Looks like I'll be doing my "Home Study" after all...

[slavereeno]

One of DWs complaints about my faith crisis is that there is no viable alternative to the Mormon church. I have a difficult time arguing that because of the circumstantial evidence supporting her argument. One of the things that we both agree on is that we would like to continue to spend time together as a family and that we as parents still need to teach our kids to be good people and not outsource 100% of that teaching. So FHE basically.

So the next question is what to teach? There are several places to go and study all the things the church is wrong about or to do a deep dive into church history but the post-mormon community has little to offer in the way of a positive replacement for what the church does offer, community, teaching guides, support system etc. Even if I don't like their stuff, and it gives me a rash, I don't have a replacement to offer up. I looked into some other churches early on in my FC, but didn't like any of them. It felt like out of the frying pan into the fire.

DW suggested that we do the "Come Follow Me" lesson and discuss it. She also offered that I didn't have to agree with, testify to, or even read things I didn't feel comfortable with. She also suggested that this would give us an opportunity to have a voice in this program that will be presented through seminary, mutual and church meetings anyway, since we are still 110% active.

I agreed, her argument seemed sound and I don't have anything else to offer.

Where the hell is the ex-mormon family home evening guide? (Maybe I should start one )

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

In my case I let my wife run it and I sit there passively. I have a "do no harm" policy regarding indoctrination. I won't stop it because I can't, but I won't be an active participant either.

[Linked]

I am finding I will likely be doing some form of "Come Follow Me" study as well, because DW and I are primary teachers and the lessons are based on the general "Come Follow Me" curriculum. It's actually a pretty good move by the church IMHO, it gets the different classes moving in the same direction. I would prefer to cut mormonism and religion in general out of my life personally, but that's not in the cards. One of the section headlines for the first week was "I can study the scriptures for myself" which is something I can get behind, so I tried to focus on that. My plan is to try to stay in the scriptures and avoid telling the kids what to think. The manuals are subtle in the way they tell you what to think though, using questions like: "How does knowing about your family history bless your family?" to guide your thinking. Maybe we could add a section "I can think of questions for myself".

As far as a non-mormon curriculum goes, that is up to you. I had a professor who reads "To Kill A Mockingbird" with his kids to teach ethics. I share things that I am learning with my kids as we drive places (things unrelated to mormonism, teaching what I know about mormonism wouldn't fly with DW). DW tries to read a lot with the kids. The church does offer a very structured program with clear results. Unfortunately it is hard to know how other methods work and their outcomes being totally surrounded by TBMs. That would be a valuable study for transitioning mormons; interview nevermo families with a range of outcomes and get an in-depth view of the way the kids were raised and what the outcomes were. It would be anecdotal without enough rigor or enough participants, but that's better than what I have now...

If you are in the Morcor then pulling your kids out of at least semi-regular activity in church can cause real damage by the community shunning they could receive. It's a real shame.

[Just This Guy]

Where the hell is the ex-mormon family home evening guide? (Maybe I should start one )

Let me know when you publish one. I'll buy a copy.


You could use Carl Sagan's Balogna Detection Kit as a basis of a secular lesson or two. Teach critical thinking skills under the guise of understanding online life. No need to even mention spirituality at all in the lesson.

[wtfluff]

Why not study "The Essays?" Seriously. It's "LDS-Inc. Approved" material.

As far as critical thinking skills / skepticism, watch Cosmos when it's "your turn" to teach. Or look into podcasts such as: "The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe" or "You are not so smart" and pick things from there to discuss. If nothing else, look into the "Science or Fiction" portion of "The Skeptic's Guide" and find some that interest you, and play the game with the kids (Or just listen to that portion of the podcast.)

[Reuben]

Where the hell is the ex-mormon family home evening guide? (Maybe I should start one )

We're starting something like this. There's no way in hell I would do it if my wife weren't on board, though.

Our first lesson (and only one so far) was about how the church teaches Mormons to encase themselves in a bubble that lets no negative ideas about the church into it. This results in a membership who is certain and proud, but always afraid of discovering that they're wrong. I told my kids about how that turns into aggression and pushes people who discover that they can't deny the negative ideas out of the church.

