
I’d just like to mention that I have a career, education, and a home but not a husband or children. I’m also the Relief Society President in my ward and I frequently attend the temple. I wouldn’t say that I’ve ever been treated like a pariah, but once in a while (when I was serving in the stake young women’s presidency and often interacting with ward leaders who didn’t know anyone of my demographic active at church) I was treated as something of a curiosity. Representation matters. Only one reason why the church is better with you in it.
I think the biggest "secret" of Mormon Wives is that we try to show up to Church looking like we have it all together, but we were screaming at our kids an hour before trying to get them ready to go.
Or, even simpler than that, looking like they have it all together when everything in their lives are hanging by a thread. But, let's be honest, that is a cultural issue far beyond this specific religion.
Yes, the irony of going to church to "strengthen family." The worst and most violent fights my family ever had were on Sundays before church. We are so much closer now that we have all left.
Preach, I hate Sundays for that very reason.
@@finkydoodleyes the culture also wants you to pretend and look like everything is ok when it's not. I had a cousin comment once that people at church are fake putting on the perfect mask.
Lol that is literally just all moms❤😂
I’m a practicing Catholic. There are so many times we are misrepresented I can’t even count. I think of myself as a normal person trying my best to live my life faithfully and following Christ’s teachings. Obviously I’m not perfect but I’m trying and I would hope that is true for everyone else. I’m not going to change my beliefs but I’m always interested to hear other’s beliefs.
I'm part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I can't tell you how much I relate to everything you said. I truly believe we have more in common than not.
I’m a practicing Catholic too
My coworker was morbidly curious (her words) about this show because she knew my beliefs and lifestyle and thought it was so drastically different that it couldnt possibly be accurate, so she started watching it and comes in with a list of genuine and thoughtful questions. It has strengthened our friendship tremendously to have these conversations. Im not looking to convert anyone, but im happy to try and answer queations. I firmly believe that we are spiritual creatures at our core and rhats going to look vastly different for each of us and we owe it to each other to be understanding and encouraging of one another no matter where life takes our journeys. Thank you both for being so open and so willing to share with us and for being so knowledgeable! You've impacted how i interact woth others in the most positive of ways!!!!
I grew up as a Mormon (I'm an exmo now), and we were absolutely raised in a way to fulfill specific gender roles. We had a ton of Young Women's activities where our leaders taught us to cook, sew, and provide childcare. There was one evening where we cooked dinner specifically for the Young Men, and they played basketball while we worked. As a minor, I wasn't given the option to "opt-out" of youth activities. I received harsh consequences from my parents if I expressed my disdain for the overt gender-role agenda. I never "chose victimhood." I was a victim.
Huh. Maybe it’s a ward/regional/generation thing, but this was my complaint about Girl Scouts v. YW. In GS, we were making yarn dolls in that group while my brothers were learning wood carving and leather-working. I didn’t mind the “girly” craftiness, but I wanted to learn how to build a birdhouse from a single plank of wood, too. I noticed in Youth that there was a greater effort from the leaders to make sure everyone-both YM and YW- knew how to cook, clean, sew, do laundry, keep a budget, etc… all basic adult skills.
I think it’s really unfortunate that they chose to apply their own personal experiences as universal, even talking about “lived experience” while downplaying the lived experience of the women in the show. Mikayla (iirc - not sure that’s how her name is spelled either) was married as a minor after getting pregnant by a 20 year old at FIFTEEN! How on earth are they talking about choosing to feel like a victim?
Then further minimizing it with whataboutism because any religion can have bad practices and cause religious trauma. True, but some have a lot more bad outcomes than others…
It's funny, when I was called as YW president I was determined to give the girls opportunities for high adventure and sports, but at that point the church had switched to the girls planning the activities and they didn't want to!! I'd suggest rock climbing and they would want to do crafts... Putting together activities that everyone would like was so much harder than I expected. However, before you cry victim let's just remember that the victimizing you are claiming is that women in your community voluntarily provided free child care, cooking, and sewing classes 🤷🏼♀️
@@-tikla it’s funny, you had the opportunity to not post this, but you did anyway
@@RaineInChaosI don't follow? I was responding to shefaroni
As someone that grew up as a Christian but decided religion wasn't for me, I found this video quite interesting. I would definitely enjoy more conversations regarding your faith in this way if you feel comfortable enough.
We would love to answer any questions you have. What are you curious about?
First off, as a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a woman, I appreciate what Alicia had to say about utilizing your relationship with the Spirit to help formulate your own standing within the church and not allowing yourself to fall into a victim mentality based on what leaders or others may say. I think that’s the biggest misconception I feel is this idea that we don’t have spiritual autonomy within the church.
Second, Alicia I was also raised in the Henderson/Las Vegas area! ❤
My mom, who is a boomer, and was not LDS, told me education was worthless, too hard, and I should quit. It was she who shot down all my career ambitions. Ladies within the church encouraged me to go to school, and helped me to do it. Many had careers themselves. I mention it because I feel like lots of people have different experiences with gender roles, and how they are pushed/ taught. I also don't think it's inherently bad to encourage people to have families, or to put them first. Many people had wonderful experiences with traditional gender roles and family dynamics, and speak from the heart. It's not necessarily oppressive or sexist.
I say this as a Latter-Day Saint woman, who put family first, and loved it, and went to college, and loved it, and worked whenever necessary, and loved it. I always knew I had a choice. I want everyone to have a choice, and I hope they love it.
I also had a YW leader in the 90’s who taught me the importance of education. She frequently went off-manual to touch on things she thought we needed like consent, safety in dating, how to avoid abusive relationships, etc…
Definitely so different from what my parents were emphasizing, but my dad was teaching us based on the LDS teachings he grew up with from the 50’s-60’s which were very specifically heavy on gender roles and clearly defensive and counter to the feminist movements of those time periods.
So basically a lot of the positive things I learned were from lovely women within the church, not the church itself.
I’m 42, was a teen in the 90’s. My dad was very devout mainstream LDS and he raised his kids with the teachings HE grew up with in the 60’s & 70’s. So, heavy on gender roles and anti-birth control which he gleaned from all the Mormon doctrine books that were written by the LDS apostles of that time period. He payed a full tithe and we qualified for government assistance but he bragged that he wouldn’t accept it because “god would provide”. I remember eating frequently from the bishop storehouse and rummaging through our bare pantry to find things to put in my sack lunch for school. Usually stale bread, grainy honey on it from the storehouse, and a wrinkly dry apple.
The youth programs in the 90’s very much pushed gender roles. The LDS definition of “equal” as in the equal roles of husband & wife, was always taught as the husband presiding over the wife. So they basically made up their own definition of the word “equal”. In the 90’s the LDS church tried to package the beliefs with more politically correct language, essentially.
There’s such a wide range of experiences within the same religion. One being different from yours does not make it inaccurate. It’s accurate for those people, just as yours is accurate for YOU. I’ve seen that the more devout the family, the higher likelihood of religious trauma.
I had the BEST experiences and learned the most in Young Women’s when my leader went off-script and taught us lessons she wrote for us about consent, how to identify abuse, safety and boundaries in dating, how to avoid teen pregnancy, the importance of an education, etc…things I absolutely wasn’t being taught at home in family scripture study & family home evening, and would NEVER had learned as a child if she’d stuck to the gender role reinforcing lesson manual.
While I agree a victimhood mentality isn't a productive thing, I think that argument is often used to excuse actual problems in a system. We don't need to make it harder on ourselves than it needs to be! Great you were able to beat the odds but if we want to uplift everyone we should lower the odds! We should vote for people who don't want to force us back in the kitchen and we should hold abusers accountable. I don't mean this as a commentary on LDS, I'm not LDS but have grown up around many, but I think this is true for any underrepresented group
exactly.
@@cobaltpterodactyl yes
Thank you for doing this! I am active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and glad that you can bring reality and truth.
When I had my first car accident, the town's newspaper wrote a piece like the accident was my fault. It wasn't, but it felt like because I was the teenager the accident was obvious my fault, and not the grown man with no license, insurance, or the sense to not abruptly stop after leaving an exit ramp. The article radicalized me, and I was skeptical with media ever since.
Not seeing any episode of Secret Lives, only the trailer, I think a more accurate title would be The Affluent Lives of Bored Utahns. It's more accurate, but wouldn't catch as much buzz.
Lol yes. Love that title instead
This is the most balanced and fair response I've seen to this show from an active LDS member, which is probably also why you are the only mormon content creators I follow. You give unbiased advice based on studies and preface when something is based on your opinion and something different might make someone else happier. My takeaway from this, you are saying "this show does not represent my experience in mormonism" as opposed to some of the much harsher criticisms of the show. I agree that this show is largely people less dedidated to core tenants, but one thing is that it shows more variety of how people who follow the mormon faith live. With any religion, there are people who pick and choose what teachings they follow closely and which they decide are less important to follow. Any way you can divide people into groups will have good and bad people; labels are descriptive, not prescriptive, same applies to religion, which is a self given label.
I am exmo and grew up in Utah. My experience was quite different than yours. I have a lot of trauma from that because when you take what is taught and the impact it has on people's behavior, what behaviors end up rewarded and what ones end up taken advantage of or ostracized, it's quite toxic. Genuinely good people who are loving and accepting of all in the way I believe Jesus would be is not as common as I'd like in congregations in Utah. From what I've seen of both of you based on Mended Light and Cinema Therapy videos, you are in the accepting category. You do you and support people doing what they need to do to be happy in their lives. I actively try to avoid mormon therapists because too many have tried to reconvert me to the "truth", which is even less helpful when religion is a literal trigger for me. You two seem like the kind of person that this sort of behavior wouldn't even enter your mind because you can look at someone and consider what they actually need and not project what you would need in that situation. At very least, you come across as someone who would listen. I realize I don't actually know either of you and this analysis is based on the personas you share based on edited videos.
Working for the church as an accountant...I'm bound by NDAs, but I can say that you can tell a lot by an org by how they spend they money and I don't believe how they spend their money matches the values they claim to have.
When I was active there was very much pressure for women to be SAH and not have careers. When I worked for the church, after a coworker had her second child, other coworkers were all discussing how long into her maternity leave before she'd quit to become a SAHM, despite the fact she'd made her intention to return to work clear and it was her second child so she was familiar with everything that went into the decision to return to work.
I dated multiple men who outright said that it was more important for any hypothetical sons of ours to be educated than any hypothetical daughters because they would need to support their wives. One of them was still in school with a math degree with plans to become a math teacher while I was already working as an accountant and already had certifications and recognitions. We'd discussed marriaged (not yet engaged) and I would have been supporting us for years, but the implication in his mind was still that he would be the head of the household and manage the money. Few people at church saw this thinking as the red flag it was. Any way you can divide people into groups will have good and bad people; labels are descriptive, not prescriptive, same applies to religion, which is a self given label.
