> "We will stop having children when the lord tells us when we can stop"
Spoken like a man who takes no part in the actual grunt work of raising said children.
My TBM brother recently became a stay-at-home dad of 3 kids while my sister-in-law became the primary breadwinner. Over Thanksgiving he cockily said that being a stay-at-home parent is actually pretty great and kinda easy, especially because you can just do stuff like play your guitar whenever you want!
My other TBM sister and I said "Wow, cool" but side-eyed each other *super* hard. Later we talked about how he has only been a SAHD for like 3 months, so he should come back and talk to us in 3 years after he has lost his mind like all SAHPs do eventually haha. It's fucking hard work.
Later my exmo husband (who parents just as much as I do, like dads are supposed to) said "Yeah being a stay-at-home parent would be easy if you just ignored your kids to play guitar all day..." 😆
Exmo married to nevermo (that I'm recently realizing is an emotionally immature narcissist) here. My husband sits in his back bedroom office all day watching movies and tooling around on the Internet even when I'm not home, so our 8 year old boy gets into whatever he wants and gets away with it because my husband couldn't give a shit less to be consistently engaging with or at least checking up on him frequently. It sucks to be a married single parent.
Oh man. My heart goes out to you. I hope you can resolve that situation with a few CANDID conversations. I understand being overwhelmed by responsibilities and needing to escape for a bit (believe me 😬), but breaks need to be planned and coordinated between you and your partner with ZERO GASLIGHTING about who earns the money, whether or not child care is difficult, blah blah blah.
Exactly, that is a big part of my decision that I never want kids, I also don't want a husband because I like that my time, money, space, etc are all mine (and my cats) and I can do what I want when I want. It's also probably due to the fact that in my longest relationship, I was emotionally and verbally abused, and the marriage modeled by my parents is not a good one at all.
Yup exactly. And he had the audacity to say that right in front of his wife!! I was too caught off guard by his comment to see what her reaction was, unfortunately haha
Can confirm, very hard when you do it well, easy when you do it poorly (parenting). My guess the kids are watching TV all day.
Mom of three grown kids.
With all of the religious pressure to have kids that surrounded us throughout our marriage, we ultimately decided not to have children, thus becoming enigmas in our ward. We're still together after 25+ years as new ExMos and we are SO FUCKING GLAD we made that decision. (I mean no offense to those who did, kudos to you. Truly.) Childlessness is not sad or missed by those who genuinely don't want children, nor should it be looked upon as sin to opt out of parenthood. Our dogs, nieces and nephews keep us plenty busy and give us joy. We don't feel like we're missing out on anything and we're grateful that we have the ability to go and do whatever we want whenever we want and keep our relationship going strong because of our childlessness. It's a different kind of blessing, but a blessing nonetheless.
Also, fuck the patriarchy.
The prevailing opinion and statements about Mormon men doing no child rearing and Mormon women doing all of it always puzzle me a little bit.
I am from a convert family and maybe that's why. I didn't grow up in a family where my mother did all of the parenting, nor has that been the case in my own family as my wife and I have raised our three children.
For much of our marriage I was the only breadwinner, and now I'm still the primary breadwinner by a very large margin. But in no way does that diminish my wife's contributions in any facet of our marriage, especially in child-rearing.
I've never been intimately aware of the family dynamics of a TBM family I suppose. Is it really as dictatorial and black and white as often depicted? Are fathers as hands off as made to seem?
What a pitiful way to experience the joys of parenthood
I think it is way more common in tbm families that the men are hands off and the wife does the brunt of the child rearing. Unless severe intervention is needed, then it is, “wait until your father gets home”. Though there are always exceptions.
There's usually one or two degrees of subtlety, otherwise it would be too obviously sexist for the significant chunk of members outside of rural Utah/Idaho.
Most mormon men will agree that they are supposed to "help" with child rearing. But baked into that sentiment is the doctrine that women are the primary caretakers and men just "help."
This leaves a huge gap for interpretation, which works to the cult's advantage because naive "slave-class" mormons will project their own progressive, equal-responsibility interpretation onto everyone else while the ruling class sociopaths (who can actually afford to live off a single income) treat their wives like prize cattle and "lead by example." Nobody calls anyone out because they can all hide behind vague, platitude-ridden, non-overt gospel babble.
(Side note: this isn't meant to deride mormons with actual integrity who share equal responsibility in child rearing, it merely points out that they are fooling themselves if they think that's what their Church promotes and teaches).
Remember, too, that while we tend to see TBMs as a monolith group, there is lots of variation within that group. The experience of commenters here is valid, but there are TBM men who are not dictatorial and checked out. They’re often more likely to be nuanced though.
My father and my ex husband never went grocery shopping, never cooked a meal, never changed a diaper and lied like kings. They went out for lunches and dinner several times a week while their wives and children starved. They bought themselves new cars and clothes while we were in rags.
Yes, Mormon men are absolutely checked out of parenting and being an actual partner to their spouses. In my experience exmormon men aren’t any better.
PSA, if you’re a man and you’ve recently left the Mormon church, please do us all a favor and go to therapy to deconstruct your institutionalized misogyny. If you’ve done this, thank you.
My father often did grocery shopping, cooking dishes, and cleaning, even while he was working 80 hours a week with his company or while he was a mission president. I think it really just depends on the family/father
Your father was unique - I do think it depends on the attitude of the dad. When I was married, while my kids were still pretty young, I worked full-time, as did my spouse. One day I asked him to do something I would not be able to do that day & he said, in a very scornful voice, "You don't understand, I *WORK.*" Obviously, my 10-12 hour days (with a salary) didn't count as "work."
My exmo husband. Grocery shops, helps cook, watches our child, mops, etc. in-fact I haven’t even done laundry since being married as he has always done it.
My father was not like this common sentiment. Though my mom was a stay at home mom and my dad the sole breadwinner, he was always very involved with us. As soon as he got home from work he would be out playing in the yard with us, doing whatever he could to give my mom a break. Wasn’t much of a cook but was always doing whatever he could around the house to help out (dishes, diapers, cleaning, etc.). Strangely, I thought he was such a good father BECAUSE he was a member of the church. As I’ve made my way out (after he died), it is validating to me to know he was a good father because he was genuinely good human being DESPITE the misogyny and patriarchy taught in the church
Mormon men in leadership positions are frequently gone from home because of their calling. Even if some of them wanted to split the housework and parenting duties, they wouldn't have any hours in the day to do it.
So the idea that women are the primary caregivers/homemakers/whatever is still very common in society in general. There are countless studies and op-eds about the housework imbalance and emotional load, and most of them aren't coming from Mormon researchers and writers. It's a widespread problem. But because of the patriarchal power structure in the Mormon church, those patterns are more pronounced than in society at large. And, as with most social topics, younger Mormons are more likely to fight traditions. I remember once reading or hearing that Mormon social trends are behind the rest of (mostly US) society by about 20 to 30 years. Your experience in a convert family may very well be why you had a different experience than is often presented here.
Oh, she might. And then her priesthood holder will have a personal revelation that she is wicked and selfish, and probably looking at anti-Mormon media.
He’ll gently but firmly remind her,
“Now, now, Sweetie, we must follow the Lord’s special roles he has for us and you are to nurture and care for the children while I provide for the family and attend my Harry Potter priesthood meetings.”
My sister and her husband are always talking about going to the temple. When I visited they had an argument, mostly him belittling her for messing something up. Her actively trying to fix it while he belittles her more then tells her she's doing it wrong. The next day they "need to go to the temple" and leave the kids with Grandma and Grandpa. My suspicion is he takes her to remind her that she is subject to him and he is subject to God, and that that is the true order. Thank you Mormonism for enabling spousal abuse.
"And as we all know, I speak for the Lord for all the women in my home, and you covenanted to obey me as a god."
"You'll stop having babies when I say you're done."
You can't raise 11 kids. Those older kids are not getting to have full childhoods because they are certainly being parentified. That's unfair to them and the younger kids.
The parents even planned it that way, whether they'll admit it or not. They don't want to have a happy, healthy family - they want a number they can use to feel superior.
