Crazy Mormon child-raising techniques.

[_collegeterrace]

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.

How very RfM of you to post this whiny Mormon drivel here.

[_KimberlyAnn]

I had to wear shorts to my knees, even as a little child, and I never owned anything sleeveless until I left the Mormon church.

My sisters and I weren't allowed to drink caffeinated sodas, play face cards, play outside on Sundays, or watch any PG-13 movies, even after we were thirteen.

I had a weird Bishop who insisted all the young women wear slips, and he was dead set on the YW leaders enforcing his edict.

I wasn't allowed to date until I was sixteen, and even then I was supposed to "group date" until I was seventeen. But Mom was clueless. I lived in a small country town with one other Mormon--the Stake President's son. He had a driver's license and when I turned fourteen and could attend Stake dances, Mom was glad to have him drive me back and forth. Little did she know he was one of the biggest jerks in school. Every time he took me anywhere, he'd pull over on some side road and expect to make out. At least he never asked for gas money. I never told mom. I wanted to attend the dances and she sure as heck wouldn't have driven me that far!

Oh, and I learned nothing about sex from my mother. She never taught me a thing, other than that a sperm plus an egg equaled a baby. I'd no idea how the sperm got to the egg until I was sixteen years old. I swear I thought they crawled across the sheets!

KA

[_collegeterrace]

I had to wear shorts to my knees, even as a little child, and I never owned anything sleeveless until I left the Mormon church.

The sad reality is that harmony is still under this same policy, enforced by her TBM God-in-training priesthood wielding head-of-her-household husband as she is still forced to wear the magic masonic undies --and considering her age, they probably are the old school one piece type with the toilet chute.

Perhaps we could call her the Garment Gramma?

[_KimberlyAnn]

CT, Harmony obviously loves her husband.

She doesn't seem like a push-over to me, and I bet if she were dead set against wearing garments, she wouldn't do it.

You're lucky your wife is on the same page as you, CT. Count your blessings. (Name them one by one...)

KA

[_Topher]

Magic masonic undies ??? Ummmm ... Forgive me Hope this isn't rude but this sounds a bit like sumfen out of Harry Potter ..

[_Sethbag]

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

We didn't have that rule, though the fashion of our clothes was limited for probably more practical reasons, such as money.

No bikinis. (including underwear)

Yeah, my parents were pretty against the bikini, but it's not like it was talked about much, just a few comments about how immodest they were. I do recall when we had a German student live with us for a month (and my brother lived with him in Germany for a month), and we were all scandalized when we took him to the beach and he comes out with a Speedo on. Nobody said anything, but I could tell that not only I myself, but everyone else in my family was silently very embarassed to even be around him with that thing on.

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

I don't know how formal this was in my house, but the whole leg shaving and eyebrow plucking thing probably was seen as somewhat suspect. To this day my mom and both sisters pretty much never wear any makeup at all.

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

We never ate anything made specifically from blood in my home growing up, but I don't think any of my non-Mormon friends ever did either. Until my mission, this was more a theoretical belief/practice than it was a real one. I don't recall us ever having any religious problem with the way our meat was cooked, even though there was blood in the meat. I remember the topic of blood foods coming up again in conversations on my mission, because in Europe blood foods are far more common than in the US, and that all of my American companions who talked about it were pretty much in agreement that there was something awfully suspect about the blood sausage, etc.

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.

Kes? That's funny, I read your wikipedia link on it, and it's hard to imagine how that could have offended even a Nazi Mormon, unless one of the characters said "bugger" or "bloody hell!". Movies with obvious and multiple swearwords in them were very embarassing to watch with any other Mormons, or with family members. Even to this day, I feel a slight twinge if I'm watching a movie with any family, and a swearword comes up, even though I myself couldn't get a f***.n ;-)

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

Well, the pentagram might have been frowned on, I don't know, but the generic (not downward-pointing) five-pointed star wouldn't have been a problem. The cross was definitely looked at as suspect. Since the Catholic Church was obviously Satan's church, and the Catholics used the cross, there just had to be something wrong with it. I've posted before about believing, when I was on my mission, that crosses somehow opened one up to the influence of the devil, and related a story about how my companion and I asked for, took, and then ripped up and threw away, a cross that was hanging on one of our investigator's walls. We were convinced it was making him susceptible to the devil, who was working hard to prevent this guy learning the truth. ROFL.

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

Thank heavens my parents didn't really get into this. We were allowed to, and did, play Dungeons and Dragons, read fantasy novels, etc.

The devil really did rule the water. ... Another story involved a missionary who dived into the water after a baptism and emerged covered in claw marks.

Not a problem with my family, but on my mission of course there was the whole missionary "devil rules the waters" fear, and the idea that Satan was working so hard to thwart the missionaries that if we went into the water, he would use it to drown us. There were various Mormon legends passed around about missionaries who had gone swimming and drowned by Satan, etc.