Very well said. Just to add, I didn't appreciate how Alicia said that if someone puts victimhood on a platter regarding gender roles being taught in the Mormon church, that they are lacking integrity.
Wow! To say that women who felt like they had to fulfill and motherhood role and feel like they were victims lack integrity. That really raised my hackles and is completely not true.
In the LDS church motherhood (the default female role) is paired with Priesthood (the default male role). You can bet that priesthood is considered really important, so think about the fact that it is paired with motherhood as equal importance.
Even if that was not your own experience, I feel like it is victim blaming to blame others for having a different experience and different reaction and then attack their character by saying that they lack integrity. Especially in the first couple minutes of your video.
1000% I felt like she was kinda harsh… like I get that’s not your experience but let’s call a spade a spade. The church and the gospel is absolutely creating the idea of traditional wives and you are so very lucky if you have women around that help you understand that there are other options.
I think we all know there are other options out there but they don’t get the same type of respect in the church. Being a mother and wife will always be top tier and we are constantly told that in church so ofc most women are going to default to that.
Things ARE changing now but don’t say those women have a victim mentality like stfu that’s so sad to hear from another woman in the church. Denial at its finest or maybe she just thinks she better than other women in the church bc she didn’t “fall” for it? Idk but it didn’t come off well.
I rarely comment, but because I appreciate a lot of your content and the values that you espouse and I think that they have probably done a lot of good for people, I feel it is important to propose a different perspective on this video for you to consider.
As someone who grew up in (but no longer is part of) a niche religion with similar consevative values but absolutely no "missions" or any attempt to convert people or any institutional beliefs that people outside the religion will face negative consequences in this life or some afterlife because of it, I think it's extremely important to distinguish between a) the reality of practicing a religion as an individual and as part of a specific regional culture, and b) the institutional and textual/scriptural basis of the religion. Even though I was taught to be a compassionate and generous member of society by my parents and my religious community (who were not as strict in following some of the potentially damaging scriptual rules of the religion) and that most people in my religion that I've met seem to be good people and that their "spiritual connection with a higher power and the religious community" is what drives them, not institutional rules, that doesn't mean that the institutional rules don't still exist and can't still have very harmful impacts (as you mentioned with your clients).
This is distinct from saying that there are extremist sects of any religion or belief-system, because the institutional rules themselves are causing the harm, not the interpretations of them. This is also distinct from saying that I follow the law of the United States but I don't agree with all of the laws, because I don't really have a choice in the matter of following laws no matter what country I live in. This could be similar to the idea of supporting a musical artist even though their values aren't completely aligned with yours, but the harm potentially caused by that artist is nowhere near the harm that can be caused by a billion dollar religious institution (exception maybe for someone like Taylor Swift, but even that's a stretch because she doesn't have complete power over the belief system of a person throughout their upbringing).
The institutional rules of your own version of a religion can still be actively harming people with less access to the resources needed to "choose not to be in victimhood" that may be necessary if their specific community and culture is not as "progressive" as yours. They may not have any close relationships with people who do not closely follow the institutional rules, including the harmful ones, and they may not have the financial independence to find other relationships and perspectives. Or they might just not be as strong-willed to reject what they were taught. I personally find it misleading and belittling to people in that position to say that they are "waiving a banner of being victimized" by pointing out the very real institutional basis of LDS encouraging women to be homemakers, and that this is "building a platform of victimhood" and "completely lacking integrity". In some ways I, too, successfully challenged a lot of the harmful notions because of my personality, but I still experienced that harm (and some of it persists today), and no one should need to be strong enough or have the right personality to avoid the harmful doctrine of a religion.
In reference to a prominent LDS professional dancer saying "I was never expressly taught that my calling was to be a wife and mother.", former devout Mormon @alyssadgrenfell has said in a recent youtube video, "I don't know how you can go through childhood, adolescence, and then adulthood in Mormonism without getting that message because it is so deeply baked into, not just the culture, but very specifically into the doctrine of Mormonism". She then provides examples, including the family proclamation posted prominently in the house that includes the line that a woman's primary responsibility is to nurture their children.
In my own religion, I ultimately came to the conclusion that even if I and the people I associate with might practice my religion in a way that I deem "moral"(and even though many of the values I learned still direct my life choices and who I am today), the institution that is inextricably connected to my religion is actively doing harm to others, and I am not okay with that. You said "what is hurtful and painful to one person can be enlightening and supportive and strengthening to others", but that would only be okay if the people who find it hurtful have the power to easily switch to a different approach, kind of like trying a different modality in therapy or trying a different food. But that's not true. While I can enjoy grapefruit without forcing someone else to eat it who doesn't enjoy it, the aspects of religion that benefit some people cannot exist without the harm to others, unless the harmful institutional rules are changed.
On the other hand, finding spiritual connection and finding community is possible without a religious institution, so the hurt is not necessary (you probably have to shift your religion to do so, but not the fundamental beliefs of being a good person). In my experience, people do not make this switch because the potential personal loss of community is more salient than the possibly distant harm to someone else caused by the religious institution, even if it is possible to find community and spiritual connection elsewhere. But because religion is literally a matter of ethics and integrity, that harm eventually became salient enough for me as I gradually had more access to the resources and outside perspectives to not just "choose not to be in victim-hood" in regards to some aspects of the religious doctrine, but to choose not to enable an institution to put that burden on others as well. I don't need to avoid being friends with people from my church and I don't need to give up a spiritual connection, but to maintain my own integrity, I cannot actively support it, whether financially or through volunteer work.
In conclusion, the TV show you mention may not portray a realistic depiction of your personal experience with your religion, but how do you resolve the conflict inherent in living your own personal interpretation of a religious institution while not being able to avoid supporting (financially and socially) the harm that is actively done by that religious institution?
Really well laid out thoughts. Thank you for taking the time.
Excellent points
I don’t know if this is the “correct” answer, but I would like to respond to your question about the inherent conflict of living my religion a certain way even when it implies my support of the harm done to others by our shared religion.
For me it is a matter of faith and repentance.
The faith comes from having a personal relationship with God and believing that God wants me to learn and grow in a particular church. I don’t believe that I am responsible for what someone else has or has not learned from this environment. But I am responsible for what I get out of it.
Repentance is a gift made possible by the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It is not just an incidental blessing like an eraser on the end of a pencil to be used if needed. For anyone born into this life who reaches an age where they can discern between right and wrong repentance is an absolute necessity. All of us do (or say or think) things that require the grace of a Savior to bring us back into God’s perfect presence. I find that the awareness of the universal need for a Savior is a blessing that gets me past the inertia and indecision of anxious perfectionism. It really helps me take the next step of faith without being overwhelmed by the possibility that my footfall is crushing some unseen creature below. I know that if my faith or connection with God is lacking then I can access the Savior’s Grace through repentance. If I can aspire to petition Jesus Christ for His help overcoming my shortcomings then how can I deny His compassion on someone else who does the same? Including those who have been entrusted with a degree of responsibility or authority within a particular religion?
Thank you so much for this episode!
I'm a queer, religious (but not Orthodox,) Jewish mama. I've actively studied Torah my entire adult life and I'm also fascinated to learn about any group of which I'm not a part. I don't know how this fascination began, but it helps me to be a more tolerant, open minded version of myself. Aside from the obvious, ugly stereotypes, people of not-my-faith have boldly TOLD ME what I do and do not believe in! Excuse me, but it works to ask someone about that, not just make assumptions!
🙏❤🏳🌈🏳⚧🟦
I mean, didn't Alicia herself tell something like her parents had a certain overview of how a girl should be and she had to go against it and learn to love herself
Plus, she had to become a stay at home mom, also because of these social expectations put on both of them (Alicia and Jono)
Me i grew up Mormon in Utah. It is my trauma actually. being Mormon you are told strict rules as a girl. So yes When I was a Mormon we had a book “ personal progress for women “ on things to do that would make us the perfect wife. We had rules to follow for celestial dating. We could not be alone when we are on mission. We are not allowed. During a ceremony I had a veil on with an outfit and a lot of things were happening I had to learn some codes so I can meet God and I was told that I can’t tell anyone about this ceremony. Actually after a few years I stop being mormon now I am healing. But yes i was mormon and I know that the show is definitely a joke. Mormon cannot drink alcool and need to dress modest and not be focus on making a lot of views and having husband is your priority. You are expected to be a certain way as a girl not a choice for you. So this show is really not real. I know.
I loved the term "religious manipulation" I think it perfectly defines that barrier we should have between having our own beliefs and faith and understanding of our life and the world around us, and when we've used it disrespectfully, and need to keep ourselves accountable for being empathetic and supportive of our fellow man. I think the stereotypes around Christians might be more easily dismantled if more people could know and understand that concept. And also possibly go further in living harmoniously despite differences of faith and spirituality.
For anyone who wants to know more about the Mormon faith, Alyssa Grenfell’s TH-cam channel is FANTASTIC!
YESSS! I second that!!!
Thank you for putting this message out there. I'm not sure how I feel about all the air clearing.
And Cults to Consciousness on TH-cam
@@darbymori350I really like Shelise's message. Thanks for sharing that. These were two great options.
If your records are in the church= you are a Mormon.
Just because they don’t fit what you might be use to seeing as a Mormon doesn’t dismiss that they are in fact Mormon wives.
Also the judgement shown from a fellow woman in the church towards other women in the church is 100% the correct representation of how women in the church are so thanks for that perfect example.
I’m physically disabled and holy crap are we underrepresented. And then when we are, it’s treated as inspirational or something to be overcome (which is beyond disgusting)
I am also physically disabled and also agree with the under representation, however, in my own opinion the reason why it is seen as inspiration is because there is a disconnect between what people think of us verses who we are. My physical disability is not something I overcame, it is just something that is normal to me or just life in general. Though, I don't believe it is disgusting, is it a misrepresentation of the disabled community? Yes, however, we are need to be respectful here and see how they got to that conclusion. This way it is easier to fix that mistake and move on from it. (Just in case anyone is curious, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I know it is unrelated but I just wanted to clear that up.)
