How 2 parent?

[HaggisShuu]

Our first daughter is 5 months old now, and the time has gone by so quickly, it won't be long until she is walking and talking it feels like. Which has had me considering, how do I create a family environment, which fosters a desire to remain a member a Church? 

I've had a few faith wobbles, so for a time I was considering if I should teach the kids apologetics from a young age, but I think that would just cause resentment, and not a deep enough understanding of spiritual things to know the gospel is true, and just overall felt uninspired. So my wife and I have been discussing and we want to try and create our own "family culture" and 2 things my wife and I have done to work on that so far are:

1) Having a special "Family" set of scriptures. We've purchased a genuine leather quad combination, and in the front of it my wife and I have glued in a copy of a testimony we both wrote onto archival quality paper, as well as table for important family names and dates (such as date of birth, the dates of various ordinances etc.). The set of scriptures is to be a family record keeping tool, but also to be something symbolic of family unity in a way, as it'll be used for readings during special family events, like a baptism for example. Almost to send a message like "Oh, Dads got the family scriptures out, we'd better behave for this!!" 

The second thing we've done is write a "Family constitution", which is essentially just a set of rules and expectations which we all will try to follow. I've attached it in case you want to comment on it.

But most importantly, looking toward the future I'd just like to ask, what have you done that's worked? and what have you done that probably didn't work as well as you'd hoped?

 

If anybody is willing to share, I'd be grateful to hear and learn from your experiences,

Thanks.

The Family Constitution.docx

[NeuroTypical]

Dawwww 5 month old daughter!  Congratulations dad!

My advice:

As you go about raising your family, if you can't do it with an overabundance of love, don't do it.   If you have an overabundance of love for something that isn't in your constitution, do it. 

This thing will succeed or fail dependent on how aligned both you and your wife are.  And you can expect that both of you might see some of these things differently.  A rule that has worked well for us: "If you don't hear two yesses, it's a no".  Meaning: If there's anything on this list your wife isn't too excited about, it might not belong there.  And if there's something your wife keeps talking about that isn't on this list, maybe it ought to be.

I remember being all gung ho about stuff like this.  Eventually my wife had to grab me by both cheeks and shout "SHE'S FOUR!!" into my face.  I was a tad too gung ho at times.  My wife was right.

Your kids will teach you things as you are trying to teach them.   You will teach them things you didn't intend to teach.  Make sure you are more aligned to them, than any particular item or effort in this constitution.  It'll be great when it works.  When this or that effort fails, that's not a failure.  

Some of the items on your constitution might take, and some might take time.   If there's an important item here that meets resistance until someone is twelve, that's still not a failure. 

Good luck dad!

[HaggisShuu]

1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

Dawwww 5 month old daughter!  Congratulations dad!

My advice:

As you go about raising your family, if you can't do it with an overabundance of love, don't do it.   If you have an overabundance of love for something that isn't in your constitution, do it. 

This thing will succeed or fail dependent on how aligned both you and your wife are.  And you can expect that both of you might see some of these things differently.  A rule that has worked well for us: "If you don't hear two yesses, it's a no".  Meaning: If there's anything on this list your wife isn't too excited about, it might not belong there.  And if there's something your wife keeps talking about that isn't on this list, maybe it ought to be.

I remember being all gung ho about stuff like this.  Eventually my wife had to grab me by both cheeks and shout "SHE'S FOUR!!" into my face.  I was a tad too gung ho at times.  My wife was right.

Your kids will teach you things as you are trying to teach them.   You will teach them things you didn't intend to teach.  Make sure you are more aligned to them, than any particular item or effort in this constitution.  It'll be great when it works.  When this or that effort fails, that's not a failure.  

Some of the items on your constitution might take, and some might take time.   If there's an important item here that meets resistance until someone is twelve, that's still not a failure. 

Good luck dad!

We came up with the list together. 
I think the list we've came up with, if successful will allow for a good grounding in the gospel without being too overbearing. 
 

