clwnuke

Hi Jenn -
When I served 15 years ago, we had a pocket-sized rule book called the "Missionary Handbook" (informally called the "white bible", because its cover is white) that we were expected to keep with us at all times. I don't know if it's still used. The primary Mormon missionary training text now in use is a manual entitled "Preach My Gospel", which is online at https://www.lds.org/manual/preach-my-gospel-a-guide-to-missionary-service?lang=eng.
Re cash, gifts and expensive meals--I'm not aware of any church-wide policy about missionaries' accepting those kinds of things; but (speaking from experience) it is extremely rare to receive such things; though modestly-priced meals or groceries are somewhat common. I can see *one* extravagant meal or reasonably-priced gift as a going-away present, maybe; but on a recurring basis--or, where a male is giving jewelry to a female--it seems more problematic. And IMHO it is totally out of line for a missionary to solicit any pecuniary assistance or gift at all.
The situation could be totally innocent--maybe your dad is just very generous and the missionaries, being young girls, are too inexperienced to see the potential impropriety or don't quite know how to say "no". But it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to touch base with the "mission president" in your region and let him know your concerns. Missionaries are warned ad nauseum that their behavior reflects on the church as a whole, and that they must avoid even the appearance of impropriety. The fact that you even have these concerns indicates that something needs to be fixed.

Blanket regulations should be used to provide actual protection to the children and legal protection to the ward. Ramping up the regulations because it is not fair to men unnecessarily ties the hands of those trying to run the programs.  On the other hand, if "two-deep leadership" is intended to optimize learning and provide actual protection to children, then great.  I've seen two statistics tossed out here.  One says 96% of those who prey on children are men.  If so, two-deep leadership seems needlessly burdensome.  The other said that 80% of the perps are men.  Now we're approaching an area where two-deep becomes a policy to consider.  If the male rate goes to 75% or lower, I'd contend for two leaders per class.  Of course, my view gets tossed out of local laws are specific.

The question of whether the church would be legally negligent, absolutely is calculated based on what the church (and specific ward) knew about any need for protection before it took place.
 
But I think the reason why this is required of men is not just because they are men, and most pedophilia is by men (not all, 2000 study put 12% women for under 6 years, and 6% 6-12, with 19%  non-relatives).    It is also because in the church men hold the priesthood and some members (and a lot of non-members) think that gives them more righteousness or more authority meaning a child might be more willing to do what they suggested rather than to scream bloody murder.   And it is because men are more likely to be falsely accused such that they need the protection of 2 deep leadership (BSA is materially different in my view because they are going away from a building into the wilderness or outside activities and on overnight things.)
 
I think the counsel is not just to eliminate all possibilties, but also to protect men who serve in teh church.
 
I would not change the handbook.

Cost/benefit wasn't a reasonable defense for Ford against the Pinto memo.

I've been trying to organize my thoughts about this subject and I am still not sure I am going to be articulate, but.....
 
 
What I am gathering from this thread is that the church and most members of this thread feel that it's necessary to have two-deep leadership only when those leaders are male, and in order to prevent sexual assault because statistics show that the majority of sexual crimes are perpetrated by men.  And that this policy is not necessary when the leaders are female because...well, gee golly gosh...women sometimes commit sexual crimes but since it's less often than men...nope, no need to worry at all.
 
On the face of it, it doesn't appear very balanced.  We assume every male teaching in Primary is a potential pedophile?  And we assume no woman ever is?
 
I have actually in my personal/professional/volunteer life have unfortunately encountered situations in which the perpetrator was a female.   A female babysitter.  A female teacher.  Just a couple of examples.
 
If the concern is to protect the Primary children from sexual assault, why distinguish between the two sexes?  What level of risk does there have to be before it's considered risky enough?  Sexual assault by a female is going to be just as damaging to the child.  And if we are reducing the risk from males, is the risk from females even higher because we think nothing of leaving our children alone with a female, so that situation happens in a child's life far more frequently than being left alone with a male.  And for most people, the thought of sexual assault from a woman doesn't even enter their minds, so they aren't looking for any warning signs as they would with a male, and they aren't picking up on the signs after the assault has happened.  Because they left their child with a woman and therefore they must be safe, right?
 