I'm Catholic and I believe my faith gets misrepresented all the time! There have absolutely been terrible priests and laity who have hurt others and members of their congregation (and I'm Canadian so there is a long history of residential schools), and those stories absolutely should be heard. But I think living by the day-to-day values and culture of my faith, it's not about excusing abuse, performing exorcisms, or being hyper-conservative. I'd say the majority of us live by doing the best we can for our community, volunteering for food banks, nursing homes, and parish committees, and using our love for God to fuel kindness and generosity and compassion for those in need. My grandparents are very devout and they encouraged me to do anything I dreamed of. My aunt (their daughter) has a degree in biology and law enforcement and I'm going to go towards a Ph.D in literature once I finish my undergrad. I love the scholastic traditions of my faith and it encourages me to always seek out new knowledge and new people. I feel like sometimes my peers in class are surprised to discover my religion, and find that I can be studious and open-minded and also Catholic, when those things are so not mutually exclusive. (My favourite Catholic representations though are in Netflix's Daredevil, Derry Girls, Les Miserables, and Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame).
Derry Girls is gold!!! I would die if there was a tv show made about my faith that was 1/10 as hilarious. I love the priest with nice hair. 😂
You say they are not an accurate representation of LDS church members, but I've known LDS church members that would say being tolerant or encouraging of LGBTQ+ or trans identities - which the two of you very much are - is not in alignment with LDS values. Alicia says it isn't accurate, that the LDS church isn't patriarchal and women aren't subjected to pressure to become mothers or homemakers, but I've known many people who say that's exactly what their experience of LDS culture was, and I am not ready to dismiss their accounts as 'victim mentality' - so who then is the arbiter of which Mormons are 'real' Mormons and which are not?
Agree. There's a spectrum of orthodoxy and just because most Mormons don't live like this or identify with it doesn't mean ALL Mormons don't.
One hundred percent agree!
I would say there is a difference between the church and what it teaches and the culture. As for an "authority" as for what is a real [insert group name] and who isn't, I imagine the closest you can come to that for any group is to ask the folks who are a part of it.
To make that question awfully uncomfortable, put some groups in there, like "Jew" or "black" or the like.
Thank you! I recently watched a video with the leaders of the Mormon church talking very specifically about being anti-LGBTQ. & don't they regularly support political candidates that are more extreme conservatives? I see those values aligning with Traditional views of gender & women's role in society
absoulutely. I watched many videos by Alyssa Grenfeld and either Jono and Alicia are in a very different community or they are trying to cover up the bs that's going on in the LDS church.
I’m a Baptist, and my denomination has definitely been misrepresented. People automatically think all of us are racist bigots who hate the LGBT community. We’re also seen as people who can’t dance, drink, play cards, or generally do anything remotely fun. Of course, there are Baptists that fit all the things I mentioned, but that certainly doesn’t describe me or anyone I know.
Former Mormon, I was definitely raised with the expectation of being a house wife.
So was my wife. She was told, "you don't need to go to college, you can get married."
I was told the opposite. “Get as much education as you can.” Were said often.
Same. And yes, I was told to get education also, but it wasn't such a big deal to drop out of college and start a family, leaving school or career behind. For sure motherhood is emphasized
Same here. My. whole. life. In fact, my mom even told me once that I could have a career "as long as it didn't interfere with raising my children." So, yeah, I'd say it's definitely pushed heavily on women to be a housewife before personal career aspirations. I mean, our whole lives are spent preparing to get sealed in the temple so that we can raise a family in the gospel.
Being a housewife and serving your husbands every desire are two very different things.
I would love to see a more in-depth and critical discussion of the insane pressure that a lot of LDS members are under, especially women, also in terms of looks, and the juxtaposition of being expected to look gorgeous but also be modest. I think the show displays a lot of this pressure with all of their talk about plastic surgery etc. And I mean, doesn't Utah have the highest number of plastic surgeons per capita?
I have to ask, who is applying this pressure, and what purposes would be served by submitting to the pressure? What purposes would be served by not submitting to the pressure?
So one of my best friends/sister from another mister is LDS. I am also friends with her mom. My experience with them is that they were raised to be demure (original definition) house wives that are subservient to their husband's. My friend does not have some of the same beliefs as her mom, thankfully, as her mom is extremely homophobic and quite literally went on stage at my grandfather's funeral to preach an entire Mormon sermon on the importance of purity.
Up until recently in the Temple endowment ceremony women promised to obey their husbands. Even still it is implied or critics would say "God's covenants changed!" Before 1990 it was even more direct and called, "The Law of your Husband". What I'm saying is Mormon culture has been slower to conform to societies' progress of treating women as equal which explains older generations acting the way they did.
I don't think many people are going to see this, but this feels like a safe place for me to put some things out there:
1. I am part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and it is part of me. All of the misconceptions, criticism and negativity toward The Church can be really hurtful. It's very much like someone talking badly about your mom. It can be really hard to face.
2. I genuinely don't look at my faith as "rules" that I "have to" follow. That's not what I'm looking for to fill my soul. The way I see it is more like... God knows me and loves me, He knows and loves all of us, and He keeps telling us ways to find happiness, avoid regret, and prepare ourselves to see Him again. We can show that we love Him back. I live my life to show God that I love Him back. I know I'm not perfect, but I do try really hard to cultivate and share goodness. That's different than, "I have to follow all these rules, ugh!"
Well... Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. ❤
I love this. I get that it’s hard. I hope no one is unkind to you because of your faith. Not everyone has had great experiences with the LDS belief system. That isn’t your fault. It is however your responsibility to know what your religion teaches and defends, and acknowledge that some teachings can hurt people. No belief system is so special that it is above criticism. Every belief system has pros and cons. What you describe as being so positive in your life sounds a lot like my own relationship with God, which remains in tact even after not being LDS anymore.
As soon as you said the thing about my group being misrepresented in pop culture, I thought of all the times eating gluten free had been a joke. Even recently, in the video teaching for the women's Bible study in in at church. If I don't eat gluten free, my body literally attacks itself. I wish I didn't have to be so nitpicky about my food & make such a pain out of myself, but I do. It hurts when I'm made a joke. 😢
I'm sorry they joke about your condition. A student of mine told me that it's called Crohn's disease and it's a real thing - when you can't eat any bread, cookies, cake, and so on your food choice becomes quite limited. However there are also people that don't have that problem but abstain from gluten because that makes them look cool or something. I think the joke is supposed to be on them.
Crohn's disease is another digestive issue, yes. The problem is that when someone jokes about it, they don't say "I'm only picking on the fad dieters". They just blanket statement joke about "picky eaters".
Picky eaters are another easy target for jokes. There are many people, at least where I come from, especially in the older generations, that think you have to eat everything except the kitchen sink. Then they mention something about how there should be mandatory military service for everyone so that they're not that picky with their food.
If I eat carbs from certain areas, the gluten tears up my insides and makes certain anatomy itchy. The pain is not fun in any fashion.
I also have celiac disease, and I hate the gluten-free jokes. Before I was diagnosed I lived my life trying to be as low maintenance for other people as possible. I'm very independent, but this disease forces me to be high maintenance. It's exhausting, and I hate it. The jokes make dealing with the social stigma so much harder.
I’m active LDS, 6-7 generations in, not from Utah but moved here in my late teens. While this show is typical “reality”show material, a bit manipulated and sensationalized, and while it isn’t representative of the mainstream LDS people, I know that this show represents a sub section of the LDS here in Utah. People I know personally. They are in your wards. Some come regularly, some occasionally and some not at all, but they are very much a part of our community. While it’s important to note neither they nor polygamist groups are representative of the bulk of the LDS, they do exist and we could learn a lot about ourselves and them and ways to support one another better by just learning from the experience they have. When I first moved here, it was a complete culture shock and this show awoke every last trigger from that time in my life, but now I just feel compassion for all the ways we misunderstand and hurt one another. Hoping this will be an opportunity for a lot of healing for a lot of people.
I grew up mormon I am now an exmo I watched this mostly because I was curious why they were claiming they were Mormon 😂 because that is definitely not the correct portrayal. I think a few of the girls are exmo so I felt like the way they marketed this was wrong. It is entertaining to watch as a reality TV fan but definitely not anywhere close to the “Mormon wife’s” I know and love.
I’m excited to see more reaction videos to this show 😅
I highly recommendthe in depth reaction to this show by Alyssa Grenfell. It's a thorough in-depth analysis from someone with a very clear head and good view on tthe LDS church community.
I think an important thing to underline in your video is the statement that whats uplifting to some is damaging to others.
While the LDS church does say its important to find for yourself your answers there is still an "ultimate answer to follow" from the top 15 in church leadership. That ultimate answer on how a family looks or should look like is specified in the Family Proclamation to the World document and absolutely does specify traditional gender related roles in the home. Or if those gender roles for the time being is not in the home now, it will be in the afterlife.
How has that document specifically affected your relationship? Or your children's expectations for their spouses someday?
Growing up LDS, I hated the Proclamation to the World. It was used as a cudgel against me to invalidate my perspective on what I wanted the opportunities for myself and women to be.
Seriously. The gaslighting in this video is real. “The Mormon church doesn’t teach traditional gender roles!”
Bullshit. It’s baked into the theology. It’s taught on an institutional level.
Honestly, as a recovering Mormon, this video was so incredibly triggering.
I was raised to be a stay at home mom in the LDS church.
Homeschooled or no schooled taking care of my 5 younger siblings. Yes it really exists in it.
I didn't have a choice to not have education growing up. I had the lessons in church the most important thing is to be a mom and wife more than anything else . So the anything else was skipped on me.
It is very much LDS church driven.
The show does not represent LDS people or beliefs.
With nothing but respect, I would really implore you to not react to any more of this show or other content about the LDS church unless you are better able to approach it without defensiveness or judgment. Reacting blind on the fly probably not a good fit for this topic.
There’s a difference in spelling out how your experiences are different from those shown on the show (there should be plenty of material for that 😅) and *questioning* their own experiences being raised in the church. One of the wives was impregnated at 15 by a 20 year old. This is documented. And it wasn’t even commented on in this video when she said she was married at 16, though I’d think for most of your viewers, that would be more extreme than drinking or seeing a man’s bare chest. These experiences have been corroborated by many other Mormon and ex-Mormon creators.
I assume you’re probably familiar with several such creators, but I’d recommend Alyssa Grenfell and Zelph on the Shelf, who both actually covered this show, or Nemo the Mormon (now ex as he’s recently been excommunicated) who makes it clear in his videos that he LOVES the LDS church and that’s why he wants it to do better.
Again, it’s OKAY if your experiences are different, and to call out those differences, but not to get defensive and in doing so minimize their experiences and suffering because they don’t match up with your own.
100%. A lot of us were traumatized by our experiences in the LDS church, which is a High-demand religion in every sense of the word. Hearing this victim blaming and holding up the gaslighting we experienced from the leaders of the LD S church from this therapy channel is incredibly upsetting.