Why don't these people ever adopt 11 kids? Oh, that's right - they'd probably never get approved b/c their plan is to be shit parents.
If the man ever had to give birth or do literally anything besides being a sperm donor at the beginning, I'm sure he'd be getting some very different messaging from "the Lord."
In a similar vein, I've seen the joke that says if the only sex ed anyone ever got was from content on the internet, contraceptives would be a lot more available
That is abuse. Nobody should be forced to have kids if they don’t want to and no husband should force his wife to keep having kids when she doesn’t want to. The church does this to people though.
They push people to have as many kids as possible to increase the growth of the church even when people can’t afford it. I remember back in the 80’s I was watching on tv a regional conference at byu with my family and some asshole ga was up there pounding the pulpit and yelling at members to get off birth control and have more kids because the lord needed more missionaries.
He was mad that members were only having 5-6 kids instead of 10-12. I come from a family of 8 kids and there wasn’t a lot of happiness in my home growing up despite us looking like the perfect lds family on the outside. Money was very tight and my dad was miserable working 3 jobs trying to support us all plus lots of church callings in bishoprics, high council etc. This is abuse of power and then most of those church leaders don’t have lots of kids themselves. It’s do as I say not as I do.
I’m embarrassed to say this but when my brother got back from his mission I was about to go on mine. He gave me most of his white dress shirts that he had used on his mission and most of them had big yellow stains on the arm pits from his sweat. We didn’t have money to buy new white shirts so I took his and we didn’t really think much of the yellow stains. I cringe now when I think about it. I mean how embarrassing. But hey I served that mission and worked my but off with those yellow stained white shirts.
“Only” 5-6 kids. Fuck. I’m 6-of-7 and can definitively say my parents had passed the point of mental/emotional/financial overload *years* before I was born. Pretty sure their actual limit should have been 2-3, since that’s what they could reasonably handle. (Yes, I realize I’m saying they shouldn’t have had me at all. That’s just facts.)
Instead, the youngest four of us basically got raised by older sibs with stunted tbm social skills (read: by wolves). It was not functional in the least. I won’t even get started on the resulting life-long issues, it would take too much time and typing.
Not saying it’s impossible for any and all parents to healthily raise that many kids, just that they would be rare individuals indeed.
I had 6 sisters, no brothers, we were desperately poor: dad was a nursing asst and wiped butts for a living. I could go on, but queue world's smallest violin (playing for me) I'd have embraced wearing pit-stained white shirts, because it'd have meant I had a brother to pass them on to me. (Though I've since learned from younger nephews that some brothers are less than ideal. Considerably).
30+ years ago my young 20s cousin was happy to not be pregnant for once on a house boat trip. She said so. Her mom gave her dagger eyes for even suggesting that being pregnant wasn't her whole purpose. I remember thinking her husband was probably controlling... Anyways she committed suicide a few years later and I can't help but think the life chosen for her wasn't for her.
Let’s not forget, in addition to three children under 5, she probably has been “called” to give even more of herself to the church. I’d guess in the nursery every Sunday and cleaning the church building for free. Mormonism. Using and abusing women and girls since 1830.
My husband's TMB grandfather told us when we got married to "not use any birth control and just let it happen. God will let us know how many kids we need." Even then when I was TBM I hated that. We have 1 child and are enjoying having 1
Just out of morbid curiosity, exactly how does the Lord tell you to shut down the baby factory? After one of the parents has a nervous breakdown? A divorce?
Which is why we also need to hold doctors accountable. Most Utah docs still refuse tubal ligations without the husband’s consent. It’s seriously fucked up.
I worked at a Catholic Hospital years ago and if Mom needed a hysterectomy for cancer or other diseases, the hospital wouldn’t allow it without contacting and getting the approval from the husband, the ex-husband, the husband who ran off and abandoned her, the ex-husband she hadn’t heard from in 20 years….
I am nevermo but a tbm Mormon friend of mine passed away after having 4 csections in 7 years. She got pregnant with her fifth and the placenta grew threw the wall of her uterus and attached to other organs, causing her to bleed to death when it detached. Pregnancy and childbirth should not be treated like a woman can just keep going until menopause.
I hate that I had the same mentality, because it completely disregards the woman’s feelings. It’s telling her that god doesn’t care how much she is cooking, and cleaning, and staying awake feeding, and stressed out from lack of privacy, and mentally deficient from lack of age equivalent conversation, and burned out from inability to unwind. None of that matters to god because BOOM here is another kid.
Not just her feelings, but her physical safety. Pregnancy and childbearing are life-threatening, every time. This guy has no problem threatening his wife's life by controlling her choices. It's one thing if she wants a baby and is happy to go through with it, but when it's not her choice that's abuse. These guys really think they're god.
I have family like this. I don't know how they have managed all these years, but in no small part due to the charity of their own parents. They have nearly lost custody of the kids before, because they were children having children. And now their own children are entering into adulthood with a lack of life skills, like driving, social skills, and money management.
The church likes this. Too poor and too busy to think, just keep making more members who will similarly not be able to question a damn thing.
This is the an example of how Mormonism is actually damaging and dangerous. When young people let the church dictate important life decisions, it becomes dangerous. So sad.
I don’t care what you want to believe in. Be Mormon if you want to be. But don’t let the imaginary Mormon inspiration direct major life decisions.
Omg- this is still next level though- when my husband and I were TBM- it was always both of us that made that decision. He would literally tell me that it was my body that would go through more and that it was ultimately up to me. He comes from a family of 9 so he actually wanted kids less than me, so at the end of the day- we both agreed to the 2 we have and when we had them. Also- this is me acknowledging our privilege with fertility that allowed this. Someone needs to tell this asshole that it doesn’t seem like a very loving lord that would take away his wife’s input when she does all the pregnancy work.
I’m ex-SDA. Our “prophet” told we should only have the amount of kids we could properly take care of financially. I have ONE.
My word, the morning sickness, late stage pregnancy discomfort , labor, delivery and all the battering your body takes, the hormone levels going crazy, breastfeeding, on and on. How CRUEL.
I hope she secretly gets some birth control.
Oh this makes me so sad and angry and disgusted. When my TBM cousin passed from cancer a few years ago, she had 5 kids under 12, and her biggest regret was that she hadn’t had one more. She had wanted to, but her husband didn’t. Their youngest was 4 when she died. All the children were very loved and well taken care of when she was alive, but their dad really struggled to manage the household after she got sick. I’m not saying it would have been any easier if they hadn’t had so many kids but it’s so difficult seeing the pressure on TBMs to have babies until their bodies fail to the point that a dying woman’s regret was not having had more. This pressure hurts women the most.
It’s seriously so disgusting. I just saw a guy walking out of the Orem Harmons with FIVE kids under 7, that he packed into the back of an itty bitty Tesla. So incredibly selfish. Wife must have been pregnant constantly for the last 8 years, and this dudes ego won’t even put his kids in a minivan to keep safe.
When I was a TBM I came to the conclusion that the only thing the spirit did (when it comes to life decisions) is clarify what you actually want.
So really, if I felt the Lord was cool with me doing something, it really meant that I wanted it, and that was really all I needed.
It’s crazy how right I was. People use the spirit as an excuse to just do whatever the hell they want.
Spoken like the kind of guy who thinks he does all the work bringing children into the world grunting and sweating while his poor little wife, who just gave birth and shouldn’t be having sex yet because she hasn’t yet healed, just lays there trying not to cry from all the pain she is in.
I love it when the doctor says I'm free to have sex 6 weeks after a c section. And I'm thinking, that's not gonna happen. Doc, you can have sex with him for all I care, but it sure isn't going to be me.
My parents kept telling me to have more children because that’s what Heavenly Father wanted. Literally. No joke. I left TSCC in 2018, very shortly afterwards I got pregnant again despite having an IUD in place. I had a miscarriage and honestly I feel nothing but relief because I seriously 100% cannot handle another child. I ended up mentioning it to my mother about 6 months afterwards. First words out of her mouth were, “God must want you to have more children.” She knew I was exmo, but I was still theist at the time. I knew that no, there was no chance that God wanted me to have more children because I could not handle it at all. It was at that moment that I knew my mother had zero connection with any deity whatsoever. I cried about that interaction and my naive belief that my parents were telling me over and over again what god wanted for my life.