I babysat a lot as a teenager.  It's how I made my spending money.  But any teenage guy who wanted to babysit was looked at with suspicion.  Yet I am aware of a female babysitter in that town and era who did molest her charges.  Were these children at less risk because she was a woman?
 
I can understand two-deep leadership with males from a liability point of view.  If you have two adults in the room, you have a witness for those occasions like the one mentioned above where the child makes a false claim.  (And of course this policy works at all ages, so you don't have the random crackpot who accuses the bishop, teacher, pastor, etc of inappropriate conduct).  If that is part of the reasoning, I don't necessarily disagree with that.  But - again - I have to ask - why the idea that the same approach is irrelevant when it comes to female leadership?
 
It's like any kind of statistic.  My doc can tell me there is a less than 1% chance that X scary thing will happen.  But then when I get that diagnosis - and I am part of that less than 1% - I am not any less sick than if the chances had been greater.
 
The child who is sexually assaulted by a female is not somehow less damaged because the initial odds were so low as to be dismissed by the church (and others) as too insignificant to worry about.
 
Sexual assault is a terrible, terrible thing to endure.  Especially for children.  The effects can be devastating.  Yes, victims can go on to have a happy, functional life.  But it's like the person who becomes a paraplegic after an accident.  You survive. You thrive.  You overcome.  But you still have legs that don't work. 
 
Yes, we can potentially go overboard in protecting our children.  I've seen this in other ways where parents go such extremes in protecting them from physical injury, for example, that the children are hardly living a normal life.
 
But if there are simple, reasonable ways that we can protect our children from the devastation of sexual assault, then we have an obligation to do so.
 
Is two-deep leadership across the board - regardless of the gender of the leadership - really so onerous as to be impossible to achieve? Are there no creative ways to address this?  And aside from the sexual assault aspect of it, I can think of a myriad of reasons to have more than one teacher/adult present when dealing with a classroom full of children. Plenty of things simply require an extra set of hands...potty breaks, falls, out of control kids....I'm surprised to hear that any adult is left alone to cope with a classroom full of kids.
 
Is the goal to protect our children from sexual assault by men only? It sure seems that way when the two-deep policy only applies to men.
 
 I'm with Backroads on this one. two-deep is simply a good policy across the board and shouldn't be used solely to protect against sexual assault by males.

Don't read too deep into what I posted.  I'm just citing the supporting statistic to someone's claim.
 
 
As for my opinion on two deep leadership for everybody- I don't know.  It's the same way car insurance works.  Men pay higher premiums even if they have never had an accident and I don't agree with that.
What it boils down to is risk.  I am okay with the current two-deep policy.

Haven't read all the comments, so, this is my response from the initial post.
 
I think the policy works as is. I think it's more preventative than not. So that's a step in the right direction. That said, I wouldn't be opposed to having the policy enforced for women, as well, but with statistics in mind - the more likely "risks" are covered.

Why does this feel reminiscent  of almost every experience I've ever had teaching primary. :)
 
Seems like there's always that one kid.
 

I suppose I can't see any numbers to justify Primary presidency checking in on solo males but not solo females. Is it so much extra work?
For the record, I believe the vast majority of men and women aren't going to even think about sexually abusing someone. 2-deep leadership is not about worst-first thinking, just a good idea.
On a separate note on the dangers of men and youth, the past two schools I've taught at have been in high-poverty areas. Male elementary school teachers were often requested than feared, the general idea being single moms wanting a positive male role model for their kids. This seems to be different than how male elementary teachers are sometimes treated in richer-area schools. So I like to see that as a positive for men's rights.

I am male, a High Priest, and I taught Primary for six years. Most years, I taught alone. Any time we had two deep, the lessons degraded not improved. I support the presidency monitoring and the doors to have windows, and classes combined when there is low attendance. But to double up for the sake of doubling would be a burden on everyone involved (including the children). Care should be given in select and monitor the teacher - male or female, to judge performance by talking with the parents of the children. This may sound like work, but not nearly as much as finding double teachers when it is hard enough to find one good, willing teacher.
 
