Used to be, I'd tell people I was embarrassed. That it was personal information and only I should have control over who knew. I'd pretend to be politely annoyed when someone else spilled the beans. But the truth is... I take pride in it. It's a big part of what makes me unique, an intriguing element of my past and my family. Without it, I'm just another middle-class white girl from the suburbs. It piques others' interest and lends me a magnetism I might otherwise lack.
I'm an ex-Mormon.
Dad comes from a long, long line of Latter-day Saints. We're talking way back, to the early nineteenth century, not too long after the church itself was founded. He met my mom, the daughter of converts, when they were missionaries in France and Belgium; they got married in the Los Angeles temple a couple of years later. They had some kids, including yours truly. And then things got complicated in the mid-Nineties and we stopped being Mormon.
The reasons are manifold and took many years to develop, and they're a story for another time. Suffice it to say, my family could no longer pretend that our social values were compatible with church doctrine or the community atmosphere. Being a mere pre-teen at the time, I wasn't privy to all the nuances of the process; all I knew was that I could sleep in on Sundays from that point on.
Okay, that's not quite fair. It was a big deal to me at the time, at least on some levels: I had never been especially devout, but for the most part, I thought church was okay. I had friends there, and I liked my Sunday school teachers; most of my memories are of benign boredom. The women wore pumps and floral dresses that neatly straddled the tasteful/tacky line, while the men had perfectly shined wingtips and dark ties. It was safe and familiar and I knew all the songs. ("We'll sing, and we'll shout, with the aaaarmies of heeeaveeen...!") But I could tell when my parents' attitude started changing--it was gradual, but tangible. Things started to feel a little bit uncomfortable and itchy, kind of like the wool stockings I had to wear. And mom started sporting pantsuits.
Something was definitely different.
Even back then, at the age of almost-twelve, my parents trusted me enough to make up my own mind. They made it perfectly clear that I could always go to church--they'd drive me, they'd make sure I saw my Mormon friends, they'd get me to after-church activities if I wanted to go. If I wanted to go. This was the first major life decision they had put in my hands, and I could tell it was a doozy. But it wasn't a hard choice: it meant that my weekends were suddenly freer and fuller than they had ever been before. I could go to Saturday-night sleepovers without complication; Sundays could be used to get homework or important television watching done; nobody got me up at ungodly* hours to brush my hair and find my mary-janes. It's hard for me to imagine many ordinary pre-teens picking any other option.
In some ways, giving me such autonomy saved my mom and dad a lot of grief. Although we lived in a moderately liberal town outside notoriously enlightened Boston, it was home to a truly significant LDS minority, and my folks took a great deal of flak. A few local kids said mean things to us--and their parents said things that were much, much worse. But whenever concerned Mormon matrons would call the house, asking me and my older sister (in hushed yet pained tones) if our wicked mother wouldn't let us go to church, we could honestly say that such wasn't the case. No, we don't need a ride. Thanks anyway. Buh-bye.
My parents lost a lot of friends during that time. Their consciences may have been clear, and a moral burden lifted from their shoulders, but I don't think their lives were particularly happy until we moved far away a few years later. And I can't thank them enough for that emotional sacrifice: I might've made a contented Mormon--though I doubt it--yet I don't think we all would have. Some of us would have rebelled later, on our own, and without the same support system. Such dramatic changes could tear a family apart, and we're so lucky that it made us that much closer. (I can't say the same for my extended relatives, but that's another matter.) We went through this huge ordeal together and came out stronger for it.
In what my folks consider an ironic postscript to the whole affair, I decided to double major in religious studies during my sophomore year of college. Erin? The totally un-spiritual, decidedly not-interested-in-belief daughter? The one who only went to church to play with her friends and eat Cheerios under the pews? Yup. And now I'm pursuing my Ph.D. in religion, too. Go figure.
*Pun intended?
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