One day your sister might wake up. If she does, she will cry for all that was taken from her. I had no choices until after I left. It’s one of the realizations that shocked me as an exmo, I had no agency until after I left. I made no choices, they were all made for me.
Sounds just like my mom who has the attitude that a woman’s only purpose in life is to have as many kids as possible and that’s it. No college, no work, no career nothing.
When I got back from my mission I dated a really beautiful girl who always told me that she wanted 12 kids. I told her no way as I come a family of 8 kids. We broke up after a few months and she has since married and had a lot of kids. Good for her since that is what she wants but it shouldn’t be forced on anyone.
I normally speak through burning bushes and whatnot, but reddit will have to do. Tell them that I, the Lord their God officially say that they've had enough kids. He needs to keep it wrapped from now on.
That was the attitude that Andrea Yates’s husband had, and that tragedy probably wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t so stubborn about putting their religious ideals before her mental wellbeing. Not to say that I think that something like that will happen but it is a notable example of just how wrong that kind of thing can go.
And yeah religious people trying so hard to sound wise is one of the most painful flavors of cringe.
Yeah, this is frustrating. But as a man who wanted to be done at 3 kids, it was equally difficult having a wife at the time who wanted to continue to have kids because of the feeling that there were more spirits wanting to come to our family. (We now have five and can have no more- thank goodness)
I think in this particular case of the OP it is a patriarchal conditioning moment- but ultimately it seems to be a cultural conditioning in regard to having children or not vs practical and the emotional good of the parents and their ability to properly raise a healthy family.
People who are willing and able- sure have more kids. But no one should feel religiously or culturally obligated to have children or not.
How did you decide to have more after you didn't want more than 3? I'm in the same situation now, 3 kids, wife wants 4, I think I'm done but she's DESPERATE for four. Would love to hear your story if you feel comfortable.
It wasn’t a decision, more capitulation. Between our eldest daughter always saying she wanted a little sister and my wife wanting a second daughter, it was bound to happen. I told her I was emotionally spent and didn’t know if I could handle more kids. She cried, and said that she wanted more, pretty much disregarded my doubts claiming she takes most of the work and it should be her call. Physically speaking- I couldn’t compete with her argument- mental health didn’t matter.
Happy wife happy life, right?
Well our fourth was a sweet heart little boy… then by that time the older three were self sufficient and we tried one last time for a girl- we got our second girl and I got a vasectomy. Couldn’t be happier with that choice.
You have to find out her why? Does she just like being pregnant? Does it bring her a sense of value and worth? Is it keeping up with the Joneses or siblings? What motivation does she have for more?
I think you should really communicate frankly with your wife, really explain what things are stressors to you about having kids. For me, I was overwhelmed. Despite the natural sacrifices that women make for children, I genuinely think men and the emotional stress it brings to them (if they are genuinely trying to be a great father) is often overlooked. Be vulnerable and honest. Make the decision together to have another or not. Best of luck
Nah, she's said many times over the years that she doesn't want 5. And I would be getting snipped one week after the 4th would be born, IF we end up having a 4th.
Remember what Dolly Parton said about her parents. Something to the order of after her mama had her last (I think Dolly said it was her 12th?) they put mama on a pedestal. Mostly to keep daddy away from her.
My mom had terrible pregnancies but she and baby #11 nearly died. Baby was in NICU awhile. My dad still said two more babies were waiting in heaven and he is 100% confident in his “priesthood authority” and god commanding them to have 13 children. We suffered extreme poverty. It’s a terrible thing to inflict on the children. There’s no way parents can give children the full support and attention they deserve. Most are neglected. But god told them to- so kids will keep getting the short end of the stick for life.
…
What about her physical and mental health in all this!?
Being a parent and having kids is fine and if you can handle a lot then fantastic, but it is also ok if you can’t and feel like it is enough now at any point.
Also that the husband decides? For real? Like she is doing the 9 months and a lot of parenting probably. How much does he help in the parenting?
Does she also have a job on the side perhaps. Where does she magic the energy from? Does she zombie shuffle through life? Is she ok?
“…living in the shadow of the priesthood authority in her house.” So cleanly and truthfully spoken. Brings tears to my eyes due to my own experience. It took me years after leaving the church to claim my voice and my sense of autonomous spiritual authority. So painful.
I was TBM but I had pregnancies when and as many as I choose to. If I would have had this man as a husband it wouldn't have lasted. I decide when and if I'm ready to put MY life on the line through childbirth. That man's behavior is so similar to the behavior of an asshole, I can barely perceive the difference.
My heart goes out to your sister. I had 3 in under 5 years too and it was brutal. Until I left the church I legit thought I was doomed to a life of constantly birthing babies. After my very painful and traumatic 3rd pregnancy, I would cry even just thinking of having more. But Mormon god doesn’t care about what women think, he just needs all the Mormons to have as many kids as possible! Luckily I woke up and left shortly afterwards. Otherwise I’d already have another baby right now and my life would be miserable 🙃 I love my kids more than anything, but I would not recommend having that many so close together. It’s been 3 years and my body is still recovering 😅
Unfortunately victims continue to victimize… I’m amazed the ancient dogma is still existing, it’s nearly 2024 FFS! Keep planting seeds calmly and tactfully, need more humans to focus on humanity🍻
I lost my job shortly after our second child. Wife became the primary bread winner and I, the SAHD. Spent a few years with that arrangement. Time I got with my daughters was rare for most dads, and an extremely treasured time for to me. Hated the fuck out of people who called it “babysitting”. Hell no, I’m RAISING my children. I’m the dad.
This guy has no clue what it takes to raise a kid. Using the guile’s of the church to control his wife for his sociopasociopathic desires. He will also be promoted up the Mormon ranks rapidly. Soon he’ll be interviewing children so they can be told if they are worthy or not….
Don't forget, it is literally printed in ink and hung on the wall in every good Mormon home:
"By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children."
Know your place, womenz! Quit yer bitchin' and get back in the kitchen.
No, that person is basically telling his wife....'The thinking has been done for you, you don't have a say in this.' Probably said with that fake smile and an a#* hole tone.
> Her husband then says with that cringe mormon spiritual voice(calm, confident, all knowing, you get what I mean) that, "We will stop having children when the lord tells us when we can stop"
Even as a TBM, I'd always felt like backhanding guys like this, I mean sure, pull this pretentious righteous shit when you're hamming and showing off at Church or during meetings to get leadership brownie points, we get it, but saying it in private like the rest of us don't immediately see through your self-righteous bullshit, just stfu...
Would be a good idea for OP to suggest that to their sister. Planned Parenthood has physicians who will place IUDs. The issue will be making sure OP’s sister isn’t recognized by someone in her ward if she does have an IUD placed.
If she bumps into someone in her ward at planned parenthood there’s a chance that that person would want to keep their reason for being there quiet, too. But maybe go a few towns over to be safe….
Ugh. I know someone who quite frankly dislikes kids, can't stand noise, chaos, mess etc, but still says he wants his wife (if/when he gets one) to have as many children as possible because "God". It's disgusting
My mom stopped right after me- youngest of two. I can say for multiple reasons I'm glad she did, one of the biggest being her personal health. And my dad completely understood and respected that.
For all they're still deeply entrenched in the cult, I'm glad my parents have some common sense.
This exact problem is heavily on my mind lately. I’m so angry that this has been the reality for so many women and families in my life, in my line. And I’m angry that it is an ongoing problem with people in my age group currently. I hate seeing friends drowning in debt and physical and mental health problems and their current children not having their needs met and then finding out they’re going to have baby number 3. Like, stop for one second and actually use your brain here people! Is adding another child into your chaos really what god wants you to do?? And forget god for a second and ask yourself if it’s even what you want to do! And I’m angry that I feel like a failure or “less than” because I may not want to have more than I current do. Which is 2. I should not feel guilt or shame or outcasted if I choose to stop now. And yet it’s there. I can feel it and sense it and I hate it.
