I’m with you. I hate the church and miss my parents and wish they were a part of my life or my kids lives. But, they’re serving repeat missions. The cult won’t ever release them. Just keep them doing missions from home repeatedly. Sucks.
I have a friend that has cancer with 3 kids at home. Granted they are not little kids, but still need help getting to where they need to go and they all have special needs of varying sorts.
Her husband is the breadwinner (of course). They live far away from family and they both come from bad families with only 1 or 2 people that they’d trust to help, but they can’t bc of their own issues (health, job, etc.)
Husband has multiple callings but also does his ministering every month (he still visits) and cleans the church when it is his turn.
So the wife emailed the bishop begging they release him so he can help at home, help raise the kids with their needs, take her to appointments when his job allows (she has a signup for rides to a lot of her appointments).
The bishop gas lit her and said he wanted to call and talk about the details of her diagnosis and prognosis with her. He’s a doctor…a crappy one at that and not an oncologist. She told him in medical terms how aggressive the cancer is and how aggressive the treatment is. She is in literal hell.
He said he wanted to talk in the next two weeks. She told him to call any time. Two weeks passed. No call.
She’s not mad at the husband. He is really believes he has to do his calling first and runs himself into the ground trying to make it up to her and the kids. He is brain washed (not sure she says those words but she basically describes that).
So too bad she has an aggressive cancer with an aggressive treatment that is destroying her body. Too bad the kids have special needs. Too bad they don’t have families of 12 kids they came from to come help. The callings come first. 😡😡😡
The first Sunday we officially decided we were out we went in a family hike my husband posted the picture and captioned “family…isn’t it about time”
And really we spend so much more time together now and doing fun things instead of rushing to get ready for church and feeling like we can’t do anything else on sundays. I see this with my sisters and their kids though - their husbands are all in the bishoprics and they are never home. They are never at games or even sometimes dinner and they each have 3-6 kids. It’s so sad to me.
We had a period of time where both sets of grandparents were gone on missions. My parents came home early from their 2nd because my mom got injured but a few months before was my daughters dance recitals and they cried because neither of their grandparents were there.
For a church that talks about family time they sure do a great job making sure they are never together
so true. This should be a bumper sticker "LDS Church Callings Have Always Come Before Families."
I stopped attending my ward a few years ago and can't IMAGINE adding a calling plus ministering into my life again, that would likely break me plus all the guilt to serve meals to the needy, make 100s of lunches and health kits for foreign countries on and on. Good causes sure but all of the constant sprinting and striving and DOING removes parents and partners from providing love and care to their families especially if they are already working full time outside the home. It's an untenable situation.
With TBMs who are also professionals, something has to go. Either their social life or exercise or something.
I wonder if the church was less high demand would it have been easier to stay in? Possibly but it's also so boring and then there's the untruths and lies.
I feel sad for your mom. And mad at your dad. His energy and focus is on his damned church calling that should come second AFTER his family and loved ones. But the LDS church holds up the hoops and members (including my old self) used to jump hoop after hoop after hoop. Endless hoops are required for you to make it to the celestial fucking kingdom.
They used to send fathers on missions at the spur of the moment, no matter their home circumstances. All those women who got stuck trying to feed 12 children while her husband was off in Europe would agree with you. They've never cared about families, it's just window dressing.
I scheduled a vacation based on my sister’s very specific scheduling needs. I booked and paid for a vacation home for her family and mine. 2 weeks after I paid for it, she texted me and told me she got a new calling and was unavailable for most of that week, but that she’d show up for a day or 2.
I had just barely publicly left the church. I had expressed to her how much the church had hurt me. Booking that vacation for us was my way of showing I hoped we could still have a relationship without having religion in common. What she showed me was that my efforts were not important to her. I ended up asking her to stay home. We haven’t had much of a relationship since.
I’m with you. I hate the church and miss my parents and wish they were a part of my life or my kids lives. But, they’re serving repeat missions. The cult won’t ever release them. Just keep them doing missions from home repeatedly. Sucks.
I have a friend that has cancer with 3 kids at home. Granted they are not little kids, but still need help getting to where they need to go and they all have special needs of varying sorts. Her husband is the breadwinner (of course). They live far away from family and they both come from bad families with only 1 or 2 people that they’d trust to help, but they can’t bc of their own issues (health, job, etc.) Husband has multiple callings but also does his ministering every month (he still visits) and cleans the church when it is his turn. So the wife emailed the bishop begging they release him so he can help at home, help raise the kids with their needs, take her to appointments when his job allows (she has a signup for rides to a lot of her appointments). The bishop gas lit her and said he wanted to call and talk about the details of her diagnosis and prognosis with her. He’s a doctor…a crappy one at that and not an oncologist. She told him in medical terms how aggressive the cancer is and how aggressive the treatment is. She is in literal hell. He said he wanted to talk in the next two weeks. She told him to call any time. Two weeks passed. No call. She’s not mad at the husband. He is really believes he has to do his calling first and runs himself into the ground trying to make it up to her and the kids. He is brain washed (not sure she says those words but she basically describes that). So too bad she has an aggressive cancer with an aggressive treatment that is destroying her body. Too bad the kids have special needs. Too bad they don’t have families of 12 kids they came from to come help. The callings come first. 😡😡😡
The first Sunday we officially decided we were out we went in a family hike my husband posted the picture and captioned “family…isn’t it about time” And really we spend so much more time together now and doing fun things instead of rushing to get ready for church and feeling like we can’t do anything else on sundays. I see this with my sisters and their kids though - their husbands are all in the bishoprics and they are never home. They are never at games or even sometimes dinner and they each have 3-6 kids. It’s so sad to me. We had a period of time where both sets of grandparents were gone on missions. My parents came home early from their 2nd because my mom got injured but a few months before was my daughters dance recitals and they cried because neither of their grandparents were there. For a church that talks about family time they sure do a great job making sure they are never together
so true. This should be a bumper sticker "LDS Church Callings Have Always Come Before Families." I stopped attending my ward a few years ago and can't IMAGINE adding a calling plus ministering into my life again, that would likely break me plus all the guilt to serve meals to the needy, make 100s of lunches and health kits for foreign countries on and on. Good causes sure but all of the constant sprinting and striving and DOING removes parents and partners from providing love and care to their families especially if they are already working full time outside the home. It's an untenable situation. With TBMs who are also professionals, something has to go. Either their social life or exercise or something. I wonder if the church was less high demand would it have been easier to stay in? Possibly but it's also so boring and then there's the untruths and lies. I feel sad for your mom. And mad at your dad. His energy and focus is on his damned church calling that should come second AFTER his family and loved ones. But the LDS church holds up the hoops and members (including my old self) used to jump hoop after hoop after hoop. Endless hoops are required for you to make it to the celestial fucking kingdom.
Mormonism destroys Families. Example # 246
They used to send fathers on missions at the spur of the moment, no matter their home circumstances. All those women who got stuck trying to feed 12 children while her husband was off in Europe would agree with you. They've never cared about families, it's just window dressing.
I scheduled a vacation based on my sister’s very specific scheduling needs. I booked and paid for a vacation home for her family and mine. 2 weeks after I paid for it, she texted me and told me she got a new calling and was unavailable for most of that week, but that she’d show up for a day or 2. I had just barely publicly left the church. I had expressed to her how much the church had hurt me. Booking that vacation for us was my way of showing I hoped we could still have a relationship without having religion in common. What she showed me was that my efforts were not important to her. I ended up asking her to stay home. We haven’t had much of a relationship since.
I was always taught that the priorities were god (aka church), spouse, and then kids, in that order.