in young women when the leaders would bring their babies in and pass them around and everyone would go gaga over holding them, i was definitely the one who in my mind was like, "can we please give the baby back to its mom and focus on the discussion here?"
i did babysit for families in the ward. a lot. there weren't a lot of YW and people were always saying how responsible and grown up i was. there were a lot of families i babysat for. i liked it. it was easy, i was good at it, and it was lucrative. but looking back, what i enjoyed was helping myself to a little of something good in the fridge. i enjoyed looking through their movies and picking out something to watch for when the kids were in bed. i enjoyed getting paid to sit around and watch movies at someone else's house. i knew how to be an authority figure but i honestly never, ever played with the kids. i thought it was really awkward and i knew i was bad at it. at the time i didn't even think about this, and didn't realize it was weird. i did not necessarily enjoy the actual watching and being with the kids the way some other girls would, when they would positively GUSH over them.
i am the oldest of my siblings, and the oldest on one side of my extended family and among the oldest on the other side. so this meant--yep--built in babysitter. and all around my family is a BIG family. growing up i enjoyed, again, not the being with the kids but the respect that came with being seen as responsible to a fault, dependable, and on a some-what grown up level. and i can't remember all the moments that led up to me realizing this, but i realized at some point that having spent all that time watching kids and with kids as a kid myself and then as a teenager, made me feel one thing very definitely: i did my time. while i was in college and i would find myself in family settings again i would always be thinking how much i didn't miss it. i LOVED being in college and being around all people my own age for the first time. i was suddenly aware of this odd feeling i was having, which was, at what point do i get to be an adult and do adult things and not spend time with kids? i chalked it up to being pissy and didn't think more about it.
so for a while after i got married i went through this phase where i thought babysitting my friends and family may have ruined me from having kids because i really, really was ready to just do adult things and finally, permanently, graduate to the adult table.
i went through this phase when i was a junior in high school when i would talk about how excited i was to be a mom. (weirdest socialization to give teenage or younger girls, but okay society.) i would go on and on to my high school boyfriend about it, which we both knew was weird because we also both knew even then that we would not stay together and end up having a family together. (i was also going on and on at this time about how excited i was to be married and finally have sex which was equally awkward because this guy was also not going to be my husband and we both knew it. so, take it for what you will.) around this time we watched a sex ed video in health and in my response paper i wrote all about how glad i was that it focused on families and the ability to have kids and how great that was.
then i went through this phase as like a freshman in college where i was convinced having kids was the worst/best thing because i would be bringing them into a scary, broken world and it is hard to be alive and i would be the cause of their being alive, but this phase was short.
then i got married and almost immediately we realized how terrified we were of having kids and that we were both realizing we didn't want them right away and it became this hilarious joke. then we got comfortable with that and started realizing we might not want them for a long time.
it wasn't until a few months ago when i was listening to this interview with kate kelly (must have been mormon stories, but i just don't remember) when she said that she and neil are childless by choice, and how they realized that neither of them had ever felt very strongly about having kids and they decided to dedicate their lives to other, worthwhile pursuits. before that moment, i had legitimately never fully thought about and understood that you could just choose not to have kids and that was that! there was nothing wrong with you and people felt that way and it was okay.
i once saw an interview with lily allen where she talked about how much she had wanted kids and how much her family meant to her. i've long admired how she talked about her kids privacy, etc., but i loved what she said this time. she talked about how her family wasn't really close-knit growing up and she didn't always know if they would be there for her. but when she sees her kids and her husband, she knows, "these are my people." that was the simplest and most beautiful way i have ever heard someone describe family. like, here is someone who really should have kids and really does a seriously kick ass job at it. and in that moment i also realized that i feel that--ardently--for my own immediate family but have never felt that way about having kids of my own.
i have never talked about this except with my husband and on here. it's a really weird way to feel and a hard decision to make. i have friends who are struggling to have kids. friends who can't wait to have kids. i have friends who are worried they'll never have the opportunity to have kids. i worry about them and think about it all the time, and it gives me a lot of pause and heartache to objectively think of myself sitting here like, "yeah it's just not for me." my mom once started a discussion about birth control with me by saying that she and my dad got pregnant "just from breathing on each other" (thanks mom?)--it was that easy for them. and if i inherited that, then who am i to be the woman that's like, "nah," when others pray and hope and wait and cry?
and now i am getting more sure and also getting ready to go to law school and put in the hours that my first job and that an eventual law career will require and wishing for a more permanent solution, but what if we change our minds? what if my family found out? i don't know if they would ever accept this; how easy would it be to go a permanent route and then cop out of telling our families, like, "oh, we just can't have kids"? how many of their private prayers and fasts and hopes would be wasted? what a lie to live. it would be so easy. and so bad. and is this in general a decision i would ever be at peace--with myself and with others--about?