Besides, perpetration of a crime isn't going to happen in the class. A child may be "groomed" in a class but it is up to the parent to monitor the relationship outside of class. They shouldn't be letting their children go off with a single member, in any case other then best friends who already have an established trusted relationship. 
 
Greatest calling ever! I wish I could have stayed in there 20 years.

There was an incident a few years ago in one my wards:
 
An investigator had a ~7 year old son who, frankly, was a terror.  He'd scream all during primary, cuss out and attack the teachers, and that was much better than how he treated his own mother.  He was assigned his own special teacher accompany him at all time.  One day, he ran out of Singing Time, and nearly made it to the 4-lane street by the time his special teacher and my friend (who was in the primary presidency) caught him.  They dragged him back, literally kicking and screaming, into the building, and put him in a classroom (so he couldn't bolt again).  One of the adults then went for more backup.  
 
The teacher had not even made it to the primary room when the kid's mom showed up at the classroom and started screaming about "how dare you leave my darling son all alone with any adult!" and threatening to sue the church.  The kid of course burst into tears, and played victiom about "they touched me and are treating me so badly".  Note: all adults involved here were female, and classroom had 2 open windows (to the hallway and the busy street), and he had been alone with the teacher for ~10 seconds.  
 
Ultimately, nothing happened legally as a result.  All the church adults wrote descriptions detailing the incident within an hour (precautionary), but mom/lawyer never contacted them.  
 
As much as a mess that incident was... I don't think a change of leadership policy would have changed any of it (he had 2-deep leadership).  Some people/circumstances are too extraneous to buffer yourself against anyone whom threatens to sue.  

Just_A_Guy, we did not double-staff our primary when I served in a Bishopric. That was not church policy at the time. But you deserve an answer as if it had been the policy, and that answer is that we would likely have not done so - we did not have the membership numbers in our ward in Georgia to support doing it.
 
However, I think we would have done something similar to what our little branch in New Jersey did years later: kept an open door policy for all classes and checked on them as the handbook currently allows.
 
I really do appreciate the challenges of two-deep leadership. I have a ward that has not been able to call me an assistant Scoutmaster for over two years because nobody will accept the calling. I serve as the 11 year-old Scout leader as well for the same reason. More than 90% of the time I have to rely on my own family members to provide two-deep leadership at meetings and outings.
 
It is not easy, but the statistics simply do not support the idea that men present "a clear and present danger to pre-pubescent children in Primary classes" and women do not. Neither presents a clear and present danger. I'm simply suggesting that it would be prudent to make our primary child protection policy a blanket policy like all other public and private institutions of which I am aware.
 
Gotta get to choir practice. Have a great Sabbath day :)

I would fully support it Clwnuke....

No, they haven't. That policy does not prevent a woman from sexually abusing kids when teaching by herself.

Somethings are simply ruined for all because of a few bad apples, this being a prime example.  You yourself may be the best parental figure in exsitance, but we need to safe guard against the 1 in 500 which is a bad apple-- the stakes are too high.    
 
Note: you don't see me arguing against 2-deep leadership for females as well.

But researchers estimate that less than 1% of adult men are potentially pedophiles, with the actual number likely being much less than 0.5% when you only consider children's age groups less than 14 years-old. So 99.5% of men are not a threat but that justifies singling men out? Would it not be wise to make sure ALL situations are safe?
 
My wife does a lot of babysitting at night to earn extra money. At times there are more jobs than she can handle so she often asks clients if our older daughters can help. I have also been volunteered several times, but my wife says clients freak out when she says I'm a man. The funny thing is that they trust her child care because she's a woman, but don't trust mine because I'm a man. However, the relevant facts are: 
 
1. I was raised changing sibling's diapers and babysitting kids in the ward, but my wife was a single child and didn't.
2. When we had our first child, my wife was overwhelmed and didn't know what to do. I did everything other than breastfeed - even getting up at night until they were toddlers.
3. We had six kids and I did just as much if not more diaper changing and caring for them.
4. My wife has always acknowledged my ability to relate to kids and turned to me when things got tough. 
 