I think I'm like you in a way, as I could easily get carried away in trying to teach the kids the gospel constantly, I want them to learn, but want them to have a normal and enjoyable childhood as well! 
 

Looking at my Wife's mother, their parents weren't master theologians, but they had a happy and stable childhood, and I'm hoping if I can provide that, then that will be sufficient for the most part. 

[MrShorty]

10 hours ago, HaggisShuu said:

how do I create a family environment, which fosters a desire to remain a member a Church? 

My thoughts, for what little they are worth, as one whose children have all left the church, and who has been deconstructing/reconstructing faith for some years now.

1) "Certainty" has been a problem in my experience. The earliest stages of my "faith crisis" started decades ago as a bio-ag student at BYU within a decade of Elder McConkie's "Deadly Heresies" talk. My teenage years was heavily influenced by family and friends who agreed with Elder McConkie that evolution was a deadly heresy and that creationism (whether old or young) was certainly true. Naturally, my required evolution class shattered that sense of certainty, casting doubt on all those (including apostles like Elder McConkie) who claimed certainty in some of these truth claims. I've heard multiple people who deconstruct their faith who will say something like, "If I was wrong about X, that I thought I was so certain about, what else am I certain about that could be wrong?" I don't know how to do it, but I think there is value in figuring out how to balance certainty with epistemic humility. 

As part of this, I think there is value in not only talking about what we believe to be true, but also how we came to believe it. I have observed before that every "faith crisis" issue I have wrestled with really came down to "how and why do I/we believe that this is true."

2) I have a mixed relationship with Elder Corbridge's "Stand Forever" talk, but I generally accept that there is value in trying to identify core beliefs and values as distinguished from esoteric or inconsequentials. Patrick Mason once said that we LDS have sometimes packed too much into our "truth cart" (like Elder McConkie's insistence that anti-evolution was a core belief), and that has led to some people having a fragile faith. I think a resilient faith is able to identify core principles that have limited wiggle room for compromise, and less important principles where there is room for leniency. I think it will include the ability to shift beliefs between those categories without completely upsetting the truth cart.

Along those lines, I would suggest finding ways to model how you want to relate to people who put different things in their truth cart. It will help your kids to see how you relate to people with different beliefs. It can also allow them to see that, if they should ever find themselves believing something different than what Dad believes, they can still have a relationship with Dad.

3) "All or nothing" is another thing that has been a challenge for the resiliency of my faith. Richard Ostler said something interesting in a recent podcast episode I listened to. Some say that "cafeteria Mormonism" is a slippery slope out of the church, but maybe "cafeteria Mormonism" is also a slippery slope to staying in the church. I would suggest that learning how to find reason to stay engaged with the church even when you have doubts or even disbelieve some of what the church teaches is a valuable skill to learn. I find that too many people who leave the church leave because they discovered a few things they could no longer believe and decided that, if the church is wrong about X, then the entire enterprise must be wrong. To be fair, we have promoted some of this ourselves (reference, for example, Pres. Hinckley saying that Mormonism is either true or a fraud). I often wonder if more people would be able to stay in the church if they knew how to let some things go without rejecting the entirety of the church.

4) Sometimes it seems to me that we LDS get a little hung up on the church being "true" and fail to learn how to find the church to be good. Jared Halverson said something interesting in a recent podcast with Teryl Givens about how some people leave the church because they can no longer find anything "good" in the church. I think another valuable skill for retaining a desire to be engaged with the church is to learn how to see the good in the church in spite of any flaws or errors.
 

[HaggisShuu]

21 hours ago, MrShorty said:

My thoughts, for what little they are worth, as one whose children have all left the church, and who has been deconstructing/reconstructing faith for some years now.