I think there are gender roles in the church, but they are different from what people think, and they are explicitly said to be flexible and "whatever works best for your family is best"
The first thing I think of is education. A culture so intent on women being homemakers wouldn't be so intent on sending their girls to college. Every woman in my life growing up had a degree. My mom, all my aunts, every church teacher and young women's leader. One grandma had a nursing license and my other grandma has a master's degree and she's 82.
We had YW activities about changing a tire and other car stuff cause we wanted to know so the leaders did a whole Wednesday night in the parking lot for it. Yeah we also had a lot of craft things too, but that just taught us to be proud of things we make and what we can create. We had activities on personal finance, and game nights, and service projects and a ton of other things. It definitely wasn't a "let's pick out baby names and learn how to fold laundry"
I was a YW president once. I did a car maintenance activity and had my husband helped out since he knew a lot about cars. The YM president also did an activity teaching his YM how to cook a simple dish and iron clothes. The irony about this is that, we're not just Mormon, we're also an ethnic group that grew up on beliefs that women belong in the kitchen but it's thanks to the church that my parents are more open minded.
I left religion behind years ago, but I would say my mental health diagnosis is so wildly misrepresented in media that it makes me afraid sometimes. I have DID, and the portrayal of us as either murderers OR the common belief among people that it's all made up is incredibly hurtful. This diagnosis only comes about through surviving horrific child abuse. It's not a fun thing to deal with and the public makes it worse
Thank you for sharing! It's so difficult and scary, but I'm so glad you have the courage to be vulnerable. It really does help spread understanding to have someone with first hand experience share so the rest of us are not misinformed about what's really happening! {{HUGS}}
@@pamscakes thank you so much for this reply! Knowing at least one person will listen is so encouraging. Thank you ❤️
Mended Light's sister channel, Cinema Therapy, covered DID and how it's portrayed across a couple of videos. One episode is about Split, and it's related movies, and another is Moon Knight. Maybe that's something you'd be interested in?
@@Amanda-zn7ox I watched it. They got several things wrong that I pointed out, but nothing was done to correct the mistakes.
I've recently become friends with someone who has DID... they were kind enough to send me a resource with accurate information that condemns the stigmas and improper uses of the term "Multi-Personality Disorder." It's been very enlightening to research on... both about the disorder, but also enlightening to realize the sheer amount of things I did not understand about it. 😮 All the things I thought I knew were wrong. 😧 It’s so much more complex and nuanced than many media creators tend to realize.
I also found a website ranking movies on DID in order of movies with the most realistic and accurate representation of the disorder. Shockingly, Split was the lowest ranked one. 😅
That's incredibly concerning, since Split is probably the most popular one with the most views on IMBd. 😰
I'm currently halfway through "Sybil" (1976), which is the highest ranked one for accuracy. I'm watching a TH-cam upload of it.
It is quickly becoming one of the most meaningful movies I've ever watched.
I'm learning a lot from Sybil's actual biography via a very respectful and intriguing movie that really helps capture the experience rather than merely describing it.
I wish there were more movies with accurate potrayals of DID. It deserves more respect and sensitivity than it has garnered from mainstream media. 😮💨
You have my sympathies. 🙏
DID's mainstream media portrayal is quite possibly one of the worst and inaccurate portrayals you can possibly get. 😟
I am also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and I am also single. I feel like that yes, my religion is often portrayed inaccurately, but also that there are a lot of pop culture movies that don't portray single like accurately as well--either someone falls madly in love in a romcom, or they are a lonely weirdo/lab rat/misfit, or a crazy cat lady. The overall message is that single people are not happy being single. I feel that I can be happy in whatever relationship/marital state I am in, so inaccurate representations are part of this as well.
I was raised Mormon, and I was frequently abused because I openly hated church as a child. I left the church in early adulthood and never looked back. I don't think it's fair to call this show a "misrepresentation." No, it's not an accurate depiction of the "average" Mormon (and maybe the producers of this show could have found a better example of Mormon wives), but it is a perfect and tragic example of the kinds of mental gymnastics, cognitive dissonance, and outright apologetics one has to endure to be in this faith at times, especially when who you are or who you want to be as a person does not align with the Mormon doctrines and/or Mormon cultural practices. And leaving the church can be so heavily stigmatized that a lot of people struggle to do it for fear of the backlash they will get from friends and family. Depending on your situation, it can be better to be Mormon in name only in order to avoid conflict with loved ones. I also think that there are a lot of people who believe in the church and want to be included, but the framework doesn't allow for them to be both "in" and be their authentic selves (i.e. a member of the LGBTQ+ community). I see all of that sort of represented in this show to varying degrees where you have a group of people who are essentially trying to fit themselves into a framework that isn't really working for them, and their reasons for doing so are complex. I don't think it's a misrepresentation to say that, while their experience is not typical, it's also not uncommon in the sense that a lot of people struggle with Mormonism as an extremely high-demand religion.
I feel like everyone I know that was Mormon feels similarly. Also, I recently saw a video of clips of Mormon leaders & they were all grossly anti-LGBTQ. I don't know how anyone reconciles that with the religion & claim to be accepting of all walks of life
I'm so sorry you were abused as a child. The Church is very clear about abuse; it is not to be tolerated. They even now have training for protecting children and youth, which is mandatory for those in related callings.
@@cinderbelle22 My mom abused me because she truly believed that her salvation was tied to mine, and I was having none of it. I'm not excusing the behavior, but I find the idea that the church doesn't condone abuse to be laughable. They literally created and upheld the conditions that caused the abuse to happen to begin with. And because my mom was doing her religious duty, people turned a blind eye to it. It's funny how abuse isn't justified until it is...
@@fairywingsonroses The Church most certainly does not condone abuse. I'm wondering what conditions you are talking about. Any religion, any institution, can be twisted by evil people to hurt its members despite the best intentions of it's founders. Christ taught us to "love one another" and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", so if anyone is not doing that, they need to repent and be held accountable. And I'm sorry, but your mother was just plain wrong. Salvation is personal. Maybe she would have felt like she failed as a mother if you didn't comply, but that's her own insecurity and not on you. That really is awful that you had to endure that.
@@cinderbelle22 The Mormon church literally teaches that a woman cannot go to heaven if her children and/or husband don't. Women who don't have husbands or who don't have religiously faithful husbands are assigned one in death. The woman does not get a say in this. So, yes, the church created the conditions for which I was abused. Perhaps the church itself doesn't condone abuse, but they sure are good at making excuses for bad players and refusing to communicate doctrines and practices in such a way that it limits opportunities for abuse and harm to happen due to misinterpretations. A lot of churches sweep this kind of stuff under the rug because they don't want the bad reputation, and church leaders either take matters into their own hands instead of going to authorities/officials, or they downplay it as a problem with imperfect individuals and not a problem with the overall culture in the church. In my opinion, it's a problem with the overall culture of the church.
This is so refreshing! I’ve been watching your videos for the last year and didn’t know you were also LDS, so it’s really nice to see some positive representation! Keep up the good work!
As someone who grew up lds, I would also say this an extreme representation of moromon women. Most moromon women look like soccer moms .
But i disagree with you on the statement they use of we are raised to be homemakers. because I see mom very stuck in her upbringing in the church of the house has to look a certain way and your children need to act and look a certain way. This perfectionist mindset, that is really damaging to people if you are constantly hearing lessons in church about this and you need to do more. Even if you are doing all the things.
I was taught to basically be a homemaker and a career is secondary to that. If you look at the proclamation to the world it states the roles of women and men. The women is basically the one in charge of the home. The teachings were more heavily taught to the boomer generation and got more relaxed as for gen x and millenials, I see gen z and alpha being able to wear clothing i would have never been aloud to wear. So yes things have changed over time but the basis of the teachings are still the same even if it has changed in some areas.
This articulates it very, very well. I would add that the very specified gender roles from the proclamation to the nation can also be harmful as the things someone is being told they have to do and be is fundamentally incompatible with their personal skills, abilities, and who they are. I watched this wreck my mom.
It also added to the harmful divorce stigma.
Only watched the trailer as part of your video, but... the duality looks really familiar to what was going on in our young women's class growing up. There were a lot of teenagers who would clean themselves up for Sunday but would act loose and raunchy at school during the week.
Also, "victimhood" comments arent really called for when it comes to abuse and religious trauma. I/we were regularly tied up, beaten, gaslit, coerced, criticized, etc, by parental figures who also served in RS presidencies and bishoprics. We are LDS and also have dissociative identity disorder due to the prolonged, severe traumas suffered in childhood in a very devout family. You can be devout, read the scriptures every day, attend church weekly, go to the temple monthly, devote yourself to your family and genealogy, feeding and driving the missionaries, visit the sick in the hospital, and still entirely lack empathy and kindness...and be covertly narcisstic and awful.
There is so much that does go on behind closed doors because there is so much emphasis on achievement, what you _do_ to be righteous, and not who you _are._
Saying these girls “aren’t Mormon” feels disingenuous. They’re young members. Maybe a little wild but they still fit under the supposedly ever encompassing umbrella. Maybe not your slice of it…maybe not how you’d prefer to be known as…but they’re Mormons.
The overarching themes of the show, certainly the misogyny, are very accurate and universal to my experience. It is a fact that women can’t do anything in the church without a man’s approval. It is a fact that women are told being a mother is your highest calling and thus implicitly your only calling.
It took me years to rip that kind of thinking from my brain leaving BYU unmarried and feeling like a failure with no genuine plans for my own future because of what I was told I was supposed to do. Be a happy little wife. It made me accept unacceptable behavior from men because that’s what being a woman is! A helpmeet. Keeping them on the straight and narrow. A side character in their story. An invisible, voiceless matriarch like Heavenly Mother.
So though I may not have lived like these girls, we’re CERTAINLY experiencing the same undertows. We both have heard stupid shit from men because of the programming of the church. We both have felt the pressure to perform as pretty and likeable. We both have overcompensated when we didn’t fit that role.
That IS Mormonism, dawg.
The disappointment in yourself that you express is heartbreaking.
I am a convert member, born and raised in VA. I want you to know that, as an outsider, I see all of these things as more of a specifically Utah-culture problem. It’s almost like a dream world in Utah. It doesn’t feel real here in some parts of the state. (I now live in Utah btw, bc of a job, so I see both sides) And frankly, I feel it’s being called to repentance recently in conference talks. The warping of truth has not gone unnoticed.
On a side note, I never desired to go to BYU. I don’t think it’s a good place anymore sadly. I think its moral compass has gone all askew.
I am sorry that you came out of it feeling like a failure- bc you weren’t one. You are an individual, on your own path. And that alone makes you special and gives you worth.
I am sorry for the negative experiences you have had. I wish you well.