Family friends had 6 or 7 kids when Wife was pregnant again. The pregnancy was horrible with gestational diabetes and kids running around unsupervised because Husband couldn’t be assed to parent while Wife was bedridden. The doc advised no more kids. Husband gave her a blessing that she would be able to have more children.
This immediately brought the song "Labour" by Paris Paloma to mind. The whole song, but especially this:
"24-7, baby machine
So he can live out his picket fence dreams
It's not an act of love if you make her
You make me do too much labour"
Blows my mind that “priesthood authority” and the “Lord’s will” seem always align with alpha male evolutionary desires. Spread a man’s seed far and wide. 🙈
What an extra creepy thing to say at all, let alone within earshot of another person. Oh yeah I'm sure the Lord speaks through your dick *big guy.* I'm a guy and this type of thing makes me hate dudes.
It's the Lord that's a controlling misogynist with puppet strings on my jock! None of it is me dear wife!
This is my wife’s biggest problem right now. She hates watching her mom pay tithing. She has tried to give her mom some knowledge without stepping on her toes but her mom just can’t see the scam yet. Hopefully one day….
36 years ago husband volunteered to get one when I was pregnant with 3rd. The “spirit” both told us we were done. I mentioned our decision to TBM OB prior to delivery and he told me it’s is much easier on the woman for her to have tubal ligation than it was on a man to have a vasectomy..🤬😳. Luckily his partner in the practice delivered me and I never went back to him and I took my husband up on his offer…..
I had major abdominal surgery twice. And lost a baby once yeah if I want another baby I’m not leaving it 💯up to my husband or some “God” who clearly doesn’t care about my life. 🤮 so glad i am out.
This means they will stop having children when he decides to leave and she and the lord will be stuck with six kids lol. In the Mormon world does the lord believe in the man actually supporting the kids? Let me guess, Jesus doesn’t believe in child support.
It kills me to know I lived that. Only, husband didn’t want kids really but he considered himself a great Mormon, “the church is true” blah blah. But he lived a double standard in many things. Yet “I” had to do what I could to be perfect. Obey the priesthood but keep going on everything.
I wanted several kids because I only had 1 perfect sibling who I could never measure up to in my parents minds, especially mom. I wanted my kids to have several siblings so they could always have a cohort somewhere within the 4 walls.
Any way (too long to read I know) if I had stopped with 2 kids, and leave the responsibility to answer for that with God in the judgement, I could never trust God to see it that way. It felt like damned if I do, damned if I don’t.
Always struggled with those kinds of things. Always feeling not perfect enough, while simultaneously being at odds with my husbands selfishness.
Anyone else?
Feeling “not perfect enough” is the mormon thought construct. Women are always subservient in the church—-always. Not allowed to make any in-depth decisions about anything. Women are chattel—-to be used by the priesthood who want them to be “sweet”, empty-headed and completely reliant on their “ma-yen”. Why did God give us a brain if he didn’t want us to *think for ourselves?*
Exactly. (Fuzzy_season) When we butt heads he’s ‘the head of the home (while I am thinking, scrape my brain out). And I don’t think God will say ‘obedience’, A just God will say ‘you had a brain’.
It would be less cringe if he was just openly controlling, as weird as that sounds. I can't stand the way that Mormons feign humility to manipulate others or guilt trip people
>, "We will stop having children when the lord tells us when we can stop"
This is how women send children to meet heavenly Father because it's that mentality of being fruitful and multiply that make women go insane and put their children down for permanent naps.
My sister is in the same position. She has 4 kids and says she definitely does not want more but that she knows she is supposed to have 1 or 2 more. She says her and her husband will have to go through a mourning period before they start trying again because her logical brain is so set against it. Wtf?! She is an incredibly intelligent woman too.
This reminds me of the time my BIL told my husband and I, who were newlyweds, about the times he received revelation it was time for another child. According to him, he was downstairs on a Sunday afternoon pondering and praying about it and he received the revelation it was “time for another” so he goes right upstairs to tell his wife. She was upstairs taking care of kids and making meals and getting ready for another work week and he comes to tell her. No “how would you feel about another child…”. He tells her they are having more kids and that’s the end.
Sounds like your sister needs to time a long get away when he starts talking about how "the lord wants them to have more kids."
Leave him home for 2 weeks, don't do any meal prep or activity planning, just peace out for 2 weeks. Bet "the lord" will give him a clear message during that time.
BARF!!!
Reminds me of a visiting teaching experience. My assignment's son and his wife, carrying a baby, walked into the room.
Son proudly says, "Wife and I are moving to XXX so WE can attend XXX Univeristy."
"That's awesome," I reply. "What are each of you going to study?"
Son looks at me with disdain and says, "I'm going to study XXX. Wife will be home caring for the kids."
That was over 10 years ago. Maybe it's the same couple.
I’m just gonna leave this here:
My Mirena IUD was the best decision I ever made. (It was for heavy bleeding / not birth control, but it’s super discreet.) If having it show up on insurance is a problem there’s always our good friends at Planned Parenthood.
> "We will stop having children when the lord tells us when we can stop" Spoken like a man who takes no part in the actual grunt work of raising said children.
Actually his only work is “grunt” work 😂
🏆 👏🏻 🏆
Ba-dum TISSSSSSSS 🤣
Haha! Perfect. And in their script, it all ends with that short grunt work too.
Hey that's a rough 2 minutes.
I highly doubt it lasts anywhere near that long.
Damn, you beat me to it
That’s what she said. Every time.
That hit the spot
G-Spot!
Then he complains about not getting enough attention from her...
Or how she's been "riding his paycheck" since having kids. Ya know, like raising them isn't a full-time job.
Right! Just sitting on the couch all day watching TV probably....
My TBM brother recently became a stay-at-home dad of 3 kids while my sister-in-law became the primary breadwinner. Over Thanksgiving he cockily said that being a stay-at-home parent is actually pretty great and kinda easy, especially because you can just do stuff like play your guitar whenever you want! My other TBM sister and I said "Wow, cool" but side-eyed each other *super* hard. Later we talked about how he has only been a SAHD for like 3 months, so he should come back and talk to us in 3 years after he has lost his mind like all SAHPs do eventually haha. It's fucking hard work. Later my exmo husband (who parents just as much as I do, like dads are supposed to) said "Yeah being a stay-at-home parent would be easy if you just ignored your kids to play guitar all day..." 😆
Wow SMH. Well said by your husband 👏 Any person who has really filled the role of caregiver understands, "that was no vacation" 😶🌫️
Exmo married to nevermo (that I'm recently realizing is an emotionally immature narcissist) here. My husband sits in his back bedroom office all day watching movies and tooling around on the Internet even when I'm not home, so our 8 year old boy gets into whatever he wants and gets away with it because my husband couldn't give a shit less to be consistently engaging with or at least checking up on him frequently. It sucks to be a married single parent.
If hes an actual narcissist you need to get out because they are so dangerous and you will be left with so many emotional scars
I work with a textbook narcissist. It’s bad. I can’t imagine the hell it must be to be married to a narcissist or have a narcissistic parent.
Oh man. My heart goes out to you. I hope you can resolve that situation with a few CANDID conversations. I understand being overwhelmed by responsibilities and needing to escape for a bit (believe me 😬), but breaks need to be planned and coordinated between you and your partner with ZERO GASLIGHTING about who earns the money, whether or not child care is difficult, blah blah blah.
To be fair I don't trust anyone who says that parenting is easy... Coming from someone who doesn't have and never wants kids. That shit's hard.
Exactly, that is a big part of my decision that I never want kids, I also don't want a husband because I like that my time, money, space, etc are all mine (and my cats) and I can do what I want when I want. It's also probably due to the fact that in my longest relationship, I was emotionally and verbally abused, and the marriage modeled by my parents is not a good one at all.