there is a secret performance award at byu. from what i understand, byu (or maybe the church?) invites different departments at different times to give this award to someone.
well it was more than a year ago when i pulled up my pay stub for an upcoming paycheck and there was an extra $2500 on it. i thought it was obviously a mistake. no one had warned me about it. (it was our sexist-work-retreat big wig's fault that it happened this way, a fact that he never acknowledged, to me, at least, even though it was completely his fault.) for a few minutes i considered just not telling anyone. if they made a mistake and it came on my paycheck, it was mine, right? but what could happen if they found out and i hadn't said anything. i'd probably be fired.
so i asked my supervisor who quickly pulled in his supervisor and then i quickly found myself in big wig's office. he made a joke about how you can't get rich by working for the church and that he could be making more if he did the same thing somewhere else (i had to stop myself from saying "how about we switch salaries for the month and you can tell me if you think you don't get paid that much") but that every now and then they liked to thank employees for their superior work with this secret cash bonus. he told me not to tell anyone, not even my boss (too late) or my parents (yeah right).
we got the money right when we were about to move and the car was in the shop, and we didn't have enough for both. earlier in that office with my boss and his boss when they explained a little bit i started crying. i thanked them several times and then said as i was leaving, "i love you guys," which remains the single most embarrassing and emotionally irrational thing i have ever said.
over time i found out that it wasn't my boss who had nominated me (no surprise), it was his boss (who has always been good to me). it was supposed to be a secret from my boss, i'm sure, because he was also eligible. and man, if i had known that at the time i was sitting in his office crying i would have understood the look on his face.
we didn't see that much of the money because taxes (which is not something i ever complain about, but couldn't they have found a way to get us more than half of it..?) but oh, we needed that money. and at the same time, even on the day of, i felt sad about it. sad that i was getting a secret thank you instead of professional, public praise and a stamp of approval. sad that i had a bigger paycheck but maybe not a boss who thought i deserved it (we had already started to fall out at this time). like, instead of teaching me to fish they gave me a fish. i know that's not how i should feel about it, but today after all the praise and good things that came out of that period when i worked my ass off have gone, all i have left is a disenfranchised job that is laughably not intellectually (or any other way) fulfilling working for a man who thinks little of me.
if they thought i was that great, why couldn't they have offered me a better job.
well it was more than a year ago when i pulled up my pay stub for an upcoming paycheck and there was an extra $2500 on it. i thought it was obviously a mistake. no one had warned me about it. (it was our sexist-work-retreat big wig's fault that it happened this way, a fact that he never acknowledged, to me, at least, even though it was completely his fault.) for a few minutes i considered just not telling anyone. if they made a mistake and it came on my paycheck, it was mine, right? but what could happen if they found out and i hadn't said anything. i'd probably be fired.
so i asked my supervisor who quickly pulled in his supervisor and then i quickly found myself in big wig's office. he made a joke about how you can't get rich by working for the church and that he could be making more if he did the same thing somewhere else (i had to stop myself from saying "how about we switch salaries for the month and you can tell me if you think you don't get paid that much") but that every now and then they liked to thank employees for their superior work with this secret cash bonus. he told me not to tell anyone, not even my boss (too late) or my parents (yeah right).
we got the money right when we were about to move and the car was in the shop, and we didn't have enough for both. earlier in that office with my boss and his boss when they explained a little bit i started crying. i thanked them several times and then said as i was leaving, "i love you guys," which remains the single most embarrassing and emotionally irrational thing i have ever said.
over time i found out that it wasn't my boss who had nominated me (no surprise), it was his boss (who has always been good to me). it was supposed to be a secret from my boss, i'm sure, because he was also eligible. and man, if i had known that at the time i was sitting in his office crying i would have understood the look on his face.
we didn't see that much of the money because taxes (which is not something i ever complain about, but couldn't they have found a way to get us more than half of it..?) but oh, we needed that money. and at the same time, even on the day of, i felt sad about it. sad that i was getting a secret thank you instead of professional, public praise and a stamp of approval. sad that i had a bigger paycheck but maybe not a boss who thought i deserved it (we had already started to fall out at this time). like, instead of teaching me to fish they gave me a fish. i know that's not how i should feel about it, but today after all the praise and good things that came out of that period when i worked my ass off have gone, all i have left is a disenfranchised job that is laughably not intellectually (or any other way) fulfilling working for a man who thinks little of me.
if they thought i was that great, why couldn't they have offered me a better job.
sometimes i feel so strongly (like today, obviously) that if i just read the book of mormon, everything will be okay, i can figure out the church or at least figure out the gospel in such a way that i could do my thing and be a completely faithful member and live my life. i mean, this is a promise made not to mormon people but to the entire world: read the book, pray, experiment upon the word, and you will know that it's true.