Yeah same, I was like… why is it that when a famous mormon is doing things opposite of the church, the members automatically are like “oh they aren’t actually mormon anymore”but when a famous mormon is doing something cool and pro mormon (even if they’re not practicing anymore) the members are so quick to be like “oh look they’re Mormons!” 😂
I’m enjoying this and would love to see more. It’s nice hearing from real life Mormons and not the reality tv kind. Thanks for sharing this with us. 💜
Thank you for saying that. What would you like to see in this series? What do you want to learn more about?
@@MendedLight I’d love to hear about the stereotypes and where you both feel they are true or wildly off base. I know you don’t speak for the whole community, but hearing how you practice your faith. Again thank you for sharing this with us. 💜
I love your channel (both), I'm not sure where y'all were raised (AZ and NV?), but we were absolutely raised to be housewives/stay-at-home-moms. It's literally in our doctrine i.e. The Proclamation to the Family and hundreds of General Conference addresses. Women were shamed for working outside the home. Perhaps outside of Utah, it's not emphasized as much, but within Utah, it absolutely is. I was taught the only reason to get a college education is to meet a well-educated man who will be able to provide for the family and allow us to stay at home with the kids and because "what if your husband dies, and you need to support your family?" etc. You guys are usually very fair minded and aware of these specific cultural and church issues, so I'm actually surprised you denied that at the beginning of this video. I understand the defensiveness regarding this show. I do not feel these women represent how I was as an active Latter-Day Saint, but they reminded me of other girls/women I did go to church with.
Are these women representative of Mormon women? Yes and no. I believe they were all married in the temple for their first marriages, and you know to get married in the temple there are very specific standards you have to abide by and hoops to jump through. Temple prep classes to attend, many interviews with your bishop regarding temple worthiness, etc. So though they may be more of the "inactive" Mormon now, they are absolutely representative of Mormons, because they grew up as such and got married as such. Please don't erase and invalidate their past by a small snippet of their present. I think many of us hard-core Mormons (as you guys are) knew of these types of girls who "went through the motions". Do they currently abide by all the rules and standards of the church? Obviously not. Also, other religions don't quite judge their attendees by "activity" or frequency of church attendance as much as we do. I see so many of my friends and family speaking badly of these women, and I know their ward leadership has notes and likely assigned specific home/visiting (yes, I know it's called Ministering Sisters now) teachers specifically to inactives like these women, to befriend them and try to reactivate them.
I am no longer an "active" member of the church, but I have held callings in 3 different ward presidencies (YW, RS, and Primary), my ex-husband was YM pres as well. I know the intricacies of how the church operates on a ward level and the large differences you can see between wards, states, etc. I've lived in Texas now for 12 years, and my young women had 3 female doctors in their presidency, I was so happy for my girls (that I was over) to have this representation because I NEVER had it in Utah. I specifically made sure to teach our girls about practical and important topics like how to pay for college, and finances, etc. Not the activities I was given as a youth about which qualities to look for in a guy and "oh yeah, make sure he's an RM!" (Returned Missionary).
I'm happy there has been some evolution in the messaging of the church (mostly because it is required for both parents to work within this economic climate), but please, don't invalidate the lived experience of 90% of women who have grown up in the church.
Thank you for making this video. I was diagnosed with religious trauma in my early 20s, in part because of abuse from my pastor father. However, my faith was also how I survived my trauma and is central to who I am today. Most people I know can’t make room for that kind of complexity; they call it Stockholm Syndrome or just plain stupidity.
Thank you for sharing this. Sometimes the pain is too much for people to reconcile, but if they turn to God, there is healing, peace, and understanding. When people have said things to me that were hurtful, whether intentional or not, I struggled, especially when it came from someone that I trusted and admired. But in praying, and meditating, I was able to see the person and the situation more clearly and gain a sort of religious independence from them. Even if they were a member of my faith, I could separate them from my faith. The same goes for scriptures and doctrine that I don't understand. I've had many questions that at times would just have to be put on the back burner, but eventually they would be answered.
It's interesting how differently you guys over there in America see Christianity. You talked about the importance of religion being personal and not letting any religious leader tell you who you should be.
I was raised to listen to religious authority and to put what they say above my own opinion. It's kind of the point of having a pope (I'm Roman Catholic).
Now, this is obviously fuckin' difficult as a closeted queer (nvm my username, I just don't wanna be outed as trans, in case my family sees my account or sth). Especially as an Eastern-European. For most of my life, I didn't know where to look for help and support: I only found suicidal thoughts in both my faith and my culture.
I guess your view on this is WAY healthier, and thanks for sharing it. I really needed that positivity, even though I'm almost okay now that I found my community.
Yeah, listening to LDS Leaders is like hearing really good advice, then deciding between yourself and God if it's advice you want to follow and/or what God wants you to follow. There's so much freedom and everything.
They both have mental health degrees and I feel are healthier for it. I was taught "when the prophet speaks the time for thinking is done." What is the point of having a Prophet, who speaks for God, if one cannot follow their counsel?
@BoromirTolkien which is ironic, since the current prophet/leader of the Church Russel M Nelson wrote an autobiography called "Heart of the Matter." while he was still the leader of the Church.
He, himself, wrote that everyone may ask God if the prophet is stating true things. There's nothing wrong with that. It's apparently encouraged by the prophet himself now, so we probably SHOULD think and ask God.
I think its a very roman thing, I'm french and I already feel like American are extreme in they're faith compare to most french Christians.
Finding out that you’re LDS has made my day!! I have been watching your Cinema Therapy videos for a long time now. I am also LDS and I appreciate this so much!!
It took me a while to process this- and I wasn't sure why, because I mostly agree with your statemens. However, to think that 10% of your income from this channel goes to a church that actively spreads hate, racism and covers up abuse - this is where i feel so disappointed. Sure 'your level of mormon' is accepting of all sorts of people but all this money is going to spreading beliefs that are harmful. 'yes but every church has people in it that suppress women' is not an excuse, you have a choice to not be with any church. Joseph Smith was not a saint, he was a polygamist who married 14 year old girls.
I grew up going to a Catholic church and decided in my teens that religion was not for me and have identified as Atheist ever since. I think Atheists are misrepresented as people who exclusively hate religion and want it banned. I believe in separation of church and state as well as the freedom of religion. I don't think our laws should be based off of one specific religion. I think people should have the freedom to worship as they see fit. The problems I have come from people trying to force their religious beliefs on others and those using their religious beliefs as excuses to harm others.
I'm a practicing Latter-day Saint and was born and raised in the church. My parents taught me (and showed me every single day) that marriage is a partnership of equals, both of whom love, honor, respect, and serve the other. Yes, I was taught that motherhood is a wonderful thing. IT IS. It's the best thing in my life. But it's not my ENTIRE life. I was also taught I could do anything I felt called to do. I was encouraged, NAGGED -- especially by my mom -- to get a degree, to have a career. I've been taught good values. I've made good choices. While I'm not a career-driven person, I've done everything I ever wanted to do with my life and my employment and the way I bring in money. All of it with the full support of my (also lifelong LDS) husband and kids. I am a free woman with a wonderful life. Yes, I have hardships. Everyone does. But I have no regrets.
Probably the most Mormon thing about the show is casting these woman as outsiders. I feel the show did a great job of casting from someone who had their records removed to having endowed, temple-going members (it is very nuanced above this level of activity on who is doing more for the Kingdom of God). While we can judge them for not wearing clothes that cover where the garments would be, they are still going to church.
It also seems the true secret lives of Mormon wives is trying to find fulfillment with many kids. There cannot be a range of member experiences while disavowing these women's experiences. They were raised with the Church. The judging is very holier-than-thou.
While there is a movement toward more women working and autonomy, the general direction of the church is that women are "by divine design, .... are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children." They are told not to have careers. These women are breaking that model. More than the dancing on MomTok, I think them being the primary breadwinners is what separates them from modern Mormon women.
Can you give your thoughts on the difference between a religion's teachings/doctrine and a congregation's culture? I find it fascinating that within any sort of community (but especially the religious ones) you can teach the same core values, but apply them so differently from area to area. Having lived all over the US, my congregations have had different vibes everywhere, even when the teachings are identical. There have been places where people could care less that I was single, and others where people felt they could nag me about getting married. Both can exist in the same religion (and at times in the same congregation). I have friends that felt pressured to get married and are now divorced. I personally never had that experience. It seems like for several of my friends that have left organized religion, it's less about the teachings and more about how it's taught and applied in the culture the congregation creates.
I think that comes down to the family/community culture within the specific geographic region. Far too many times it's the old hypocritical - the "do as I say, not as I do," leadership.
Don’t love the “living in victim hood framing” it’s great you didn’t experience that in the church but there are plenty of ex Mormons or ex Christians (including me) out there that did. It’s not “living in victimization” if you’re just stating a pattern of behavior you experienced all growing up that had actual effects on your life.
I am a queer Latter-Day Saint. On the queer side I get judged as a homophobic and transphobic person. And on the chuch side i get judged as being a sinner who hurts kids. I can be queer and still be in good s5anding with the church. Its not a choice to have th le queer feelings i have but i do choose if I act on those feelings. I have been afraid of starting both my channels for fear of the comments hating on me from both sides.
I'm so sorry for judgment and closed-mindedness on both sides. If you ever start that channel I'll be your first subscriber! You can be both queer and Latter-day Saint, and your heart is so good.
I was a practing Mormon up until last year and the ad for the show made me think, "Um, did they even get Mormon women, or is this a poorly researched pretend reality show?" Why?
1) Yes, our young women are taught that we need to be married to live with God in the after life. Depending on your ward (congregation) and area, the pressure varied. The church has been more understanding that not everyone has the opportunity to get married or stay married so it hasn't been as harsh on this teaching. However, it is a common topic in the young women's Sunday group.
2) Yes, there is pressure to have children and as many as you can afford. Again, there has been more understanding that not everyone can physically have children, but if you can, you should. Having children in a marriage is only permitable. No requirement to have kids before 21.
3) The women in the video drink alcohol - Mormon women don't. They don't even drink coffee or tea. That's why there are so many soda shops in Utah.
4) The women are showing shoulders, upper thighs, stomachs, cleavage and wearing tight clothing. In reality, Mormon women, especially if they went to the temple, don't wear these clothes. They wear underwear from the late 1800s that include a chemise (originally made to go under a corset) and bloomers with modern design changes to fit under t-shirts and jeans.
5) Mormon women are only sexually and mentally faithful to their husband. They follow the 10 commandments, which include: thou shall not commit adultery and shall not covet.
6) Women are encouraged to be stay-at-home moms, but aren't required because of family circumstances.
7) Women do not have to follow every desire of their husband. They can decide if they agree with their husband's actions.