So I find it funny that her clients "think" that they will be putting their children in harms way if they have me babysit.

Amen to the mental illness comments. As I mentioned, I grew up thinking that every troubled person could just pick themselves up by their bootstraps. Then my firstborn wonderchild who entered BYU on a full scholarship at 15 years old gets two years into college with straight A's and I receive a call from his roommates telling me something is wrong. We arrived at college to find a completely different person - adolescent onset depression entered my life through my son. I foolishly tried to talk him through getting his act together for almost two years growing increasingly frustrated with his "lazy" and "disingenuous" efforts to fix his problems. 
 
Then, one of my teenage nieces who was living with our family after having been on the streets, and whose behavior was a constant up and down from playful kid to wicked satan child, suddenly has a seizure. My older brother had epilepsy so I was very familiar with how to deal with this. We took her to the doctor the next week and he prescribed Lamictal for her seizures. She starts taking it daily and guess what happens?  Her behavior levels out like a perfect child. It turns out she is bi-polar. A light bulb went off in my head! Mental illness is very, very real. There are many forms of mental illness, but the common characteristic is that good information goes in, does not get processed properly, and undesirable behaviors and decisions result.
 
Since that time I have had to change my whole philosophy on how to work with God's children. The brain has many different channels for processing information. These channels can operate at the same time and is the source of much of our personal hypocrisy. When it comes to viewing human sexual behavior (most of which is fake acting) the brain's multiple channels are affected on many levels. One channel may sincerely desire to live a chaste life and to be faithful to one's spouse, while a different brain channel is relentlessly wanting to stimulate itself with pornography, and through it all hormones are inhibiting clear thinking as they are rightly designed to do.
 
The processes are simultaneous and result in tremendous guilt and shame since we have been taught that "good" people don't desire to view these images. Isn't this the typical situation for couples dealing with pornography?  One spouse feeling pain and frustration due to a pornography habit they can't shake, and the other spouse working hard every day to "make sure" that the offending spouse feels incredible pain and frustration for their sins. It's a recipe for failure all around - just as my two years of trying to change my son's depression was also a complete and utter failure.
 
My son is doing better now, but the real success story is how I've changed. How I've stopped wanting to be the judge of those around me and how I now love them no matter what their challenges have been. Personally I don't care about a person's sins anymore. I care about helping them reach a happier state and I adapt my work to their level. In the process I'm the one who benefits the most. I also see my own spouse in a much more loving way now. We see ourselves as a much more wonderful couple now - even with all of our personal flaws and weaknesses.
 
Is it possible to completely love a viewer of pornography as you work toward a solution? Of course it is. Just as it is possible to completely love somebody who recklessly participates in sexual relations outside of marriage. But it does take a whole new loving approach to the problem.

flygirl, I want to ask you some questions but I want to tell you a little about my experience so you don't think I've fallen off the spiritual cliff. I was one of six kids in an active LDS family. My dad was a mechanic and my mom stayed at home, but she was college educated and had taught college courses prior to having children. For some reason we had a multi-volume medical encyclopedia set in addition to many other good books in our home and so I grew up knowing more about anatomy, biology, and sexuality than most kids. My teachers had no idea how much I knew about bodies and I always found it condescending when they would try to "hide" knowledge from me. My very shy mother did not do this. She always answered my questions in a plain straightforward manner.
 
Over the years and having raised six kids of my own (two sons and four daughters) I have learned that truth conquers error, but sometimes you have to search very hard to find the truth as to why people actually behave in certain ways. Whether part of it is the God-given biology that people are endowed with, or one's upbringing or thought processes, we often need to look beyond the black-white good-bad analogies and find more meaningful and targeted solutions. I'm a nuclear engineer and physicist by trade so I believe that easy explanations for complex subjects like pornography will leave your search for answers very empty.
 