BUT WAIT. there's more. if you do this and haven't received an answer, it doesn't mean the church isn't true. it means you have to keep waiting. OR. it means you already knew it was true silly! and eventually you will come full circle and see your failure to recognize this.
there is sarcasm coming in now but this is the biggest catch 22 for me. i can read the book of mormon to know if the church is true. fine good great. despite my potty mouth and my bad attitude and my defensiveness and irreverence, i am 100% willing to honestly do this and do everything right in order to find out if the church is true. but it just doesn't actually work like that, so i don't do it. but how do i know that if i haven't tried it (in my current state)? but if i do it and i don't get an answer, i can't say that i know the church isn't true because -see above-.
the idea of confirmation bias has both strengthened and weakened considerably my testimony. on the one hand, the idea of confirmation bias can be empowering because it essentially means we can teach ourselves to become what we want to become. take for example prayer. in the church they say prayer is a way of aligning our will to god's. i think this is a shitty and overused way of saying that by thinking about god and creating a communication with him/her/them in our mind, we make ourselves more aware of all the moral situations in our lives and are more conscious of how we should do good. so we think god is answering us but we're really answering ourselves based on what we know about god, even if that knowledge is limited, and therefore become more like him/her/them. which is NOT the same thing as "waiting for an answer from god" in my mind. it is an ingenious tool given to faithful people that allows them to fix themselves. this is literally the same as "i teach them correct principles and they govern themselves," which is not something talked about enough in the church.
at the same time, i must admit that i'm not sure how a psychologist could believe in god. it seems to me that religion is humankind's greatest, most grand and destructive instance of confirmation bias. if someone is looking for "a reason" in their life and they want to find it, they will. this especially goes for people who do stupid, asinine things and hold on to traditions and insist that traditions are the gospel but they are missing the ENTIRE point. they have confirmation biased themselves--with good feelings (burning in the bosom, feeling the spirit), false pattern recognition or seeing good things happen because X equals Y, surrounding themselves with like-minded people--into believing that THEY ARE RIGHT. they have to defend these incorrect beliefs, and see it as 100% all or nothing, because if what they believe in is fallible then their guiding star doesn't actually exist and, essentially, their entire lives and every self-esteeming idea they have about themselves are in question and ultimately WRONG.
i don't mean to say that someone can confirmation bias themselves about god. no, not god. i've had experiences i can't deny, and i know god is real. (again, subjectivity of "knowing", but for me, it undeniable.) but one or two experiences that confirm the existence of god for me don't ACTUALLY say ANYTHING about the LDS church, especially when god was notably silent during my time as a believing mormon, most especially when i was trying hard to seek guidance, heed counsel, and listen to heaven (aka i didn't hear a thing). which major should i choose? what should i do with my life? should i marry this person? no answers to any of these, the biggest questions in life. at the time, i took this as a testimony strengthener and was willing to believe: the god i had faith in had faith in ME to choose my path. how empowering is that!
one of the biggest rules in literature and writing is that you have to focus on what the text ACTUALLY says. not what is implied or may or may not be true, but what is actually on the page. so even though i know god exists, it doesn't help me solve my faith crisis in this church because it's a completely logically valid idea that god could exist and the church could not be true.
so i have two choices:
1 - live the gospel and find out it's true (which could possibly be me convincing myself eventually) or else wait for an answer that it's true until the day i die.
2 - somehow give it up or transform it for myself and do what follows.
okay, i have three choices:
3 - go on living like this and have no idea the f about anything and pretending like everything is fine, acting mormon enough to get by.
at the beginning of my faith crisis i went with the "i've forgotten it's true" / "i already know it's true since i once knew it's true so i'm just being a bad person" route. but at what point does a person come out of that? if i can't seek to know if the church is true because i already knew it then how will i ever actually know it's true again, won't i just be convincing myself based on a memory (oh and by the way memories are completely subjective and unreliable)?
again, despite my potty mouth and my bad attitude and my defensiveness and irreverence, i am a person who's EXTREMELY willing to admit what i don't know a la neil degrasse tyson (polygamy, women in the church, all the other issues i don't need to list here) and embrace what i do know (or could know: that the church is true) and let that be enough. mormons and masons? no problem, it can fit in the gospel. science? (ok that is general, but you know what i mean) no problem. completely compatible with the LDS church. and on and on. but what do i do, as a person who is willing to be led, when the church won't lead me?
it seems the obvious answer is to say, "JUST GO FOR IT. if it's true, you'll know. stop worrying about this intellectual stuff and just try it. it's true. try it. just try it." but that, to me, is walking blindly and willingly into very potentially the bad kind of confirmation bias and saying that neither i nor god has any accountability or reason.