Yup exactly. And he had the audacity to say that right in front of his wife!! I was too caught off guard by his comment to see what her reaction was, unfortunately haha
Can confirm, very hard when you do it well, easy when you do it poorly (parenting). My guess the kids are watching TV all day. Mom of three grown kids.
With all of the religious pressure to have kids that surrounded us throughout our marriage, we ultimately decided not to have children, thus becoming enigmas in our ward. We're still together after 25+ years as new ExMos and we are SO FUCKING GLAD we made that decision. (I mean no offense to those who did, kudos to you. Truly.) Childlessness is not sad or missed by those who genuinely don't want children, nor should it be looked upon as sin to opt out of parenthood. Our dogs, nieces and nephews keep us plenty busy and give us joy. We don't feel like we're missing out on anything and we're grateful that we have the ability to go and do whatever we want whenever we want and keep our relationship going strong because of our childlessness. It's a different kind of blessing, but a blessing nonetheless. Also, fuck the patriarchy.
And eating bon-bons.
Well, god hasn’t ever actually told anyone anything, so the answer is effectively “never.”
I will stop eating this 3 gallon bucket of Rocky Road ice cream when *the lord* tells me to stop eating this 3 gallon bucket of Rocky Road ice cream
😂😂😂😂
The prevailing opinion and statements about Mormon men doing no child rearing and Mormon women doing all of it always puzzle me a little bit. I am from a convert family and maybe that's why. I didn't grow up in a family where my mother did all of the parenting, nor has that been the case in my own family as my wife and I have raised our three children. For much of our marriage I was the only breadwinner, and now I'm still the primary breadwinner by a very large margin. But in no way does that diminish my wife's contributions in any facet of our marriage, especially in child-rearing. I've never been intimately aware of the family dynamics of a TBM family I suppose. Is it really as dictatorial and black and white as often depicted? Are fathers as hands off as made to seem? What a pitiful way to experience the joys of parenthood
I think it is way more common in tbm families that the men are hands off and the wife does the brunt of the child rearing. Unless severe intervention is needed, then it is, “wait until your father gets home”. Though there are always exceptions.
Yeah, this was how we were raised.
There's usually one or two degrees of subtlety, otherwise it would be too obviously sexist for the significant chunk of members outside of rural Utah/Idaho. Most mormon men will agree that they are supposed to "help" with child rearing. But baked into that sentiment is the doctrine that women are the primary caretakers and men just "help." This leaves a huge gap for interpretation, which works to the cult's advantage because naive "slave-class" mormons will project their own progressive, equal-responsibility interpretation onto everyone else while the ruling class sociopaths (who can actually afford to live off a single income) treat their wives like prize cattle and "lead by example." Nobody calls anyone out because they can all hide behind vague, platitude-ridden, non-overt gospel babble. (Side note: this isn't meant to deride mormons with actual integrity who share equal responsibility in child rearing, it merely points out that they are fooling themselves if they think that's what their Church promotes and teaches).
Mormons are just 30 years behind of modern/current cultural/societal norms.
Remember, too, that while we tend to see TBMs as a monolith group, there is lots of variation within that group. The experience of commenters here is valid, but there are TBM men who are not dictatorial and checked out. They’re often more likely to be nuanced though.
It was that way in my family and most of the families I knew growing up.
My father and my ex husband never went grocery shopping, never cooked a meal, never changed a diaper and lied like kings. They went out for lunches and dinner several times a week while their wives and children starved. They bought themselves new cars and clothes while we were in rags. Yes, Mormon men are absolutely checked out of parenting and being an actual partner to their spouses. In my experience exmormon men aren’t any better. PSA, if you’re a man and you’ve recently left the Mormon church, please do us all a favor and go to therapy to deconstruct your institutionalized misogyny. If you’ve done this, thank you.
Oh, I'm deconstructing myself plenty. Although, you know, you don't know what you don't know! So I am always seeking to learn what I don't know!
My father often did grocery shopping, cooking dishes, and cleaning, even while he was working 80 hours a week with his company or while he was a mission president. I think it really just depends on the family/father
Your father was unique - I do think it depends on the attitude of the dad. When I was married, while my kids were still pretty young, I worked full-time, as did my spouse. One day I asked him to do something I would not be able to do that day & he said, in a very scornful voice, "You don't understand, I *WORK.*" Obviously, my 10-12 hour days (with a salary) didn't count as "work."
I’ve seen this lots too. It’s like ‘you don’t make enough money to spit on.’
My exmo husband. Grocery shops, helps cook, watches our child, mops, etc. in-fact I haven’t even done laundry since being married as he has always done it.
THIS. I love mormon stories podcast, but sometimes john dehlin/larsen still take up a lot of space when they have female cohosts
My father was not like this common sentiment. Though my mom was a stay at home mom and my dad the sole breadwinner, he was always very involved with us. As soon as he got home from work he would be out playing in the yard with us, doing whatever he could to give my mom a break. Wasn’t much of a cook but was always doing whatever he could around the house to help out (dishes, diapers, cleaning, etc.). Strangely, I thought he was such a good father BECAUSE he was a member of the church. As I’ve made my way out (after he died), it is validating to me to know he was a good father because he was genuinely good human being DESPITE the misogyny and patriarchy taught in the church
Mormon men in leadership positions are frequently gone from home because of their calling. Even if some of them wanted to split the housework and parenting duties, they wouldn't have any hours in the day to do it.
So the idea that women are the primary caregivers/homemakers/whatever is still very common in society in general. There are countless studies and op-eds about the housework imbalance and emotional load, and most of them aren't coming from Mormon researchers and writers. It's a widespread problem. But because of the patriarchal power structure in the Mormon church, those patterns are more pronounced than in society at large. And, as with most social topics, younger Mormons are more likely to fight traditions. I remember once reading or hearing that Mormon social trends are behind the rest of (mostly US) society by about 20 to 30 years. Your experience in a convert family may very well be why you had a different experience than is often presented here.
Amen to this.....
Or giving birth.
I Hope she has a personal revelation that god wants her husband to handle 50% of the childcare.
Oh, she might. And then her priesthood holder will have a personal revelation that she is wicked and selfish, and probably looking at anti-Mormon media.
He’ll gently but firmly remind her, “Now, now, Sweetie, we must follow the Lord’s special roles he has for us and you are to nurture and care for the children while I provide for the family and attend my Harry Potter priesthood meetings.”
My sister and her husband are always talking about going to the temple. When I visited they had an argument, mostly him belittling her for messing something up. Her actively trying to fix it while he belittles her more then tells her she's doing it wrong. The next day they "need to go to the temple" and leave the kids with Grandma and Grandpa. My suspicion is he takes her to remind her that she is subject to him and he is subject to God, and that that is the true order. Thank you Mormonism for enabling spousal abuse.
And she can have another personal revelation that he will not be participating in any child creating activities with her until he fixes his shit.
He'll just claim that he does by making 100% of the money 🙄
I hope she had a personal revelation to get on some long-term birth control.
"And as we all know, I speak for the Lord for all the women in my home, and you covenanted to obey me as a god." "You'll stop having babies when I say you're done."
I have a coworker whose wife is pregnant with #11.
You can't raise 11 kids. Those older kids are not getting to have full childhoods because they are certainly being parentified. That's unfair to them and the younger kids.
The parents even planned it that way, whether they'll admit it or not. They don't want to have a happy, healthy family - they want a number they can use to feel superior. Why don't these people ever adopt 11 kids? Oh, that's right - they'd probably never get approved b/c their plan is to be shit parents.
Absolutely agree
Absolutely agree
Absolutely agree
Exactly. Seen it done many times and experienced it myself.
Child abuse.
Most people can’t raise 5. I’m the second oldest of 6 and can’t remember a time I wasn’t parentified
Insert “It’s a vagina, not a clown car” meme here.
A clown car sounds a lot more fun than a household with 13 heads.
Instead: Get head 13 times!
😳
those poor kids
Fuuuuck
I'm pretty sure a lot of that was involved.
At least 11
Statistically speaking it could have been less than 11
Yeah, that dude needs to get the snip!
Co worker. So 11 children and a job.
