Mormon Teens linked via Kottke
By Jana on Oct 27, 2007
Kottke.org, one of the best-known blogs out there, links to an interview of two Mormon teens in Idaho. It’s funny and a wee bit sad to see how much these girls feel stifled by their religious culture….
An excerpt:
What is the craziest thing about Mormonism?
The craziest thing about Mormonism is the garbage that supposedly educated and intelligent people will believe. Take, for example, the concept of Patriarchal Blessings. There is an officer in every area of the Church who is known as the Patriarch. His job is to give Patriarchal Blessings. He lays his hands on his victims’ heads one at a time and tells their fortunes. These fortunes rarely come true, but that is the fault of the victims, not of the Patriarch. The problem — if the fortune and the reality fail to match– is that the victim sinned and denied himself or herself the promises of the blessing. The Patriarch also declares what tribe of Israel from which you descend. Usually they say the person is from the tribe of Ephraim, but once in a while one of the more senile Patriarchs blurts out a really obscure tribe. I’m supposed to be from the tribe of Dan, while everyone else in the history of my family has been from Ephraim. Some people might question whether or not my parents picked up the wrong baby at the hospital. I look just like my little sister except older, and our eight brothers look as much like us as males can look like females. No baby swap occurred. Neither did my mother have a fling with the Maytag repairman. She is what you would kindly refer to as frigid. She had 10 kids. It is therefore safe to assume that she has had sex exactly 10 times in her life. I know that all kids think this of their parents, but it is the gospel truth in my mother’s case.Why are Mormons so nice?
Mormons are nice?!?!?!?!? Where in hell are these nice Mormons? I’ve never met a nice Mormon over the age of 21 except for [Lucy Latter-Day Saint]’s mother, who doesn’t really count because she’s a convert. If they seem nice, it’s an act. They have ulterior motives.
I know it’s clichĂ©, but I think the only possible response is LOL!
Comment # 1 by C. L. Hanson | Oct 27, 2007 | Reply
Funny how one person can read something like this and see it reflecting negatively on their “stifling religious culture” and another person (me) can read it and see nothing more than immature kids being immature kids. Frustrated kids high on their own brilliance and individuality aren’t unique in the Mormon corridor and they’re not unique to the Mormon corridor.
Comment # 2 by Tom | Oct 27, 2007 | Reply
I said that _they_ were feeling stifled by their religious culture. My comment was that it was both funny and sad to see that. In my mind that’s different than my saying that their religious culture is stifling, n’est-ce pas?
Comment # 3 by Jana | Oct 27, 2007 | Reply
Sure. Sorry.
I don’t really see the humor in it, though. I mean, I guess it’s a little funny how kids can be so sure of themselves and how they feel the need to push back against anything and everything. And that’s also sad. It often causes more pain than it does good.
Comment # 4 by Tom | Oct 27, 2007 | Reply
I felt a lot like these girls when I was a snotty teenager who knew everything about everything, except I wasn’t so disrespectful. Then again, I didn’t have the outlets these girls have to run my mouth off about anything and everything. I got over it when I got out into the world and realized that not all Mormons were like the people I grew up with in my parents’ ward. I imagine these girls will too.
Comment # 5 by Villate | Oct 27, 2007 | Reply
Tom,
If nothing else, they expressed their frustration in a funny way. I don’t agree with everything they say. The coffee brownies incident is just disrespectful. But they feel frustrated and appear to be handling it with humor and in a generally harmless way.
Comment # 6 by Jonathan Blake | Oct 27, 2007 | Reply
I guess it depends on how much you find snottiness funny. I won’t argue that nobody should find it funny. Humor is in the eye of the beholder. You’re right that this kind of venting can be harmless, but it can also be very harmful to family relationships. Hopefully they’re just putting on a show and they aren’t really as disrespectful and spiteful as they come across. But if they are it could easily lead to real, lasting pain in their family. I’ve seen it plenty.
Comment # 7 by Tom | Oct 28, 2007 | Reply
These girls would feel right at home at some of the more “progessive” blogs I’ve come accross in the Bloggernacle. Actually, I smell a rat in these interviews; these are not the words of two typical Idaho teens. The interviews had too many social commentaries, snarky comments regarding Mormon culture, bitting satire and coached rebelliousness that focused on too many controversial aspects of the Church that most teens would not be bothered with.
Comment # 8 by Craig | Oct 28, 2007 | Reply
When you call their venting “snottiness”, it seems that you are dismissing their concerns as nothing more than immaturity. The other side of the story seems to be that these two teenagers are forced/coerced to participate in a religion that they obviously would choose not to, if given the chance. So I worry that forcing young adults - who should be perfectly capable of making their own choices regarding religion - are not given the opportunity to participate of their own free will. That, as much as these teenagers’ venting, will likely cause family pain that must be overcome in years to come.
I share many of their concerns about personal religious freedom and about how Mormonism is often practiced. While their ideas are clothed in characteristic teenage disrespect, I would like to believe that the ideas that I share with them are more than the product of immaturity. I guess it goes to show that the tone of a message will cause it to be rejected even though the content is valuable.
Comment # 9 by Jonathan Blake | Oct 28, 2007 | Reply
There may well be some things that these kids’ families are doing wrong that is rightly frustrating these kids. And I also think the Mormon corridor is pretty weird and unhealthy in some ways (I say this as a born-and-bred product of the Mormon corridor). I can understand frustration and venting. I don’t think those feelings are necessarily a product of immaturity. It’s the disrespect, spite, and contrarianism that are.
Comment # 10 by Tom | Oct 28, 2007 | Reply
Craig, I wondered that myself.
