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The card thread has got me thinking back to my strange childhood. My mother's interpretation of various instructions and 'principles' had us branded as the Odd kids at school. Did anyone else have to cope with these:

No "fashionable" (her term) clothes, including denim jeans. No wearing black.

No bikinis. (including underwear)

No shaving legs. (I actually started a knee-high sock trend at CCNZ)

No plucking of eyebrows.

Blood was 'sacred' or something like it. Meat must be well cooked. Dad was not allowed to eat black sausage.

Reading material was strictly monitored. The librarian was advised that I could not read books about witches or the occult. I was removed from English class when we studied the book and movie Kes.

Musical talent was about the only field suitable for girls to excel in. I had to take piano lessons for NINE years, even though I am truly tone deaf and totally useless. When I failed Grade 3 again, the piano teacher managed to finally convince Mum she was wasting her money.

Jewellery and trinkets could not depict a cross or five pointed star.

Dungeons and dragons (the fantasy role-playing game) was actually occult training. Mum believed that advanced players actually gained occult powers.

The devil really did rule the water. We were told the story of how a monster of some sort had once grabbed Mum's foot and tried to drag her down. It had her whole foot in its mouth and left teeth marks around her ankle. Another story involved a missionary who dived into the water after a baptism and emerged covered in claw marks. I would go into total panic in the school pool if was was the only person in the pool for any reason.

Malicious evil spirits did exist and could get you. They were constantly trying to invade physical bodies, so you had to be really careful not to do anything to let them get in.

Hypnotism was actually possession by an evil spirit. Getting drunk or stoned also involved the risk of possession, so did reading 'bad' books and listening to bad music. So we were scared of anyone who drank alcohol. Actually we were scared of lots of things.

Mum was a psychiatric nurse (nursing and teaching were the only really suitable occupations for women). Many of the patients she worked with had actually gone mad through being taken over by an evil spirit. One patient had attended a seance for example.

Popular music was deliberately written to cause people to do evil things, and to allow for evil spirits to take over the listener.

Faith healing and other miraculous things done by non-mormons were actually the work of the devil who was tricking people into following the wrong faith.

Crickey, no wonder I am such a fruitcake today.

Wow, that's quite a list!!

I've never heard the one about blood being sacred and needing to cook it all the way.

Luckily, my parents weren't very staunch. And, living in Utah, the "weird" rules were actually normal.

Danna, I feel like we belonged to a different Church. Either that, or growing up in California just put me as a different breed of Mormon. LOL

I didn't have many of the rules on your list. However, we did have the strict no caffeine rule. Coke was as bad as Beer in my house. Somehow that was forgotten sometime in the late 80s and drinking Coke was as normal as drinking 7-Up. Also, the music thing was big in the early 80s. It seems like my parents were nazi-mormons in the late 70s early 80s, when I was really young, but the totally mellowed out in the late 80s. My sisters even started wearing bikinis.

Due to the teachings in my husband's family:

no one ever wore shorts in our family, not even knee length shorts. He was very very unhappy when I made hawaiian print shorts and shirts for my boys one summer when they were in middle school. That was the beginning of the end of the ban on shorts; all of the kids were wearing them before the end of the summer. Prior to then, they all had to wear long pants. Shirts had to have sleeves.

no one ever went swimming or was around water at all on Sundays. Changing water, however, was considered an mired ox, so that was okay.

Sunday was observed quite strictly, except during football season. Laundry and other house-cleaning type of activities could not be done, however cooking and washing dishes was okay. Gardening was prohibited on Sunday. Shopping was strictly prohibited. No one went out to lunch on Sunday, not even if you were in town for stake conference.

we all listened to conference on the radio or watched it on tv (if we were lucky). Napping was not allowed.

garments were to never touch the floor and had to be laundered by themselves.

the only parties the kids were allowed to attend were parties at the church. Community events could only be attended during the day; we were not allowed to attend any event at night (unless it was a sport).

I already mentioned no games that involved face cards, not even solitaire.

It's amazing that my kids all turned out relatively normal.

How things have changed. I've got a 6 pack of beer in my pantry (for beer bread), a bottle of sherry in the fridge (for cooking), and the soda of choice is Diet Pepsi.

LOL, I had forgotten the no shorts rule!

The Church College of NZ uniform was long pants for the boys in winter and summer. Every other school in the country, that I know of, has shorts - a must in the summer. In spite of the uniform code, most people wore casual shorts out of uniform anyway. CCNZ also had a no denim rule that included dresses and shirts as well as jeans.


The grooming rules where extrapolated from the no dating till 16 rule, which I believe was a Mormon guideline. So we could not do anything that might remotely lead to 'dating'. Other parents were not quite so crazy in that area. A bit like the early Rabbis interpreting the law, our mother took a church directive then considered what else was implied.

harmony wrote:Changing water, however, was considered an mired ox, so that was okay.

Do you mean flowing water?

For us rivers and the ocean were even worse than pools!

Danna wrote:

harmony wrote:Changing water, however, was considered an mired ox, so that was okay.

Do you mean flowing water?

For us rivers and the ocean were even worse than pools!

No, I meant changing water, as in hand line. Irrigation.

Hi ,
I'm new here and I'm not Mormon , I have become well ummm friends with a couple of Mormon women that I find very interesting as well as purdy cool , I respect both alot . One of them made a reference to this forum and I have been reading (randomly) all through it for a couple days . This post (topic) really struck a cord with me . I was raised a Jehovah witness (not a JW now) I know its not the same but I find the way your life was regulated in your youth was very much the same for me . I'm just not sure why you posted this (maybe it was ment for me to find) ? No matter .. I just wanted to say I felt so much like the outcast in school as we did not celebrate birth days or pretty much any holidays for that matter . I still feel as though alot of my youth was robbed from me and the lack of concern for a formal education made my life far more difficult . This was my first post here as I have been fearful to say anything here . I don't want to offend anyone and I think I'm way way more liberal than most here .. I love to talk to people and learn about things (new to me) and share thoughts . So maybe this will be an adventure and a learning experience for me .

Topher wrote:Hi ,
I'm new here and I'm not Mormon , I have become well ummm friends with a couple of Mormon women that I find very interesting as well as purdy cool , I respect both alot . One of them made a reference to this forum and I have been reading (randomly) all through it for a couple days . This post (topic) really struck a cord with me . I was raised a Jehovah witness (not a JW now) I know its not the same but I find the way your life was regulated in your youth was very much the same for me . I'm just not sure why you posted this (maybe it was ment for me to find) ? No matter .. I just wanted to say I felt so much like the outcast in school as we did not celebrate birth days or pretty much any holidays for that matter . I still feel as though alot of my youth was robbed from me and the lack of concern for a formal education made my life far more difficult . This was my first post here as I have been fearful to say anything here . I don't want to offend anyone and I think I'm way way more liberal than most here .. I love to talk to people and learn about things (new to me) and share thoughts . So maybe this will be an adventure and a learning experience for me .

Welcome, Topher. I'm pretty sure we don't have any JW's here, so your perspective, having been raised one even if you aren't still one, will be interesting.