1) "Certainty" has been a problem in my experience. The earliest stages of my "faith crisis" started decades ago as a bio-ag student at BYU within a decade of Elder McConkie's "Deadly Heresies" talk. My teenage years was heavily influenced by family and friends who agreed with Elder McConkie that evolution was a deadly heresy and that creationism (whether old or young) was certainly true. Naturally, my required evolution class shattered that sense of certainty, casting doubt on all those (including apostles like Elder McConkie) who claimed certainty in some of these truth claims. I've heard multiple people who deconstruct their faith who will say something like, "If I was wrong about X, that I thought I was so certain about, what else am I certain about that could be wrong?" I don't know how to do it, but I think there is value in figuring out how to balance certainty with epistemic humility. 

As part of this, I think there is value in not only talking about what we believe to be true, but also how we came to believe it. I have observed before that every "faith crisis" issue I have wrestled with really came down to "how and why do I/we believe that this is true."

2) I have a mixed relationship with Elder Corbridge's "Stand Forever" talk, but I generally accept that there is value in trying to identify core beliefs and values as distinguished from esoteric or inconsequentials. Patrick Mason once said that we LDS have sometimes packed too much into our "truth cart" (like Elder McConkie's insistence that anti-evolution was a core belief), and that has led to some people having a fragile faith. I think a resilient faith is able to identify core principles that have limited wiggle room for compromise, and less important principles where there is room for leniency. I think it will include the ability to shift beliefs between those categories without completely upsetting the truth cart.

Along those lines, I would suggest finding ways to model how you want to relate to people who put different things in their truth cart. It will help your kids to see how you relate to people with different beliefs. It can also allow them to see that, if they should ever find themselves believing something different than what Dad believes, they can still have a relationship with Dad.

3) "All or nothing" is another thing that has been a challenge for the resiliency of my faith. Richard Ostler said something interesting in a recent podcast episode I listened to. Some say that "cafeteria Mormonism" is a slippery slope out of the church, but maybe "cafeteria Mormonism" is also a slippery slope to staying in the church. I would suggest that learning how to find reason to stay engaged with the church even when you have doubts or even disbelieve some of what the church teaches is a valuable skill to learn. I find that too many people who leave the church leave because they discovered a few things they could no longer believe and decided that, if the church is wrong about X, then the entire enterprise must be wrong. To be fair, we have promoted some of this ourselves (reference, for example, Pres. Hinckley saying that Mormonism is either true or a fraud). I often wonder if more people would be able to stay in the church if they knew how to let some things go without rejecting the entirety of the church.

4) Sometimes it seems to me that we LDS get a little hung up on the church being "true" and fail to learn how to find the church to be good. Jared Halverson said something interesting in a recent podcast with Teryl Givens about how some people leave the church because they can no longer find anything "good" in the church. I think another valuable skill for retaining a desire to be engaged with the church is to learn how to see the good in the church in spite of any flaws or errors.
 

I sympathise with alot of this, reflecting on my own journey, I got engaged to my now wife about 6 months after my baptism. Not long after my baptism I started reading alot of anti-church material online, and the biggest thorn in my side was the book of Abraham. 
 

I didn't want to quit going to church because it would probably spell the end of my relationship, so for a time I just concluded that the Book of Abraham was not scripture, but everything else was, and that helped to stop me going insane. 

As my testimony matured I gave it some deeper consideration and more in depth study and prayer and I've had a spiritual experience confirming its truth. But, if I never had that experience and went the rest of my believing the book of Abraham was not inspired, I don't believe it would have that bad an eternal consequence for me. If that's the belief that kept me attached to the gospel, then it was worth it. I feel the same about polygamy deniers. While I think they are wrong, if that is what keeps them grounded in the restored gospel, then I think it's permissible (so long as they don't go round trying to convince others, because I think that it, along with my rejection of the book of Abraham could be spiritually harmful to others.) 

I think cafeteria mormonism is generally not a good thing to encourage the general membership to turn to, but if somebody is struggling, I think it can be a good stepping stone towards reactivation. 

Edited Wednesday at 08:56 PM by HaggisShuu