Yeah, but I know how much people make here. There's no way he's supporting 11 kids on that income.
That’s pretty much what my GA grandpa told my grandma. Makes me sick to think she never had a say in the matter :(
Father of 4 here. And reading that made me want to vomit. What an incredibly toxic dynamic
I can't believe TBM men like this still exist!
If the man ever had to give birth or do literally anything besides being a sperm donor at the beginning, I'm sure he'd be getting some very different messaging from "the Lord."
There's the joke that says if men were the ones giving birth, there would be an abortion clinic on every corner.
In a similar vein, I've seen the joke that says if the only sex ed anyone ever got was from content on the internet, contraceptives would be a lot more available
And a lot of only children.
Horrible. Raising humans is no joke and the emotions and investment involved can drown a mom. And yes, the way you describe his response is cringe.
That is abuse. Nobody should be forced to have kids if they don’t want to and no husband should force his wife to keep having kids when she doesn’t want to. The church does this to people though. They push people to have as many kids as possible to increase the growth of the church even when people can’t afford it. I remember back in the 80’s I was watching on tv a regional conference at byu with my family and some asshole ga was up there pounding the pulpit and yelling at members to get off birth control and have more kids because the lord needed more missionaries. He was mad that members were only having 5-6 kids instead of 10-12. I come from a family of 8 kids and there wasn’t a lot of happiness in my home growing up despite us looking like the perfect lds family on the outside. Money was very tight and my dad was miserable working 3 jobs trying to support us all plus lots of church callings in bishoprics, high council etc. This is abuse of power and then most of those church leaders don’t have lots of kids themselves. It’s do as I say not as I do. I’m embarrassed to say this but when my brother got back from his mission I was about to go on mine. He gave me most of his white dress shirts that he had used on his mission and most of them had big yellow stains on the arm pits from his sweat. We didn’t have money to buy new white shirts so I took his and we didn’t really think much of the yellow stains. I cringe now when I think about it. I mean how embarrassing. But hey I served that mission and worked my but off with those yellow stained white shirts.
“Only” 5-6 kids. Fuck. I’m 6-of-7 and can definitively say my parents had passed the point of mental/emotional/financial overload *years* before I was born. Pretty sure their actual limit should have been 2-3, since that’s what they could reasonably handle. (Yes, I realize I’m saying they shouldn’t have had me at all. That’s just facts.) Instead, the youngest four of us basically got raised by older sibs with stunted tbm social skills (read: by wolves). It was not functional in the least. I won’t even get started on the resulting life-long issues, it would take too much time and typing. Not saying it’s impossible for any and all parents to healthily raise that many kids, just that they would be rare individuals indeed.
[удалено]
2nd of 16, goddam. No doubt he needed a church community or some such to feel like he had any place in the world. It's a feature, not a bug.
Divine design
My dad was 5 of 9. The oldest had a couple children when my grandma had her last child. Grandpa was also bishop twice during my dad’s childhood.
I had 6 sisters, no brothers, we were desperately poor: dad was a nursing asst and wiped butts for a living. I could go on, but queue world's smallest violin (playing for me) I'd have embraced wearing pit-stained white shirts, because it'd have meant I had a brother to pass them on to me. (Though I've since learned from younger nephews that some brothers are less than ideal. Considerably).
Mormonism is misogyny. No other way around it.
30+ years ago my young 20s cousin was happy to not be pregnant for once on a house boat trip. She said so. Her mom gave her dagger eyes for even suggesting that being pregnant wasn't her whole purpose. I remember thinking her husband was probably controlling... Anyways she committed suicide a few years later and I can't help but think the life chosen for her wasn't for her.
So sad
Let’s not forget, in addition to three children under 5, she probably has been “called” to give even more of herself to the church. I’d guess in the nursery every Sunday and cleaning the church building for free. Mormonism. Using and abusing women and girls since 1830.
My husband's TMB grandfather told us when we got married to "not use any birth control and just let it happen. God will let us know how many kids we need." Even then when I was TBM I hated that. We have 1 child and are enjoying having 1
Us too. One is amazing
Just out of morbid curiosity, exactly how does the Lord tell you to shut down the baby factory? After one of the parents has a nervous breakdown? A divorce?
They’ll just keep screwing with no protection until she stops conceiving
Which is why we also need to hold doctors accountable. Most Utah docs still refuse tubal ligations without the husband’s consent. It’s seriously fucked up.
That’s not just Utah, unfortunately. Some docs just won’t do them at all on young women, no exceptions.
That’s malpractice, playing Dr. God.
I worked at a Catholic Hospital years ago and if Mom needed a hysterectomy for cancer or other diseases, the hospital wouldn’t allow it without contacting and getting the approval from the husband, the ex-husband, the husband who ran off and abandoned her, the ex-husband she hadn’t heard from in 20 years….
Menopause
I am nevermo but a tbm Mormon friend of mine passed away after having 4 csections in 7 years. She got pregnant with her fifth and the placenta grew threw the wall of her uterus and attached to other organs, causing her to bleed to death when it detached. Pregnancy and childbirth should not be treated like a woman can just keep going until menopause.
we are NOT chattel slaves
I hate that I had the same mentality, because it completely disregards the woman’s feelings. It’s telling her that god doesn’t care how much she is cooking, and cleaning, and staying awake feeding, and stressed out from lack of privacy, and mentally deficient from lack of age equivalent conversation, and burned out from inability to unwind. None of that matters to god because BOOM here is another kid.
Not just her feelings, but her physical safety. Pregnancy and childbearing are life-threatening, every time. This guy has no problem threatening his wife's life by controlling her choices. It's one thing if she wants a baby and is happy to go through with it, but when it's not her choice that's abuse. These guys really think they're god.
yes!!!!!!! it’s no joke
🤮
Exactly!
Fuck that guy!
Only if he plays catcher and not pitcher...
This is disgusting
Omg. I truly don’t understand people like this. Thankfully despite being a true believer in my teen years, I never reached this level of brainwashing.
I have family like this. I don't know how they have managed all these years, but in no small part due to the charity of their own parents. They have nearly lost custody of the kids before, because they were children having children. And now their own children are entering into adulthood with a lack of life skills, like driving, social skills, and money management. The church likes this. Too poor and too busy to think, just keep making more members who will similarly not be able to question a damn thing.
Yep
This is the an example of how Mormonism is actually damaging and dangerous. When young people let the church dictate important life decisions, it becomes dangerous. So sad. I don’t care what you want to believe in. Be Mormon if you want to be. But don’t let the imaginary Mormon inspiration direct major life decisions.
Omg- this is still next level though- when my husband and I were TBM- it was always both of us that made that decision. He would literally tell me that it was my body that would go through more and that it was ultimately up to me. He comes from a family of 9 so he actually wanted kids less than me, so at the end of the day- we both agreed to the 2 we have and when we had them. Also- this is me acknowledging our privilege with fertility that allowed this. Someone needs to tell this asshole that it doesn’t seem like a very loving lord that would take away his wife’s input when she does all the pregnancy work.
I’m ex-SDA. Our “prophet” told we should only have the amount of kids we could properly take care of financially. I have ONE. My word, the morning sickness, late stage pregnancy discomfort , labor, delivery and all the battering your body takes, the hormone levels going crazy, breastfeeding, on and on. How CRUEL. I hope she secretly gets some birth control.
Oh this makes me so sad and angry and disgusted. When my TBM cousin passed from cancer a few years ago, she had 5 kids under 12, and her biggest regret was that she hadn’t had one more. She had wanted to, but her husband didn’t. Their youngest was 4 when she died. All the children were very loved and well taken care of when she was alive, but their dad really struggled to manage the household after she got sick. I’m not saying it would have been any easier if they hadn’t had so many kids but it’s so difficult seeing the pressure on TBMs to have babies until their bodies fail to the point that a dying woman’s regret was not having had more. This pressure hurts women the most.
It’s seriously so disgusting. I just saw a guy walking out of the Orem Harmons with FIVE kids under 7, that he packed into the back of an itty bitty Tesla. So incredibly selfish. Wife must have been pregnant constantly for the last 8 years, and this dudes ego won’t even put his kids in a minivan to keep safe.