Though to be fair, as a Mormon woman, I “covenanted” in the temple to “obey my husband as he obeys God.”
He did not promise the same to me. This was the standard, until they changed the temple covenant a few years ago to make it more politically correct.
I was devout. I took it all seriously, as I was raised from birth to take it seriously.
And that seriously messed with my head.
@@rachellevigil9004 Also, pre 1990 you would've covenanted to obey your husband directly to him which explains the way my parents acted towards each other.
I'm a Protestant Christian, specifically Pentecostal and in the Church of God denomination. Drives me crazy how so many non -religious people see the fringe of religious groups and the scandals and assume all of us are like that. I think most religious people are just doing the best they can at being the best versions of themselves and seeking God. There's definitely religious abuse in all groups, unfortunately. But there are abusive people in every community. Even though I'm not Mormon I hate shows like this because while I don't agree with the book of Mormon I think that just like the rest of us, you all are moral people looking to love God and each other and do the right thing. I'm honestly just as frustrated with this show as I'd be if it were about Pentecostals.
I don’t know if this counts as religious manipulation, but growing up I was fine learning about Evolution and the Creation. I never questioned how to reconcile the two and thought it wasn’t a big deal until people around me (social media, fellow church members, mission companions, etc.) made it a big deal. One of them even brought up an old Bruce R. McConkie talk saying that it’s an unforgivable heresy to reconcile the two (this was before I knew about James E. Talmadge’s relationship with science and the Church’s current position on the matter), basically discouraging me from believing in Evolution. I tried to convince myself Evolution was fake, but it felt like I was lying to myself just to appease these dogmatic people. I breathed a HUGE sigh of relief when I found out that not only did the CES teach Evolution, but there were professors who actually believed it AND were able to reconcile the two despite the angry phone calls and emails from parents.
Creation vs Evolution was just one aspect of what I think was religious manipulation in my life, but it has had me asking what it is I truly believe and what I’m just saying that I believe in order to fit in. And I feel that I understand that trying to fit in is a betrayal to what you value.
One book I love that talks about reconciling Faith with Science is "Faith of a Scientist" by Henry Eyring
"Why not both?" This is something I live by because when one person says one thing is true and another person says the opposite, instead of just saying one person is right and the other person's wrong, I try to think about how they can both be right. Truth is a big concept that can really only be understood completely when it is whole. As puny mortals, we only have bits and pieces, maybe some chunks of the truth, and even those pieces cannot fully be understood without the context of the whole. But we still do our best with what we have. So as long as people are humble and willing to learn from each other, I think we'll be okay.
@@finkydoodleI remember hearing about that book, and it was pretty liberating knowing there were faithful Church members out there willing to engage in science without it harming their faith.
@@cinderbelle22I definitely like that approach as opposed to the all-or-nothing mindset. I’m not sure I’m on the same level of “both being true” as you’re describing (and don’t let me convince you otherwise, I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind), however that doesn’t mean I’m going to throw the entire story of the Creation out just because I don’t believe in it’s historicity. At the least, it helps me understand humanity’s relationship with God and (with the Latter-day Saint flavor) helps put into perspective our purpose here on Earth.
@@sketchygetchey8299 Yeah. I for one have never understood the idea of limiting God to the creationism theory. Truth (with the big T) is Truth. The fact is that evolution is real and observable and replicatable, and that we as mortals and humans and scientists don't even begin to understand the realities of the universe or the extent of science, and any good scientist understands that you have to keep space for learning that you are wrong. Most don't, because we are human and we hate having to be humble enough to admit we are wrong, nevertheless, that is key.
Given that, I have never been able to fathom the idea of someone insisting they know exactly how God works the fabric of the universe to the extent of denying what is before their eyes. I cannot fathom the idea of refusing to consider that God used the principles *of science* to create the world. Why couldnt He have taken a bunch of matter and set it spinning? Then thrown more matter at it until it became a sun, and planets? Then thrown a comet at one of the planets to nudge it into the goldilocks zone and throw out a moon? Why couldnt He have sent comets to deliver water, create a heavy atmoshpere that didnt show the stars, induce esrthquakes and rains, breathe LIFE into the primordial oozd and then nudge it this way and that to breed all of creation, the same way we breed dogs? Why insist that God couldn't have created huge dinosaurs with the intent of giving us fun clues to how He created the universe and easy fuel for us to enter the age of industry?
I am absolutely vaffled by people who think He couldn't have done that, wouldn't have thought that far agead, could only possivly have done it the way their limited minds can imagine it.
God made all the Wonders of the universe, and as an LDS person, I believe he left us clues like a doting parent leaves a fun puzzle out for their kids so that we could learn HOW, so that we can grow. We are meant to think and expand our minds.
Lol, I get off my soapbox now. 😀
As a Latter-day Saint, who loves the church and loves God, I want to say that some people in the church are not perfect. No one is, however, our church and religion was founded by Jesus Christ, a perfect man. So even if the people around you make mistakes, are judgmental, are ex-lds, or even claim to be LDS but do not act in accordance to the Gospel, the church, established by a perfect man, it likewise perfect.
If anyone wants to know more about church history and what we believe, I would highly encourage you to read the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants.
I’m not trying to convert anyone, because at the end of the day, we don’t convert people, the Holy Ghost does. But, this scripture is amazing, and has helped me develop my own faith.
Alma 32: 27
“But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.”
I grew up with Mormons (like half of my friends were LDS and I routinely went to church, youth programs, and other events with them) and I actually enjoyed the show! When I first was watching I was like “wow these are NOT like the people I grew up with”, and I definitely found the trailer misleading and not representative of the faith nor the ladies on it (but I guess the purpose was just to garner attention) but I feel like the women on the show across the season were very transparent about where they were at on their faith journeys and with their alignment to the church. It’s reality TV so of course the drama and such was played into, but like you said, for some of the women, their identities as LDS aligned more with how they grew up vs them being “devout” with the core values of the church.
I'm a Southern Baptist Pastor.
Our media portrayal that we cringe at is kind of the opposite of this.
3 more recent ones: Westboro protesting military funerals, Steven Anderson saying that there is no salvation for homosexuals and recommending suicide, and the rise, scandal and fall of the Duggar family (with Bill Gothard's IBLP cult in the background).
The irony is that whenever a Baptist Church reaches national news, somewhere buried in the article is when the Southern Baptist Convention kicked them out.
It's always the ones that refused to repent and agree to cut ties and support with the thousands of other Baptist churches that then end up in front of a news reporter as the representative of the Baptist Faith
It gets old.
Oh, yes. I worked at a job as a traveling bank teller and people asked if I was like the Westboro morons. I refuuuse to put the word "church" to their name.
Thank you so much for your perspective!
If you are going to talk more about the show Alicia really needs to watch it. The trailer is really just for shock affect and doesn't really show what it is about. At least a couple of the women say they are a 9 or 10 out of 10 for being devout. Also, the show is much more boring than the trailer makes it look. It shows different degrees of Morminism just like every ward hows members of different degrees. Everyone is a cafeteria mormon and a lot of it depends on the era and region you grew up in.
"wildly inaccurate" was also my thought upon watching the trailer
What would you want to portray?
So somehow despite me having watched Cinema Therapy for a while and this channel more recently and vaguely knowing you were from Utah, it had never crossed my mind that you guys could be Mormon. 😅 Really curious to hear your perspective because so far all the reviews I have seen on TH-cam are from people who have left the LDS church and no longer believe in God at all. Never Mormon myself but am Christian and have always been curious about different churches and different beliefs. I feel like Hollywood tends to represent Christians as either Catholics or really strict fundamentalists (thinking of Footloose) and doesn't show the wider variation in between! (I'm Episcopalian, although I have been part of other Protestant churches over the course of my life, and can't think of any examples of Episcoplian or Lutheran representation off the top of my head.) Also among my friends and family who are or have been Catholic, there's a wide variation in how much of the actual Church teaching they actually follow, like you said wirh your friends regarding the LDS church.
Also, I knew about the alcohol thing because when I was in my cousin's wedding, the best man was a practicing Mormon (not sure if he still is) and he didn't believe the rest of us at first that the sparkling apple cider we were going to be toasting with was non-alcoholic. Someone had to show him the bottle for him to read it for himself.
Thanks for doing this; I've always had questions about the LDS religion. I have quite a few friends who are ex-mormans and that they felt like they were in a cult. It makes me happy to know that the religion has gotten more progressive. From what I've heard from people is that the faith is very sexist and controlling; it's good to know there's a better way to practice your faith
As for misrepresentation my personal grievance is the making of wiccan/witches are all evil devil worshipers here to steal your children. Hardly ever is the Wiccan faith every shown properly; it's such a peace loving religion that most people know nothing about.
I'll never understand how intelligent, educated people can be religious. Don't you ever wonder if you're wrong? I had to leave Christianity because I couldn't stop all the doubts and questions, which started when i was a child, and continued into early adulthood, no matter how much I prayed or read the Bible.
Internet comments tend to be difficult to have nuanced conversations in, but ... My parents broke faith with the catholic church before I was born, and they let me go my own way when it came to spiritual issues. As such I never really developed any sort of religious belief. I consider myself an atheist leaning agnostic; as I certainly don't feel I can know for certain one way or another. Portrayal of atheism in popular culture swings back and forth a lot. It can be positive or negative, depending on the narrative the writer is trying to convey, and the biases of the writer as well.
I'm a Catholic and have experienced spiritual abuse by Jesuits citing my traditional beliefs. So to not only have found this channel because of a Jesuit family is a blessing, also to be candid on how we can represent ourselves in a non-invasive or harmful way!
Thank you!
@@MendedLight You're welcome!
Idk if you guys have been watching the Apple+ show Shrinking, but I think it’s up your alley, definitely worth a watch for a therapist and good potential for a video.
We'll have to look into that!
Personally, I've seen a series of video of a former Mormon who has left the cult, and they were pretty concerning. Also, this person and some research done by one if my former schoolmate confirm a serius of things that really don't qualify that as a religion but, as I say before, as a cult. To be clear, I'm from Italy, so, never direct expirience with any of this. If your expirience inside the religion is different, good for you. I would have some question about some rites that this person was referring about, and some other about the source behind some other belives. I would appreciate a focus on this, but I understand if you wouldn't. I'm personally skeptical because I already had a direct expirience with another cult, and heard of really bad dinamic that happened there, plus the bad effect that leaving it has left on so many people, because of its roules. Really interested in hearing your expirience in ditail, by the way.
I’m glad you’re covering this- there’s a huge problem with media covering any number of belief systems incorrectly. I couldn’t believe they were trying to say that *that* is who we really are…🙄😐🤨
Skillfully done. Thanks for covering this!
