Letter to my Parents

Dear Mom and Dad,

There is no good way to start this letter so here goes... I decided several years ago that I no longer wanted to be part of the LDS church.  I knew that you would find this decision hurtful and I wanted to avoid hurting you so I haven't said anything about my decision.  However, I have found that I have been unintentionally avoiding you so that you wouldn't find out and be disappointed or angry with me.  I am terrible at hiding my feelings or outright lying so I'm sure you have had suspicions.

I don't want to avoid you anymore but I am also afraid of how you will react.  I expect that you will be hurt and upset and I did consider that telling you in a letter instead of in person would be even more hurtful.  While I don’t want to hurt you anymore, in the end I just couldn’t get comfortable with doing this in person.  This is based on my experiences with how you have treated others who have stopped going to church and how you have treated me.  I realize that your perspective of some events may be different than mine so I want to share with you my perspective so that you understand my choice.  When I was still very young before I got baptized, Mom told me I couldn't play with JS because her mom and dad weren't taking her to church.  I also remember coming home from Primary, crawling under the dining room table and crying while I prayed for JS not to be sent to hell because she didn't go to church.  I also remember very well the first time I told you I wasn't going to church, you tried then to convince me to return to church and it was a very painful experience for me.  You wrote me accusatory and threatening letters that just broke my heart and I had to stop responding and engaging in further conversation on the topic.  When I called with the happy news that I was engaged but would not get married in the temple, Dad yelled at me until I was in tears.  

I don’t want a repeat of those experiences and I most certainly don’t want DS to experience anything like that.  I also don’t want to have the church pushed on him or me.  I need to be clear because we are planning to come visit this year and I don’t want to get involved in any arguments or angry conversations.  If I have any reason to believe that you would take advantage of a family visit to argue for my return to church, I will not bring my family to visit.  This may sound harsh but I feel it is better to be upfront about it now then to have misunderstandings later.

One of my reasons for sending a letter so far in advance of our visit is that you will have time to work through your feelings.  It is my hope that you will come to understand that while I am no longer part of the church, I am still your loving daughter who wants very much to be loved in return.  I expect that we will have opportunities to talk between now and our visit and I hope those conversations will be pleasant.  However, I will not respond to any letters or phone calls that do not respect my choices and are anything but loving.  

I will be honest that I’m hesitant to discuss the reasons I have chosen not to be a part of the church but I understand that you may want to know more.  I will try to briefly explain but this is intended simply to answer questions you might have; it is not intended to start a discussion.  I understand that you may want to try to convince me otherwise but I'm really not interested.  Based on my past experiences, discussions become arguments which only end in hurt feelings on both sides.  Perhaps I am putting too much emphasis on this point but it is only because it is very important to me.

Both DH and I were not happy in the church but still tried for years to gain testimonies just so that we could be accepted by our families.  The problem is that we never felt that we were good enough on our own which left us feeling inadequate, unworthy, etc.  Not a good way to go through life.  by simply choosing not to go to church and not to accept teachings that were contrary to our beliefs we have been more at peace with ourselves and happier.  We don't want DS to go through most of his life not quite sure of himself and always trying to please others instead of just being himself.  So, we must be the examples of how to live with peace and acceptance of oneself.

I do want to make it clear that my main reason for leaving the church is that I disagree with many of the teachings.  I know that you have always had a concern that I was reading "anti-mormon" literature which you assume is nothing but lies.  I am conscientious enough to check references and make sure that what I'm reading is factual.  Even so, my decision was primarily based upon the following reasons (not a comprehensive list).  

1. The church's doctrine that polygamy is an eternal principle and that there will be polygamy in heaven.  It always sounded more like hell to me.

2. Tied in with the church's doctrine about polygamy is the notion that if family members are not faithful enough to make it to the celestial kingdom they will be replaced and the faithful will be rewarded with even more family.  The idea that I could just be replaced as if I never existed at all always bothered me and didn't seem very loving at all.

3. I do not believe that a family must be sealed in the temple in order for them to be together in the next life.  No ceremony can supersede time spent lovingly building relationships between two people and a family.  What will bind us together in the next life is the love that we have for each other.

4.  Women are not treated as equals in the church.  I know that there are a lot of talks that say otherwise but this is a case of "actions speak louder than words".  It was in the way that I was treated as a possession of my father as a child and then a possession of my husband when I was married.  I was not asked if I would take a calling or give a talk until permission had been obtained from my father or my husband.

5. Another indication that women are not treated as equal is the double standard.  I loath the statement "boys will be boys" because it means that boys are allowed to behave badly.  When my brothers did something to hurt me, they were not punished.  Instead, I was asked what I had done to provoke them or counseled on what I should do to avoid getting hurt in the future.  I learned self defense to protect myself from my own brothers.

6. Because I believe that discrimination of any kind is wrong, I take issue with the church's support of discriminatory laws or practices.  I understand the argument that the church has the right to deny membership to those who do not meet the standards set by the church and they are simply supporting those standards.  I claim the same right and will not support any organization that maintains practices that I believe are wrong.

I do love you and want you to love me and my little family.  It is my sincerest hope that while we may disagree about the church that we can love and respect each other.  That we can visit and have enjoyable conversations and that DS will get to know his grandparents for the loving and kind people they are.

A Letter to my Parents - Prologue

My mother is in the hospital.  She slipped and fell.  She will be alright but it's brought up a lot of conflicting feelings for me.

I have, over the last 20 years, hidden from her and my father my varying levels of disaffection with the Mormon church.  Anytime I have tried to be honest with them about how I felt, it has been met with judgement and harsh words.  During the last few years my disaffection has turned to disbelief and I am now... gasp! ... an atheist.  I have not told my parents this and I'm so afraid of their reaction that I have not travelled to visit them during this time.  While I'm afraid of them saying cruel things to me, I am more afraid of how they will make my son feel.  He is still young and doesn't really know his grandparents.  He just like the idea of grandparents and wants to go see his.  What if we do go see my parents, they very quickly realize that he is being raised atheist and they freak out?  How is that going to affect him?  What if they go to extremes to try and "save" him from his parents?

With all of this concern weighing on me, I had a moment when I first learned of my mother's fall when a small part of me wished the fall were more serious.  If she passed, I would not have to face her judgement.  I would not have to explain to my son why his grandparents don't want to have anything to do with his parents or possibly even him.  Maybe it sounds heartless of me to think such a thing.  I am human and this pending conflict with my parents is something I wish I could avoid.  Unfortunately, the only way to avoid it is to not visit them until they have passed.  That isn't much better than telling them the truth and getting their response no matter how harsh.

With this in mind, I'm thinking of sending my parents a letter prior to visiting.  In the letter, I want to tell them that I no longer believe and ask them to respect my choices for how I live my life.  I also want to make it clear that if they do not respect my choices, I will be the one breaking off contact for I will not subject my son to their hatefulness.  The next posts will be portions or full drafts of that letter as I work through what I want to say and how I want to say it.  Regardless of how this ends, it will be good to be honest and take a step towards living without fear.