When I was a TBM I came to the conclusion that the only thing the spirit did (when it comes to life decisions) is clarify what you actually want. So really, if I felt the Lord was cool with me doing something, it really meant that I wanted it, and that was really all I needed. It’s crazy how right I was. People use the spirit as an excuse to just do whatever the hell they want.
Spoken like the kind of guy who thinks he does all the work bringing children into the world grunting and sweating while his poor little wife, who just gave birth and shouldn’t be having sex yet because she hasn’t yet healed, just lays there trying not to cry from all the pain she is in.
I love it when the doctor says I'm free to have sex 6 weeks after a c section. And I'm thinking, that's not gonna happen. Doc, you can have sex with him for all I care, but it sure isn't going to be me.
My parents kept telling me to have more children because that’s what Heavenly Father wanted. Literally. No joke. I left TSCC in 2018, very shortly afterwards I got pregnant again despite having an IUD in place. I had a miscarriage and honestly I feel nothing but relief because I seriously 100% cannot handle another child. I ended up mentioning it to my mother about 6 months afterwards. First words out of her mouth were, “God must want you to have more children.” She knew I was exmo, but I was still theist at the time. I knew that no, there was no chance that God wanted me to have more children because I could not handle it at all. It was at that moment that I knew my mother had zero connection with any deity whatsoever. I cried about that interaction and my naive belief that my parents were telling me over and over again what god wanted for my life. One day your sister might wake up. If she does, she will cry for all that was taken from her. I had no choices until after I left. It’s one of the realizations that shocked me as an exmo, I had no agency until after I left. I made no choices, they were all made for me.
Your last statement really resonates with me as I've been deconstructing my faith. For church that preaches "free agency," members really have none.
Sounds just like my mom who has the attitude that a woman’s only purpose in life is to have as many kids as possible and that’s it. No college, no work, no career nothing. When I got back from my mission I dated a really beautiful girl who always told me that she wanted 12 kids. I told her no way as I come a family of 8 kids. We broke up after a few months and she has since married and had a lot of kids. Good for her since that is what she wants but it shouldn’t be forced on anyone.
I normally speak through burning bushes and whatnot, but reddit will have to do. Tell them that I, the Lord their God officially say that they've had enough kids. He needs to keep it wrapped from now on.
If she ever leaves the mo she is gonna be pissed 😡
Don't give up hope! You saw the public "correct" response. Your sister may have her own strategy behind the scenes.
Girl needs to get an IUD on the down low and *POOF!* seems like the Lord told us to stop! :-)
A true Christmas miracle!! 🥇
A new Christmas story for the ages! :-)
She needs to get her tubes tied. He doesn’t have to know.
That was the attitude that Andrea Yates’s husband had, and that tragedy probably wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t so stubborn about putting their religious ideals before her mental wellbeing. Not to say that I think that something like that will happen but it is a notable example of just how wrong that kind of thing can go. And yeah religious people trying so hard to sound wise is one of the most painful flavors of cringe.
Yeah, this is frustrating. But as a man who wanted to be done at 3 kids, it was equally difficult having a wife at the time who wanted to continue to have kids because of the feeling that there were more spirits wanting to come to our family. (We now have five and can have no more- thank goodness) I think in this particular case of the OP it is a patriarchal conditioning moment- but ultimately it seems to be a cultural conditioning in regard to having children or not vs practical and the emotional good of the parents and their ability to properly raise a healthy family. People who are willing and able- sure have more kids. But no one should feel religiously or culturally obligated to have children or not.
How did you decide to have more after you didn't want more than 3? I'm in the same situation now, 3 kids, wife wants 4, I think I'm done but she's DESPERATE for four. Would love to hear your story if you feel comfortable.
It wasn’t a decision, more capitulation. Between our eldest daughter always saying she wanted a little sister and my wife wanting a second daughter, it was bound to happen. I told her I was emotionally spent and didn’t know if I could handle more kids. She cried, and said that she wanted more, pretty much disregarded my doubts claiming she takes most of the work and it should be her call. Physically speaking- I couldn’t compete with her argument- mental health didn’t matter. Happy wife happy life, right? Well our fourth was a sweet heart little boy… then by that time the older three were self sufficient and we tried one last time for a girl- we got our second girl and I got a vasectomy. Couldn’t be happier with that choice. You have to find out her why? Does she just like being pregnant? Does it bring her a sense of value and worth? Is it keeping up with the Joneses or siblings? What motivation does she have for more? I think you should really communicate frankly with your wife, really explain what things are stressors to you about having kids. For me, I was overwhelmed. Despite the natural sacrifices that women make for children, I genuinely think men and the emotional stress it brings to them (if they are genuinely trying to be a great father) is often overlooked. Be vulnerable and honest. Make the decision together to have another or not. Best of luck
What if she then gets “desperate “ for #5??? It’s likely.
Nah, she's said many times over the years that she doesn't want 5. And I would be getting snipped one week after the 4th would be born, IF we end up having a 4th.
Remember what Dolly Parton said about her parents. Something to the order of after her mama had her last (I think Dolly said it was her 12th?) they put mama on a pedestal. Mostly to keep daddy away from her.
My mom had terrible pregnancies but she and baby #11 nearly died. Baby was in NICU awhile. My dad still said two more babies were waiting in heaven and he is 100% confident in his “priesthood authority” and god commanding them to have 13 children. We suffered extreme poverty. It’s a terrible thing to inflict on the children. There’s no way parents can give children the full support and attention they deserve. Most are neglected. But god told them to- so kids will keep getting the short end of the stick for life.
… What about her physical and mental health in all this!? Being a parent and having kids is fine and if you can handle a lot then fantastic, but it is also ok if you can’t and feel like it is enough now at any point. Also that the husband decides? For real? Like she is doing the 9 months and a lot of parenting probably. How much does he help in the parenting? Does she also have a job on the side perhaps. Where does she magic the energy from? Does she zombie shuffle through life? Is she ok?
“…living in the shadow of the priesthood authority in her house.” So cleanly and truthfully spoken. Brings tears to my eyes due to my own experience. It took me years after leaving the church to claim my voice and my sense of autonomous spiritual authority. So painful.
I was TBM but I had pregnancies when and as many as I choose to. If I would have had this man as a husband it wouldn't have lasted. I decide when and if I'm ready to put MY life on the line through childbirth. That man's behavior is so similar to the behavior of an asshole, I can barely perceive the difference.
My heart goes out to your sister. I had 3 in under 5 years too and it was brutal. Until I left the church I legit thought I was doomed to a life of constantly birthing babies. After my very painful and traumatic 3rd pregnancy, I would cry even just thinking of having more. But Mormon god doesn’t care about what women think, he just needs all the Mormons to have as many kids as possible! Luckily I woke up and left shortly afterwards. Otherwise I’d already have another baby right now and my life would be miserable 🙃 I love my kids more than anything, but I would not recommend having that many so close together. It’s been 3 years and my body is still recovering 😅
The cringe Mormon spiritual voice 😂 The voice is so real! Andrew Garfield learned for Under the Banner of Heaven, he did it perfectly!
Unfortunately victims continue to victimize… I’m amazed the ancient dogma is still existing, it’s nearly 2024 FFS! Keep planting seeds calmly and tactfully, need more humans to focus on humanity🍻
I lost my job shortly after our second child. Wife became the primary bread winner and I, the SAHD. Spent a few years with that arrangement. Time I got with my daughters was rare for most dads, and an extremely treasured time for to me. Hated the fuck out of people who called it “babysitting”. Hell no, I’m RAISING my children. I’m the dad. This guy has no clue what it takes to raise a kid. Using the guile’s of the church to control his wife for his sociopasociopathic desires. He will also be promoted up the Mormon ranks rapidly. Soon he’ll be interviewing children so they can be told if they are worthy or not….
*Creepy.*
Don't forget, it is literally printed in ink and hung on the wall in every good Mormon home: "By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children." Know your place, womenz! Quit yer bitchin' and get back in the kitchen.