Glad you liked it! Thank you for watching! 💜
Being Indigenous, seeing our iconography used as cartoon school mascots and HALLOWEEN COSTUMES worn by the descendents of abusers living in systems that benefitted directly from massacres and forced Long Walks is pretty damn obnoxious.
I would love to get your opinions as insiders on the show, as Alyssa Grenfell (she is no longer part of the LDS church) already made a great video from her perspective. Being a complete outsider in terms of culture and religion, it is really interesting to learn about this different way of life. Lots of love! ❤
I am excited to watch this series and hear your perspectives, because I absolutely cannot bring myself to watch this show that comes across as a popularity grab leveraging media attention and mixed opinions on the LDS church after things like "I'm Glad My Mom Died", but I also know it's likely to come up in a lot of online spaces. I'd love to hear realistic and open discussions about some of the topics that are bound to come up. I've seen a repeated pattern on your different channels of being willing to consider multiple perspectives and sides of different issues, so I'm looking forward to your perspectives.
I did grow up in Utah, am in a variety of groups for discussing careers of 'Mormon' women or creating partnership relationships within the church culture where I've seen a lot of discussions from people who work at church schools, as institute teachers, or for the church directly, and have experienced it myself in my own life and in looking at volunteer opportunities at church headquarters. My experience has been that there are absolutely stull a lot of gender role expectations in some areas of the church, or an assumption that having children and being a homemaker first is a default, that education for women is great as a backup measure of security but not really required as the default is that you'll be supported by a spouse.
That being said, I don't think this series is going to prove to be an accurate representation of anything other than their own lives in a reality tv format.
I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’m a convert to the Church from a family of Baptists, I’m also a childless widow, sealed to my late husband.
There are a lot of things I have experienced, some good all the way to devastating. No one in the Church has identical lives, everyone goes through their own gethsemanes, we are supposed to be supportive of each other without the judgment.
The judgement belongs to God and no one else.
My goal is to become the woman God wants me to be, not someone else’s idea of who I should be.
My opinion of this program is that it looks like it is focused on the materialism of the world. The great and spacious building. JMHO.
The idea of everyone doing what works for them as individuals and as couples SOUNDS great, but it's a little hard to swallow given the stories of coercion and trauma coming from those who have escaped the church, and the context of women being under attack by the far right on a national level. Would you really embrace your children's lifestyle choices if they opted to go non-traditional? Would they still be welcome in your community? I hope I'm wrong to be skeptical and that your community is as diverse and tolerant as you claim.
It sounds strange to me to hear "escape the church" seeing that the church is voluntary. One of its main teachings is that men are free to choose according to the dictates of their own conscience. If you choose to be baptized and continue in the church, then yes, there are certain expectations, but use of force is contrary to the doctrine of Christ, and if somebody in the church does that to another, they need to repent. As for children and teens, they are subject to their parents; as long as abuse is not involved, parents have the right to take their children to church, even if they don't want to go. Unfortunately, like you said, abuse does happen and causes trauma. To those who are suffering, I hope they can find healing and peace.
@@cinderbelle22 I was not raised in organized religion so I don't think it's my place to disagree, I've just heard those who left the church describe it that way. I do sympathize though, if they had to sever life-long relationships and leave a community to get out, I can see how hard that would be to do.
No kidding. As a member of the LGBT community who was raised in the LDS church, I have to say my adolescence was extremely traumatizing with the shame I endured.
I’m now raising my kids outside the church, and one of them is non-binary. Their grandparents still attend church, so I keep up on the policies. The current church-wide policy is that my nonbinary child is not even allowed to use the restroom in an LDS building without an escort. There are other fun restrictions too-they are not allowed to be baptized or even teach Sunday School or work with kids. They are literally given fewer privileges and more restrictions than known sex offenders are in the LDS church, just because of their gender identity.
How’s that for a healthy, inclusive environment?
Oh, and by the way, people in the LDS church who are in same-sex relationships are liter excommunicated over it.
Yet Jono is over here claiming everyone can do what they want.
It’s a bold faced lie, or else willful ignorance.
@@cinderbelle22lol, only if you choose to not pay your 10% they won’t let you attend your own children’s weddings.
Pretty extreme if you ask me.
@@rachellevigil9004 it's good that your kid has you and your support!
I was raised in evangelicalism and it definitely left me with a lot of trauma. I drifted for more than a decade. Now in my mid-30s, I’m finally able to find my own faith outside the evangelical dogmas.
Hey Jono and Alicia, it would be very interesting to hear your thoughts on the South Park episode that features a Mormon family. I think you would both hate and love this episode. Yes, they do take the micky out of the the origin story of the religion but please stick with the episode because they have an equally wholesome message about being tolerant of religious differences and not being so quick to judge people. It's a well done, thougt provoking episode. By the way every religion has the micky taken out of by South Park. No one escapes it lol 😂. I kinda love it for that. Everyone is game, puts us all on equal footing.
I’m LDS and I really liked that episode. It was funny and it was also everything you said!
I think Parker and Stone (the creators of South Park and the Book of Mormon musical) secretly want to be Mormon.😉
I’m a Catholic and I’ve wrestled with the negativity of the Christian church in general. I’ve got lots of problems with Catholicism stance on issues like birth control, and women being priests and abortion. But I love my faith overall and I’m at a good place with it. I love that there’s a catechism to give me guidelines. I just love my faith. My mom is Catholic my dad was Baptist. I love God and I also find God in other faiths like Barbara brown Taylor who wrote a book called holy envy
I forget her name, but I think she sounded very judgy. Everyone has different life experiences.
As someone who’s not Mormon and never been Mormon. I’d say the biggest representation of Mormonism I’ve seen have been Warren Jeffs and his group, Daybell, Valow, Frankie, Hildebrant and the Sister Wives, in other words. While I know two sets of those are fundamentalist and not main stream I’d still say, mormonism isn’t looking too good out here. 😬
I'll counter with authors Brandon Sanderson and Brandon Mull, dubstep violinist Lindsey Stirling, The Piano Guys, "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" author Stephen R. Covey, Donny and Marie Osmond, Brandon Flowers from The Killers, Jeopardy host Ken Jennings, hall-of-famer Steve Young, Grammy-winner Gladys Knight, TH-camrs Mark Rober and Emma McAdam (from Therapy in a Nutshell), legendary animation director Don Bluth, and Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid as well-known, devout members of the faith known for doing a lot of good in the world.
@@MendedLight I’ve never heard of most of those people. The few I do know of from your list Lindsey Stirling is the only one I knew was Mormon but I only found that out a couple of months ago. I’m definitely not saying that all Mormons are bad or that the people I named are the only famous Mormons. I’m just saying those people are the ones I’ve heard of the most.
@@lesliesheppard6112 oh for sure. The ones you listed are definitely not a good look, I agree. And they are prevalent. Apologies if I came off defensive.
@@MendedLight I think it’s probably because I’m not Mormon so I’m not thinking about peoples beliefs or religion when I hear about them. If I like a band it’s because I like their music so it doesn’t matter to me if they’re baptist or Mormon or Hindu. When the news comes on though, they tend to talk about exactly who the perpetrators of the crime they’re reporting on are, in great detail. So as someone who doesn’t live in a predominately Mormon state or area the only ones I know about have mug shots lol😂
Part of me just wants to say being a latter-day saint is about survival. But as was mentioned many times, that goes for everyone else too. Here as of late, I have faced challenges about being a gospel teacher and teaching doctrine and yet wanting to communicate to students and my own children how important it is to find out for yourself what being a member of this church means. I have done a lot of private soul searching and prayer about what it might mean to me, but I can't feed those ideas to others for fear of leading them astray. Particularly this time of year, I am hyper aware of the stark differences and diversity between members of the church. Our membership cannot be painted with one brush, and often not only those outside our faith try to do so, but I have often been told in various ways by people inside the church that I need to be painted by a particular brush only. I am starting to have a little hope that there is a way to be true to the doctrine of our faith and yet still strive to just not love and support those that are close to me who don't see the value of that doctrine, but also thrive with them, grow with them, but it is a challenging needle to thread.
I want to put forward the misunderstanding of people with PTSD. I've seen lots of bad portrayals that were very clearly done by people who have zero experience with trauma and PTSD as the characters end up very shallow and are written to come off weird and thats everything. Also the misconceptionthat still exists (because ive encountered it recently), that only militaryveteranscan have PTSD.
Bad reputation is so pervasive that I'd rather characters that were very well done, that I personally felt were a good represenation. (There's other good representations for other trauma experiences that arent mine and I don't relate to as much, so im not listing at this time)
Hunter, from the Owl House. So extremely well done, from the way it impacts everyday life and self care things to the awkwardness it creates in social situations and not knowing how to interact/not realizing that while you're working off of what you were given, what you were given was bad and there's better ways.
Kawaki from Boruto. I haven't kept watching, but the introduction of him. Theres a VERY good episode that extremely accurately displayed what its like living with PTSD. From experiencing triggers to how your peers react to you just trying to exist, and being misunderstood and judged because they don't have the same experience and are naive/ignorant and the way they'll react to you because of it.
Mormon women were raised to be housewife for men and to take care of their desires? Very well educated mormon mom and wife here! I am not this dumb or ornamental!!! This women are desperate for money, fame and attention.
Thank you for doing this, guys. This show is really going to mislead a lot of people so I'm glad someone with a platform is saying something.
People would say the secret life of a mormon wife if they actually saw it as boring. It wouldn't be made into a show. My mom worked, took her kids to their sports, read scriptures, taught us to be like Jesus, graded, and then repeat. Mine is I wake up get kids to school, read scriptures, plan our lesson that afternoon, pick up kids, make bread, play, clean, cook dinner, and then repeat. It looks completely different than the extreme you see in the media for obvious reasons. It's not interesting and doesn't portray the misconceptions Hollywood really likes to sell. I always shock people when they hear I grew up in a home where it was a team, the priesthood was exercised but my mother had authority as well, and we were given agency taught the Bible and book of mormon doctrine. I then seeked those same qualities I grew up in and found an amazing man who respects my input on how to make our home like a temple. Who doesnt conduct himself in what I call unrighteous dominion and actually calls out other men when they do so. The church is true the people are not because unfortunately people are not perfect and when they are learning from their mistakes people take it and think that's the church. I assure you what you see in the media or in some individuals who follow the old culture, cause their is a old mormon culture we are trying to combat, is not what the doctrine teaches. It's not what the book of mormon teaches and it's not what christ taught. The church is true, the people are not. For all religions though I feel that statement applies because we go to church to become like Jesus to be perfected through him. Media will never showcase the real life of a religious person because a true member working hard to live the teachings of jesus is boring and doesn't meet their biases they wish to continue spreading despite the people it's hurting. They don't care as long as it makes them a lot of money.