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.

I was familiar with the topic from the Mormons in my ward, teachers, and whatnot, and my parents did have a cassette tape of a Mormon speaker talking about how alcohol and drugs open one up to possession by evil spirits. It was by a guy named Dean something, I can't recall.

Oh yeah, and Oija boards were certainly evil, and could open one up to possession by devils as well.

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

Yeah, I recall this phase. AC/DC was Anti-Christ/Devil's Children, KISS was Knights in Satan's Service, etc. There were firesides talking about the evils that Satan was working through popular music and whatnot. In fairness, this wasn't just a Mormon thing - remember the lawsuits against bands by the parents of someone who committed suicide, and the parents said some song from that band made them do it?

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.

Absolutely. Only the LDS priesthood holders could work miracles through the power of God, so whatever miracles were wrought by non-LDS, were automatically suspected of somehow being done by Satan, as a way of distracting people away from seeing the Truth in the Mormon church.

A corollary of that was that there were so many different churches because Satan tailored them to all different kinds of people, as a way of making sure everyone had some counterfeit they would fall for, keeping them away from the True Church.

Crickey, no wonder I am such a fruitcake today.

Well, you seem to have broken the spell, and realize such superstitious nonsense for what it is. Good on ya, and you see to be perfectly reasonable, at least through the lens of your posts on this board.

[_Sethbag]

Magic masonic undies ??? Ummmm ... Forgive me Hope this isn't rude but this sounds a bit like sumfen out of Harry Potter ..

You don't say. ;-)

Have you heard of temple garments? They are special, knee-length bottoms and full t-shirt like tops worn as underwear by LDS who have been "endowed" in an LDS temple, and that have four symbols sewn into them. They just happen to be symbols taken from Freemasonry, as quite a few other aspects of the temple ceremony are too. No big mystery there, either, as so many of the founding leaders of the LDS church were also Freemasons, including Joseph Smith.

The garments are viewed as ultra-sacred by most active LDS, and the are said to have power to protect, the beliefs about which range from "they protect us by reminding us of the covenants we made with God, so when I'm tempted to sin, I remember my covenants, and don't", all the way to "yeah, I was on this boat one time and it exploded and burning gasoline was everywhere, and the garments protected me and I survived certain death without a scratch". Just depends whom you ask, and how superstitious they are. Some Mormons certainly do believe that the temple underwear literally is imbued with the power of God, hence the pejorative anti-Mormon "magical Mormon underwear", or CT's "magic masonic undies".

[_quaker]

Magic masonic undies ??? Ummmm ... Forgive me Hope this isn't rude but this sounds a bit like sumfen out of Harry Potter ..

Not rude at all. But I think that, because you haven't been LDS, it might take you a while to become familiar with the manner that various posters deal with LDS topics. Most posters here are former LDS, atheists, and find religious practices funny. They are prone to joke about religious themes and sensationalize them to some extent. Some posters just outright mock religion (specifically the LDS on this board). In most cases the comments are good natured though not helpful to someone who wants to understand Mormonism as a Mormon would. You might begin to understand Mormonism from an atheistic point of view, however :)

You just have to be careful to put things in context. You'll eventually figure out whose comments you should value and whose you should enjoy for the entertainment value.

[_Danna]

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 .

Hi Topher, welcome!
My brother married an ex-JW. What a wedding, the Mormons couldn't drink alcohol, and the JWs could drink but couldn't make toasts. My SILs parents have sold their house and bought a lifestyle plot out of town, so that they can be self-sufficient when the second coming happens. My parents pretty much did the same thing, but eventually moved back into town when keeping up the gardens and animals got too much for them, and Y2K came and went with no sign of Christ. Joint family functions are generally hilarious and avoided by all concerned.

[_Danna]

Kes? That's funny, I read your wikipedia link on it, and it's hard to imagine how that could have offended even a Nazi Mormon, unless one of the characters said "bugger" or "bloody hell!". Movies with obvious and multiple swearwords in them were very embarassing to watch with any other Mormons, or with family members. Even to this day, I feel a slight twinge if I'm watching a movie with any family, and a swearword comes up, even though I myself couldn't get a f***.n ;-)

LOL, Kes was 'realistic' and thus full of profanity. We had to read out parts of it in class, and I just couldn't do it, I was so embarrassed. Most of the other kids enjoyed swearing without getting told off for it. I was about 13, so I think we were considered mature enough to handle the language.

My mother hit the roof when she saw the book. This was quite funny in retrospect. When our father was not around, she swore like a sailor - one hold over from pre-convert days. She eventually managed to stop, but it took her about 15 years to clean up her language.

I suspect her protest had more to do with being seen to object, rather than actually thinking there was some terrible sin in swearing.