I was very, very empathetic to the church. I talked about how when I was a kid, I encased myself in a bubble to protect myself emotionally from bullying. (I was basically a narcissist until I was 20.) I talked about fear and shame. I talked about ways we filter information. I repeatedly made the point that some amount of filtering is healthy because of negativity bias. I said my objective is to help them have a good relationship with me (because it's hard to have a good relationship with someone you're afraid of) and to preserve their agency (because the most effective way to limit agency is to restrict information).

My next lesson might be on polygamy. I'm still planning.

I've decided the motto I'll write on the whiteboard before every lesson is NOBODY IS A CARTOON. The church makes cartoons of itself and its enemies. A lot of ex-Mormons make cartoons of themselves and the church. I'm tired of cartoons, and I want my kids to be skeptical of them.

[alas]

You can teach things like kindness, sharing, helping others, avoiding any addictive or harmful substance, proper nutrition, eat beef sparingly, respect for all God’s creations, stewardship of earth rather than exploitation of earth, and dozens of other NOM topics as major parts f traditional Mormon lessons. Just see how you can fit them in or write your own lessons.

I used advertisements on TV to teach my children critical thinking. I must have done a better job of the oldest two because they left the church before I did. What is the advertiser trying to make you believe? Is it true? Just ask questions that are age appropriate.

The other thing is use family outings to teach geology, zoology, and other great things about nature and during those teaching moments come age of earth and evolution. For example, the Grand Canyon is a great demonstration that the earth could not possibly be 6,000 years old. So is any other river valley.

[Dravin]

Where the hell is the ex-mormon family home evening guide? (Maybe I should start one )

One suggestion is to delve into philosophy. The great thing is you don't have to agree with what you are reading, if you want to disagree with say John Stuart Mill about Utilitarianism you can do so without fear of hellfire. Obviously if children are involved you don't necessarily want to insist everyone reads Leviathan and report back on their thoughts of social contract theory, but you can take a Philosophy 101 summary of a philosophical position and talk about it's merits. The important thing is not to agree, or disagree, but to analyze and think and approach morality in terms of "Why is something wrong or right?" rather than, "This is the list of correct actions, and that is the list of incorrect actions."

As mentioned by others I also like the idea of just making it generally educational. In addition to aforementioned geology, zoology, or other -ologies, you can also delve into practical skills. Say teach everyone in the family how to change a tire or bake a loaf of bread. By making it freeform you can also delegate and have someone choose something in their wheel house and lead the evening, so if Timmy likes baking he can teach everyone how to make bread, if Suzy likes cars and wants to teach everyone how to check the oil and change a tire let her lead. The idea being to just make it about improving and spending time together rather than trying to make it exclusively intellectual, spiritual, or philosophical.

[Anon70]

I was genuinely surprised when DH announced we’d be doing the home study beginning next week. I confirmed he would be running things. I plan to supplement with sources if I feel the information is lacking in detail or truth but otherwise be like FiveFinger and be pretty passive. My only hope is that this dies quickly because DH hasn’t ever consistently managed our family’s spiritual education ever without a lot of help, reminding, nudging and flat-out leading from me. It’s ironic that’s he’s the TBM and me, the one that really pushed all the Mormon habits, is mentally out.

[Red Ryder]

Well to be honest I had to sit through a home church session last night while the wife whittled away at her guilt induced sense of having to do this. I chose to participate like five finger. It went well but dragged on for too long.

Here's the thing though. The exmo boards and active exmo crowd are still stuck in trying to figure out how to live their life. The ones who have figured it out no long consider themselves exmo and participate on the boards. They are just normal people now.

Do you remember watching The Karate Kid movie and Daniel is painting the fence and waxing the car? Mr. Miyagi is teaching him skills but he's too busy complaining he isn't being taught anything. Only when Miyagi shows him does he realize he's learned how to fight.

Dumb analogy aside, I think we spend too much time focused on learning the church isn't what it claims to be and we dont focus enough on replacing and rebuilding the gap left by our old faith support system.

Ironically good moral values are inherently abundant outside of Mormonism. Find them isn't super difficult. Take your family to volunteer somewhere. Help those in need. Teach right and wrong without church language.