BUT WAIT. there's more. if you do this and haven't received an answer, it doesn't mean the church isn't true. it means you have to keep waiting. OR. it means you already knew it was true silly! and eventually you will come full circle and see your failure to recognize this.
there is sarcasm coming in now but this is the biggest catch 22 for me. i can read the book of mormon to know if the church is true. fine good great. despite my potty mouth and my bad attitude and my defensiveness and irreverence, i am 100% willing to honestly do this and do everything right in order to find out if the church is true. but it just doesn't actually work like that, so i don't do it. but how do i know that if i haven't tried it (in my current state)? but if i do it and i don't get an answer, i can't say that i know the church isn't true because -see above-.
the idea of confirmation bias has both strengthened and weakened considerably my testimony. on the one hand, the idea of confirmation bias can be empowering because it essentially means we can teach ourselves to become what we want to become. take for example prayer. in the church they say prayer is a way of aligning our will to god's. i think this is a shitty and overused way of saying that by thinking about god and creating a communication with him/her/them in our mind, we make ourselves more aware of all the moral situations in our lives and are more conscious of how we should do good. so we think god is answering us but we're really answering ourselves based on what we know about god, even if that knowledge is limited, and therefore become more like him/her/them. which is NOT the same thing as "waiting for an answer from god" in my mind. it is an ingenious tool given to faithful people that allows them to fix themselves. this is literally the same as "i teach them correct principles and they govern themselves," which is not something talked about enough in the church.
at the same time, i must admit that i'm not sure how a psychologist could believe in god. it seems to me that religion is humankind's greatest, most grand and destructive instance of confirmation bias. if someone is looking for "a reason" in their life and they want to find it, they will. this especially goes for people who do stupid, asinine things and hold on to traditions and insist that traditions are the gospel but they are missing the ENTIRE point. they have confirmation biased themselves--with good feelings (burning in the bosom, feeling the spirit), false pattern recognition or seeing good things happen because X equals Y, surrounding themselves with like-minded people--into believing that THEY ARE RIGHT. they have to defend these incorrect beliefs, and see it as 100% all or nothing, because if what they believe in is fallible then their guiding star doesn't actually exist and, essentially, their entire lives and every self-esteeming idea they have about themselves are in question and ultimately WRONG.
i don't mean to say that someone can confirmation bias themselves about god. no, not god. i've had experiences i can't deny, and i know god is real. (again, subjectivity of "knowing", but for me, it undeniable.) but one or two experiences that confirm the existence of god for me don't ACTUALLY say ANYTHING about the LDS church, especially when god was notably silent during my time as a believing mormon, most especially when i was trying hard to seek guidance, heed counsel, and listen to heaven (aka i didn't hear a thing). which major should i choose? what should i do with my life? should i marry this person? no answers to any of these, the biggest questions in life. at the time, i took this as a testimony strengthener and was willing to believe: the god i had faith in had faith in ME to choose my path. how empowering is that!
one of the biggest rules in literature and writing is that you have to focus on what the text ACTUALLY says. not what is implied or may or may not be true, but what is actually on the page. so even though i know god exists, it doesn't help me solve my faith crisis in this church because it's a completely logically valid idea that god could exist and the church could not be true.
so i have two choices:
1 - live the gospel and find out it's true (which could possibly be me convincing myself eventually) or else wait for an answer that it's true until the day i die.
2 - somehow give it up or transform it for myself and do what follows.
okay, i have three choices:
3 - go on living like this and have no idea the f about anything and pretending like everything is fine, acting mormon enough to get by.
at the beginning of my faith crisis i went with the "i've forgotten it's true" / "i already know it's true since i once knew it's true so i'm just being a bad person" route. but at what point does a person come out of that? if i can't seek to know if the church is true because i already knew it then how will i ever actually know it's true again, won't i just be convincing myself based on a memory (oh and by the way memories are completely subjective and unreliable)?
again, despite my potty mouth and my bad attitude and my defensiveness and irreverence, i am a person who's EXTREMELY willing to admit what i don't know a la neil degrasse tyson (polygamy, women in the church, all the other issues i don't need to list here) and embrace what i do know (or could know: that the church is true) and let that be enough. mormons and masons? no problem, it can fit in the gospel. science? (ok that is general, but you know what i mean) no problem. completely compatible with the LDS church. and on and on. but what do i do, as a person who is willing to be led, when the church won't lead me?
it seems the obvious answer is to say, "JUST GO FOR IT. if it's true, you'll know. stop worrying about this intellectual stuff and just try it. it's true. try it. just try it." but that, to me, is walking blindly and willingly into very potentially the bad kind of confirmation bias and saying that neither i nor god has any accountability or reason.
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