A very interesting and through video on the topic.
As a big Lindsey fan, I’m quite certain Lindsey Stirling is Mormon & she’s very proudly religious. She doesn’t like push it on ppl but she embraces it & incorporates it into her concerts & some of her music. Idk anything about Mormonism but I’ve heard it being looked down on with a negative connotation & I’ve had no idea why (likewise with Jewish ppl). I guess the traditionalism has something to do with it but that definitely just sounds like that average strict/tradition Christian upbringing, not sure why Mormons are singled out. Lindsey is an amazing person & has only spread beauty & kindness with her religion so no red flags there!
I feel like the show should be called the Secret Lives of Ticktoc Wives.
I'm Roman Catholic, and my experience has always been the furthest from the scandals involving priests & young parishioners that have become so prevalent. My mom has been on camping trips with the former archbishop & the lady who first accused him, & she doesn't believe any of that ever happened. Of course, he might have shown a different face to my prim & proper mother (even as a kid she was primarily & proper), than to a group of kids on a camping trip, than to a single nubile female in a private room
The closest I've ever seen to such activity is from another priest that my mom knew growing up when ge transferred to our parish. Nothing specific, I was just never comfortable with him. After he had transferred to yet another parish, he picked up a hitchhiker, who SA'd and murdered this priest & dumped his body on the side of the road. There were hints that this wad a revenge thing, though I don't accept that excuse because he could have chosen to take revenge in other ways. I do, however, accept his claim that Father Armando mistreated him & that it was part of how he started down a horrible life path. I don't accept that thus was the case for many or most children in the Catholic church.
I am also subscribed to the TH-cam channel Cults to Consciousness. Shelise Ann Sola grew up LDS in Utah, & had a very culty experience. When I was growing up, we had several LDS families that were friends, & from my perspective, they were all happy & healthy, though definitely human. My sister dated at least 2 missionaries in high school, one of whom later converted to Catholicism (probably NOT related to my sister's influence). My current partner was LDS for a while, though he's currently unattached to any particular path. I have friends all over the religious map, & everyone has their good & bad experiences. From this, I gather that we're all human & what works for one person may not work for another. Each person's practice is between that person and the God (or however you choose to call that entity) that they interact with, and my place is to accept that they're doing what's right for them at the moment.
Thanks for this reaction! My question about LDS culture is: how to properly refer to y'all? I think it is now taboo to use the name "Mormon" (I think due to the current prophets revelation maybe?), but you did introduce yourself thus. Is it rude to use the title Mormon referring to the religion and/or those who practice it? Or just best to always use LDS? Thanks!
Great question! While "Latter-day Saint" is the preferred term (and the one least-likely to ruffle feathers among the faithful), the fact is we've been called Mormons for almost 200 years and most of us aren't the least bit offended by the term. For us personally, we prefer Latter-day Saint but Mormon is also fine.
Thanks! So essentially, always revert to Latter-day Saint/LDS 👍
The main idea of why the prophet encourages us to use the full name of the church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) is to remember that it’s Jesus’ church. :) When called Mormons, He is left out of the name.
The change in the LDS church from the
“I’m a Mormon campaign”
To now where people will tell you to use the full LDS name
It is basically a change in leadership. During the “I’m a Mormon campaign” the prophet was Gordon B Hinkley.
Now the emphasis on using the full LDS name comes from the current prophet Russell M Nelson.
So it’s basically personal preference of the prophet. People who grew up when Gordon B Hickley was in power are less likely to be offended by the term Mormon.
People who grew up with Russell M Nelson are more likely to be offended by the term Mormon.
The current prophet claims God is offended when people use the word “Mormon,” and that to use it is a “major victory for Satan.”
Funny, because just two prophets ago the LDS church spent millions on an advertising campaign promoting the use of the word “Mormon.”
Apparently God changed his mind.
I'm an Orthodox Christian. One of the biggest misconceptions about us is that our church is *only* for certain groups of people. While it is true that Orthodoxy came to America with immigrants from Orthodox-Majority nations the idea that someone cannot be Orthodox or wouldn't be welcomed at one of our services unless they had a certain ancestry or spoke a certain language is absolutely false. The second biggest misconception is that there's a lack of a personal relationship with God in our faith, which I almost laugh at because that's the biggest thing, I've gone to Sunday service and had the importance of that personal relationship be the topic of lesson. In media we're often the villains or the weirdos with the weird, foreign religion but we're just regular, God-fearing people, and anybody who shows up on Sunday is more than welcome to participate and to come downstairs after and get to know us for themselves.
When I first moved to Utah I was shocked by the culture here. It can be very toxic. This is not the church it is Utah culture. Makes me so sad.
I'm an ex-Catholic from Germany and I left my church/religion as soon as it was legal in Germany, i.e. my 18th birthday. I never missed it since I experienced faith and religion as oppressive especially for women. I also think that every religion is misrepresented in the media from time to time. I would like to hear your perspective on the Mormon faith because it is a religion Eurpeans encounter mostly via television or media since there are so few Mormons in Europe. Apart from the occasional young men in black suits on their missionary tour you never meet Mormons. So the general picture is "Sister Wives", scandals, pioneer dresses and that tictoc stuff. And these are all extreme cases. I doubt that more than a few people over here know anything about the Mormon faith and way of living. So I'm looking forward to learn about your perspective on things.
new thumbnails are so much better
It seems that main secret of this show is a group of professional writers who imagines every scandal in the show to be watched more
9:28 How have I been misrepresented? Well... I'm a member of the LDS Church, same with Jono. That's the same thing as being a Mormon btw, it's just that "Latter-Day Saint" is the more appropriate term.
As an Latter-Day Saint, I've had someone ask me, "Do Latter-Day Saints hate gay people?"
It was an innocent and curious question, but the answer is no.
That can be confusing for many people because it's true that Latter-Day Saints disagree with the concept of engaging in a homosexual relationship, but that doesn't justify us to hate all gay people. 😑 That's just wrong. 🙅♂️
In fact, the Latter-Day Saint leadership counsels the Church to be kind to and platonically love all people everywhere, especially LGBT+ individuals. ❤
Disagreeing on LGBT+ matters is not something to ruin a friendly relationship over. We can be friends and still disagree, it's totally possible.
I'm also grateful that this video helps set some things straight, since radical and polarizing examples in media are almost always the examples that grab the most attention thus getting the most views thus getting the most money. 🙃🤑 These radical and polarizing examples confuse and negativity impact people outside of the culture, but also do the same for the members of the culture themselves.
Nearly all Latter-Day Saints are going to condemn the behavior in "The Secret Wives of Mormon Lives" just like the rest of society.
It’s not like we approve of the stuff in that show. There's actually some really messed up crap in there that is really disturbing for most Latter-Day Saints.
But in general, random anecdotes about a few women are never going to accurately portray a culture that includes more than 17 million people. It's just not possible.
I really value this perspective and think it’s very necessary to always approach all groups in society with reason and the desire for understanding, and especially not to let one portrayal define how an entire group is perceived.
However, while I agree with the principle of what you said, I think it’s important to acknowledge that disagreeing with the concept of queer relationships can still (rightfully) be interpreted as a form of hatred, even if it isn’t intended as such.
I’m a queer person, and one of the main contributors to me leaving my religion was their “hate the sin not the sinner” attitude with LGBTQ+ people.
Just because you don’t directly hate us or disagree with our existence, your disapproval of our relationships demonstrates that you don’t recognise the validity of our love, or in the case of trans people, our very identity.
It’s all well and good to say that it’s fine for people to be LGBTQ+ as long as they preferably don’t act accordingly, but that’s essentially saying that we would be sinners for acting on the same inner desires of love and personal expression that are seen as being examples of Gods’s work for straight or cis-gender people.
I don’t mean to be overly blunt, but since we are all divinely made and our love is Jesus Christ (in the perspective of many Christians), surely being LGBTQ+ isn’t a burden to be overcome, but instead another purposeful choice of God?
After all, all the listed sins in the Bible are a choice, but being LGBTQ+ isn’t a choice. Some would argue that it is a choice to act on it, but again I reiterate that that just reinforces that we “should’ve” been straight and cis, and we should instead be uncomfortable and unfulfilled in our lives to comfort an eternal, omnipotent being who probably doesn’t even hate LGBTQ+, because He would’ve made them and all the texts dictating that LGBTQ+ identities should be suppressed are hundreds or even thousands of years old, and would’ve been translated and transcribed innumerable times from their original context by imperfect men with an agenda.
In conclusion, thank you for your contribution, just be mindful that just because you don’t have an actively hateful attitude to gay people, doesn’t mean they don’t have the right to disregard you as a friend on the basis of your disagreeing with their existence as righteous, because even if that’s not your intention, that is the way it is received.
@AB-qt6uw I appreciate the comment. I admit that it is pretty sad that we disagree about something that may be extremely important to LGBTQ+ individuals... but it's a person's right to disagree as long as we're respectful about it. We try our best to be nice about it, but we also want to make sure we don't compromise our beliefs by condoning same sex behavior. It's hard, but we try.
And btw, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints does differentiate between same sex attraction and same sex behavior. Simply feeling gay/lesbian/bisexual feelings is totally acceptable in the Church, as long as you obey the Law of Chastity, which is a Commandment from God.
I think it's significant to step back and remember that straight people can commit sexual sin as well. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints defines sexual sin as any sexual activity outside of a married relationship between a man and a woman. So, if you are straight and engage in sexual activity before marriage, that's a sin. If you're LGBTQ+ and engage in sexual activity before marriage, that's a sin.
It's really not discriminatory in any way since the Church condemns BOTH LGBTQ+ individuals AS WELL AS straight individuals when they break the Law of Chastity.
The only real issue is that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints does not allow same sex marriage. 😰 This is a massive problem for LGBTQ+ people who want to practice the religion. I wish it wasn't as difficult for them to follow the Law of Chastity as it is right now. 😟
I mean, CA is only just now getting around to removing Prop 8 from the CA constitution. The LDS was pretty influential in putting that on the ballot to begin with. So it’s not simple disagreement. It has actually affected peoples’ lives who are not LDS.
Mormons don’t swing.
Joseph and his polyandrist wives. 🤨
Lolllllll yes, old Joe Smith, the original swinger. 😂😂😂
It would be interesting to see a break down of secret lives of mormon wives similar to Cinema Therapy.
What are your thoughts on the portrayal of the men in the show?
Can you comment more on the differences between LDS culture in UT verses other states? It definitely feels different in "the bubble", lol.