Comment # 11 by Jonathan Blake | Oct 28, 2007 | Reply
More sad than funny, IMO.
What good does a discussion like their’s have? This is my gripe with Blogs in general. Just set up straw men and knock them down. Why not have a meaningful discussion about tribe affiliation via patriarchal blessings instead?
Oh well.
Comment # 12 by Rick Jepson | Oct 28, 2007 | Reply
I read the “interviews” again, and I have no problem believing that these are in fact two teenage girls. Teenagers are pretty sophisticated (though these two don’t seem to be THAT sophisticated) and often express themselves well, especially against things they don’t like. They’ve obviously made these sorts of remarks before to each other, so they sound rehearsed. They probably bitch about their miserable, repressed lives and sucky families to each other all the time. I wouldn’t be surprised if their friendship is built on it. They’re not making any social commentary, they’re just trying to set themselves apart from the other kids they perceive as zombie sheep and let everyone know that they are NOT LIKE THEIR PARENTS. Take it from a former “cool kid,” being perceived as being like your parents is the worst possible fate for hipsters like these girls obviously want to be. The one girl’s commentary on her mother’s sex life strikes me as particularly exemplary of her superiority complex and desire not to be seen as like the rest of her family. They’re just a couple of punk kids who will no doubt leave home to go to the “state schools” of their dreams (and that will do them a lot more good than BYU ever will), come to understand things a lot better than they do now, and look back on their childish comments with a mixture of amusement and regret - if they don’t carry their rebellion too far and screw up their lives with foolish choices and behavior. SInce they’ve already reached the age of 16 or 17 without doing much more than tasting coffee (not even drinking it! Posers) and apparently fantasizing about having sex, I’d say chances are good that they will come to respect, if not love, their religious heritage. They may even come to appreciate the fact that their parents didn’t pay their way for their whole lives. Too bad their rants are preserved on the Web forever, though - like someone mentioned, putting those thoughts out there for all to see and read rather than keeping them private or between like-minded friends can be very harmful, since they tend to take on lives of their own.
Comment # 13 by Villate | Oct 28, 2007 | Reply
The problem here is not so much that two callow girls think aspects (or all) of Mormonism are absurd. The problem is that I suspect this has led them to lose sight of the very concept of the sacred.
And that shouldn’t happen until you’re at least thirty.
Comment # 14 by Thomas | Oct 29, 2007 | Reply
I don’t think they have lost sight of it so much as they never had it to begin with. They’re too cynical and self-absorbed. They may also be exaggerating their disdain in order to sound more detached than they really are. That’s why I suspect that with maturity and experience away from their insular community, they will develop an understanding of the religious and spiritual things they currently reject. The main concern I have for them, and for kids like them, is that their eagerness to rebel puts them in danger of experimenting with behaviors that can be destructive to them. Like I mentioned before, though, if they have gotten to this age and haven’t gotten in too much trouble, it’s likely that they won’t act out behaviorally, though they may continue to act out through words and thoughts and even some minor disobedience. Even in college, assuming they do “escape”, I think it’s unlikely they will take advantage of the many opportunities to wander into “forbidden paths” if they have not already done so - despite their protestations that they live in a police state and are constantly watched for signs of evildoing by parents and peers, if they can drive 35 miles or whatever to buy coffee (that still just cracks me up), they could buy drugs or have sex or see R-rated movies (another crack-up - that’s the worst thing they can think of to upset their parents?) if they really wanted to. If their small town and ward are like mine growing up, it’s the “good” kids who are actually out doing “bad” things, not the Jon Stewart disciples holed up in their rooms counting the ways they are better and smarter than everyone around them.
Comment # 15 by Villate | Oct 30, 2007 | Reply
I read the post over at kottke, and it seemed a little too staged. My guess is that these are 20-something disaffected Mormons - not teenage girls. But I could be wrong.
The comparison between Joseph Smith and Charles Manson, regardless of the speaker, really rankled. And that’s coming from a very, very liberal mormon.
Comment # 16 by andrew | Oct 30, 2007 | Reply
My thinking is that if a person is that aggressively irreverent, and so willing to mock things that others hold sacred — even if she no longer believes in their sacredness herself — she has shut her eyes to the whole concept of holiness.
In which case, there’s really no excuse not to be sucking the marrow out of physical existence. She ought to be doing a lot more than fantasizing about sex.
Comment # 17 by Thomas | Nov 1, 2007 | Reply
Thomas -
Exactly. I think the fact that they are NOT doing this is a good indication that they just haven’t developed a sense of the sacred. They’re cynical, not bitter. Cynicism often goes away with maturity and life experience (only to be replaced by a different type later, sometimes), but bitterness is a lot harder to root out.
Comment # 18 by Villate | Nov 2, 2007 | Reply
I wondered if these were really teenage girls too. “Pre-westward migration” isn’t really a phrase I’d expect to hear from a teenager. I used to teach high school, in southern Idaho, and unless things have changed an awful lot, I don’t think that these are just two cranky high school girls. “Pre-westward migration” is a phrase that would set off my plagiarism radar if I were reading something written by high school kids, and it’s even more fishy in a casual interview.
Comment # 19 by Paula | Nov 2, 2007 | Reply
I grew up in SouthEast Idaho, granted this was over 20 years ago and I never met anyone with such jagged opinions about the church . Believe what you want about the church and our role in it but when you become a lightening rod for your anti views that is when I have to draw then line. I too feel that this seemed a little too orchestrated.
Comment # 20 by Sfork | Nov 5, 2007 | Reply