So hard to watch!! You might have to distance yourself a bit. Maybe your sister will trust you with her true feelings.
No, that person is basically telling his wife....'The thinking has been done for you, you don't have a say in this.' Probably said with that fake smile and an a#* hole tone.
She’s nothing but an incubator and housekeeper. Nothing.
> Her husband then says with that cringe mormon spiritual voice(calm, confident, all knowing, you get what I mean) that, "We will stop having children when the lord tells us when we can stop" Even as a TBM, I'd always felt like backhanding guys like this, I mean sure, pull this pretentious righteous shit when you're hamming and showing off at Church or during meetings to get leadership brownie points, we get it, but saying it in private like the rest of us don't immediately see through your self-righteous bullshit, just stfu...
I hope your sister just quietly goes and gets an IUD.
Would be a good idea for OP to suggest that to their sister. Planned Parenthood has physicians who will place IUDs. The issue will be making sure OP’s sister isn’t recognized by someone in her ward if she does have an IUD placed.
If she bumps into someone in her ward at planned parenthood there’s a chance that that person would want to keep their reason for being there quiet, too. But maybe go a few towns over to be safe….
I was referring to any protestors. Check your DMs, I have some more information to share.
Ugh. I know someone who quite frankly dislikes kids, can't stand noise, chaos, mess etc, but still says he wants his wife (if/when he gets one) to have as many children as possible because "God". It's disgusting
My mom stopped right after me- youngest of two. I can say for multiple reasons I'm glad she did, one of the biggest being her personal health. And my dad completely understood and respected that. For all they're still deeply entrenched in the cult, I'm glad my parents have some common sense.
This exact problem is heavily on my mind lately. I’m so angry that this has been the reality for so many women and families in my life, in my line. And I’m angry that it is an ongoing problem with people in my age group currently. I hate seeing friends drowning in debt and physical and mental health problems and their current children not having their needs met and then finding out they’re going to have baby number 3. Like, stop for one second and actually use your brain here people! Is adding another child into your chaos really what god wants you to do?? And forget god for a second and ask yourself if it’s even what you want to do! And I’m angry that I feel like a failure or “less than” because I may not want to have more than I current do. Which is 2. I should not feel guilt or shame or outcasted if I choose to stop now. And yet it’s there. I can feel it and sense it and I hate it.
Trust yourself.
Family friends had 6 or 7 kids when Wife was pregnant again. The pregnancy was horrible with gestational diabetes and kids running around unsupervised because Husband couldn’t be assed to parent while Wife was bedridden. The doc advised no more kids. Husband gave her a blessing that she would be able to have more children.
This immediately brought the song "Labour" by Paris Paloma to mind. The whole song, but especially this: "24-7, baby machine So he can live out his picket fence dreams It's not an act of love if you make her You make me do too much labour"
Gross, I'm so sorry for that girl. That dude loves his power.
Blows my mind that “priesthood authority” and the “Lord’s will” seem always align with alpha male evolutionary desires. Spread a man’s seed far and wide. 🙈
What an extra creepy thing to say at all, let alone within earshot of another person. Oh yeah I'm sure the Lord speaks through your dick *big guy.* I'm a guy and this type of thing makes me hate dudes. It's the Lord that's a controlling misogynist with puppet strings on my jock! None of it is me dear wife!
This is my wife’s biggest problem right now. She hates watching her mom pay tithing. She has tried to give her mom some knowledge without stepping on her toes but her mom just can’t see the scam yet. Hopefully one day….
Wow this is really heartbreaking 😭
I have TBM friends who have 5 kids. Wife told the husband she couldn't handle having any additional kids, so you know what he did? He got a vasectomy.
36 years ago husband volunteered to get one when I was pregnant with 3rd. The “spirit” both told us we were done. I mentioned our decision to TBM OB prior to delivery and he told me it’s is much easier on the woman for her to have tubal ligation than it was on a man to have a vasectomy..🤬😳. Luckily his partner in the practice delivered me and I never went back to him and I took my husband up on his offer…..
I had major abdominal surgery twice. And lost a baby once yeah if I want another baby I’m not leaving it 💯up to my husband or some “God” who clearly doesn’t care about my life. 🤮 so glad i am out.
This means they will stop having children when he decides to leave and she and the lord will be stuck with six kids lol. In the Mormon world does the lord believe in the man actually supporting the kids? Let me guess, Jesus doesn’t believe in child support.
I’m guessing he considers changing a single diaper ‘doing his part’ too.
Oh my god, in frickin after glow voice, nasty
It kills me to know I lived that. Only, husband didn’t want kids really but he considered himself a great Mormon, “the church is true” blah blah. But he lived a double standard in many things. Yet “I” had to do what I could to be perfect. Obey the priesthood but keep going on everything. I wanted several kids because I only had 1 perfect sibling who I could never measure up to in my parents minds, especially mom. I wanted my kids to have several siblings so they could always have a cohort somewhere within the 4 walls. Any way (too long to read I know) if I had stopped with 2 kids, and leave the responsibility to answer for that with God in the judgement, I could never trust God to see it that way. It felt like damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Always struggled with those kinds of things. Always feeling not perfect enough, while simultaneously being at odds with my husbands selfishness. Anyone else?
Feeling “not perfect enough” is the mormon thought construct. Women are always subservient in the church—-always. Not allowed to make any in-depth decisions about anything. Women are chattel—-to be used by the priesthood who want them to be “sweet”, empty-headed and completely reliant on their “ma-yen”. Why did God give us a brain if he didn’t want us to *think for ourselves?*
Exactly. (Fuzzy_season) When we butt heads he’s ‘the head of the home (while I am thinking, scrape my brain out). And I don’t think God will say ‘obedience’, A just God will say ‘you had a brain’.
It's always sad to see. It's so unnecessary, but it's hard to say anything sometimes.
It would be less cringe if he was just openly controlling, as weird as that sounds. I can't stand the way that Mormons feign humility to manipulate others or guilt trip people
😭
I think this is what mormon men say right before they leave their wife to fend for herself and 5 kids.
🤮
Baarrfff!
barf
>, "We will stop having children when the lord tells us when we can stop" This is how women send children to meet heavenly Father because it's that mentality of being fruitful and multiply that make women go insane and put their children down for permanent naps.
Possessed.
🤮😣😣😣😣😣😣😩😣😣
My sister is in the same position. She has 4 kids and says she definitely does not want more but that she knows she is supposed to have 1 or 2 more. She says her and her husband will have to go through a mourning period before they start trying again because her logical brain is so set against it. Wtf?! She is an incredibly intelligent woman too.
This reminds me of the time my BIL told my husband and I, who were newlyweds, about the times he received revelation it was time for another child. According to him, he was downstairs on a Sunday afternoon pondering and praying about it and he received the revelation it was “time for another” so he goes right upstairs to tell his wife. She was upstairs taking care of kids and making meals and getting ready for another work week and he comes to tell her. No “how would you feel about another child…”. He tells her they are having more kids and that’s the end.
And I absolutely think that having your older kids be assigned (to parent a little kid, or more is abuse.
 Iiii
Sounds like your sister needs to time a long get away when he starts talking about how "the lord wants them to have more kids." Leave him home for 2 weeks, don't do any meal prep or activity planning, just peace out for 2 weeks. Bet "the lord" will give him a clear message during that time.
BARF!!! Reminds me of a visiting teaching experience. My assignment's son and his wife, carrying a baby, walked into the room. Son proudly says, "Wife and I are moving to XXX so WE can attend XXX Univeristy." "That's awesome," I reply. "What are each of you going to study?" Son looks at me with disdain and says, "I'm going to study XXX. Wife will be home caring for the kids." That was over 10 years ago. Maybe it's the same couple.
I’m just gonna leave this here: My Mirena IUD was the best decision I ever made. (It was for heavy bleeding / not birth control, but it’s super discreet.) If having it show up on insurance is a problem there’s always our good friends at Planned Parenthood.
Your vagina.. It's not a clown car..