The extent of the pornography problem in society and even in the church, and the ineffectiveness of the simple "stop" solutions that we often turn to serves as evidence that simply feeling hurt and mad at your spouse is not the way. I have children with depression, I used to think people with depression could just think themselves out of the problem. They can't. They need non-judgmental love, understanding, and help. And they need it forever. I have a cousin who has struggled with substance (alcohol and drugs) abuse. I used to think addicts could just stop. Many can't. They need non-judgmental love, understanding, and help. And they need it forever. 
 
That being said, now let me ask - how many times have you sat down and just discussed with your husband in an exploratory and non-judgmental way what he finds interesting about human bodies and sexuality? No decisions to change, just learning about every thought process he goes through, why, when, and where. That is where I think you need to start.
 
Go back to day one. Instead of having your world collapse when you learned that your husband liked viewing pornography, what if you had simply said, "Oh, that is a challenging problem. I love you and want to help you in any way I can. Would you be willing to talk to me about this?"  and then sat and listened, for months or more if necessary. Would opening up those communication channels in a much broader way have helped lay a foundation of trust and love to deal with the issue rather than hurt and frustration? 
 
It's just some of my thoughts. I don't know if they help, but I pray for you both to find a way to put sexuality in it's proper context within your temple marriage. Feel free to ask more questions as you search for help and answers.

If you are talking about a mind that functions normally, yes, but a mind that doesn't have normal function due to genetics or damage is a whole different story.  A sighted person can pretend to be blind and then decided to stop doing that, but a blind person can't just decide to see.

And what happens when that ability to rewire itself is impaired? You are making the mistake of thinking in terms of a what a normally functioning brain does.  My two oldest kids have mental health issues and I can assure you it has nothing to do with decisions or upbringing.  Both of them were raised with love and kindness in a gospel home, both of them showed symptoms at a very early age.  My daughter has anxiety disorder and it was clear from day one that she was a deeply worried baby.  Even when I gave her a name and blessing I was prompted to reassure her that things were OK. 
A person's decisions or upbringing can make a mental health issue worse than it has to be, or damage a healthy mind, but once in that state you can't cure it by making good decisions.  Often those bad decisions are a symptom of the mental health issue, not the cause.  My oldest daughter is fully active in the church, just got her endowments, has her own apartment and is getting straight A's in college. She put her papers in to serve a mission but mental health condition lead to her being denied.  She expected that but hoped she would get to go.  She has to control her environment and avoid the kinds of things she knows will trigger her anxieties.  Without doing that and having proper treatment she would not be able to do what she is doing no matter what else is in her favor.
 

Amen to the mental illness comments. As I mentioned, I grew up thinking that every troubled person could just pick themselves up by their bootstraps. Then my firstborn wonderchild who entered BYU on a full scholarship at 15 years old gets two years into college with straight A's and I receive a call from his roommates telling me something is wrong. We arrived at college to find a completely different person - adolescent onset depression entered my life through my son. I foolishly tried to talk him through getting his act together for almost two years growing increasingly frustrated with his "lazy" and "disingenuous" efforts to fix his problems. 
 
Then, one of my teenage nieces who was living with our family after having been on the streets, and whose behavior was a constant up and down from playful kid to wicked satan child, suddenly has a seizure. My older brother had epilepsy so I was very familiar with how to deal with this. We took her to the doctor the next week and he prescribed Lamictal for her seizures. She starts taking it daily and guess what happens?  Her behavior levels out like a perfect child. It turns out she is bi-polar. A light bulb went off in my head! Mental illness is very, very real. There are many forms of mental illness, but the common characteristic is that good information goes in, does not get processed properly, and undesirable behaviors and decisions result.
 
Since that time I have had to change my whole philosophy on how to work with God's children. The brain has many different channels for processing information. These channels can operate at the same time and is the source of much of our personal hypocrisy. When it comes to viewing human sexual behavior (most of which is fake acting) the brain's multiple channels are affected on many levels. One channel may sincerely desire to live a chaste life and to be faithful to one's spouse, while a different brain channel is relentlessly wanting to stimulate itself with pornography, and through it all hormones are inhibiting clear thinking as they are rightly designed to do.
 
The processes are simultaneous and result in tremendous guilt and shame since we have been taught that "good" people don't desire to view these images. Isn't this the typical situation for couples dealing with pornography?  One spouse feeling pain and frustration due to a pornography habit they can't shake, and the other spouse working hard every day to "make sure" that the offending spouse feels incredible pain and frustration for their sins. It's a recipe for failure all around - just as my two years of trying to change my son's depression was also a complete and utter failure.
 
My son is doing better now, but the real success story is how I've changed. How I've stopped wanting to be the judge of those around me and how I now love them no matter what their challenges have been. Personally I don't care about a person's sins anymore. I care about helping them reach a happier state and I adapt my work to their level. In the process I'm the one who benefits the most. I also see my own spouse in a much more loving way now. We see ourselves as a much more wonderful couple now - even with all of our personal flaws and weaknesses.
 
Is it possible to completely love a viewer of pornography as you work toward a solution? Of course it is. Just as it is possible to completely love somebody who recklessly participates in sexual relations outside of marriage. But it does take a whole new loving approach to the problem.

When it comes to mental illnesses and at least some addictions, people tend to think of them as 'software problems' where a person can just decide to not be like that any longer.  In reality there is often a 'hardware problem' where the person's ability to control that aspect of their life is dysfunctional.  It's like telling somebody with fever to just chill out or a blind person to look harder.

I have wondered if such predictions are not just concerning the record in question but perhaps something to say about individuals present at the conference. I wonder if the prophesy is more about someone being translated than a specific time based on normal life expectancy. BTW – Jesus made a similar prediction about “this generation” not all passing away before the fulfillment of the last days – perhaps he was talking about the Apostle John and not a standard lifetime.

flygirl, I want to ask you some questions but I want to tell you a little about my experience so you don't think I've fallen off the spiritual cliff. I was one of six kids in an active LDS family. My dad was a mechanic and my mom stayed at home, but she was college educated and had taught college courses prior to having children. For some reason we had a multi-volume medical encyclopedia set in addition to many other good books in our home and so I grew up knowing more about anatomy, biology, and sexuality than most kids. My teachers had no idea how much I knew about bodies and I always found it condescending when they would try to "hide" knowledge from me. My very shy mother did not do this. She always answered my questions in a plain straightforward manner.
 
Over the years and having raised six kids of my own (two sons and four daughters) I have learned that truth conquers error, but sometimes you have to search very hard to find the truth as to why people actually behave in certain ways. Whether part of it is the God-given biology that people are endowed with, or one's upbringing or thought processes, we often need to look beyond the black-white good-bad analogies and find more meaningful and targeted solutions. I'm a nuclear engineer and physicist by trade so I believe that easy explanations for complex subjects like pornography will leave your search for answers very empty.
 
The extent of the pornography problem in society and even in the church, and the ineffectiveness of the simple "stop" solutions that we often turn to serves as evidence that simply feeling hurt and mad at your spouse is not the way. I have children with depression, I used to think people with depression could just think themselves out of the problem. They can't. They need non-judgmental love, understanding, and help. And they need it forever. I have a cousin who has struggled with substance (alcohol and drugs) abuse. I used to think addicts could just stop. Many can't. They need non-judgmental love, understanding, and help. And they need it forever. 
 
That being said, now let me ask - how many times have you sat down and just discussed with your husband in an exploratory and non-judgmental way what he finds interesting about human bodies and sexuality? No decisions to change, just learning about every thought process he goes through, why, when, and where. That is where I think you need to start.
 
Go back to day one. Instead of having your world collapse when you learned that your husband liked viewing pornography, what if you had simply said, "Oh, that is a challenging problem. I love you and want to help you in any way I can. Would you be willing to talk to me about this?"  and then sat and listened, for months or more if necessary. Would opening up those communication channels in a much broader way have helped lay a foundation of trust and love to deal with the issue rather than hurt and frustration? 
 
It's just some of my thoughts. I don't know if they help, but I pray for you both to find a way to put sexuality in it's proper context within your temple marriage. Feel free to ask more questions as you search for help and answers.