Mormonism was a framework that was easy to follow. Replacing Mormonism with other things takes time, effort, and a creative mind.

Step 1 is to "become indifferent"
Step 2 is to "figure out what you want to do"
Step 3 is to "go do it".
Step 4 is to repeat step 2 and 3 often.

[deacon blues]

To help kids, find some books from the library about Lincoln, Jefferson, Edison, Elanor Roosevelt, the Wright Brothers, etc.

[A New Name]

Try looking at the lesson's on By Common Consent . Lots of good info that can keep you engaged and make your wife think outside the box!

[slavereeno]

Thanks for all the suggestions! I looked at a few of these and intend to use many of them as resources as we have these discussions.

We did our first round tonight. It was pretty reasonable in the end.

We let the kids give impressions of the events leading up to the birth of Jesus. We talked about the naming of Jesus. I put out there that the name Jesus Christ is Greek and we only use it because the story was eventually written in Greek, and that NO ONE actually referred to Jesus as "Jesus Christ" until long after he was dead. So maybe, just maybe I planted a little seed for the next time they read that name in the BoM. (crossing fingers) We used the topic and stories to discuss how the participants may have felt and why they made the choices they did, I actually appreciated my kids' remarks. (My youngest is 12, so no little ones)

DW told the kids we won't always follow the manual an may go "off book" from time to time and that our study may not look like other families study and that is OK. We also stated that there may be different impressions and take-aways from individuals and that's ok too.

[Evil_Bert]

Good luck Slavereeno. My wife started an attempt at going over the Come Follow Me at FHE. I read the verses when it was my turn, but my kids weren't thrilled. I figure that this will last 3 - 4 weeks and then it will go by the wayside. Hopefully that is what happens with you. Life gets in the way and it is really easy to get out of the habit.

[Not Buying It]

Really - the only possible things to teach kids are the things that come from the Church, and in all the world there are no viable alternatives? If we don't teach them from Church manuals, what else could we possibly use? Nothing?

Sometimes the world of Mormonism is a small, shallow world, that has little comprehension or conception of the wealth of knowledge and wisdom that lies outside of it.

[jfro18]

Really - the only possible things to teach kids are the things that come from the Church, and in all the world there are no viable alternatives? If we don't teach them from Church manuals, what else could we possibly use? Nothing?

Sometimes the world of Mormonism is a small, shallow world, that has little comprehension or conception of the wealth of knowledge and wisdom that lies outside of it.

I hate this line of thinking -- the idea that you can't raise a good person without the church because there is just no way to do so otherwise. And then once someone is raised to be a nice person, they credit that solely to the church, again implying that without the church you would turn into some sort of awful person.

It's the old circular logic: It's true because Joseph was a prophet, Joseph was a prophet because it's true. (I know this is usually worded better, but you get the idea)

As for the wealth of wisdom outside of the church - that's just "so-called scholars" trying to lure us all away from the true word.

[Mormorrisey]

We had a chat about it, and I told the missus that I will take one lesson a month, and it will be from the essays. That caused some consternation, as it wasn't what we were SUPPOSED to be doing, according to Come Follow Me. I told her that it was pretty reasonable for me to only take one lesson a month, she and the brethren can have the other three to four. She reluctantly agreed, so I will report on how successful this went when it's my turn.

She had the first one, and I kept quiet for the most part. That's the safe play.

The only comment I made was about forgiveness - with a narcissistic parent, I've set the boundaries pretty clear, and everyone in the house agreed that forgiveness is important, but in the cases of abuse you simply don't allow the abuser to continue to abuse you. So the family gets it. A point I was also eager to make in Gospel Doctrine on Sunday. These people will never learn that blanket forgiveness fosters an environment for abusers, manipulators, sociopaths and the like to thrive. It's a problem.

But I have the feeling that like everything else Sis. M does, she'll be excited the first few weeks to ensure we are doing our church homework, and then it will just die, and we'll have just 2 hour church. So I'm just going to not worry a lot about it.

[FoundMyOwnWay]

I agree with many of the posters on this board. I am also looking for some outside resources, that would be helpful lesson topics and teaching ideas for the family. There have been some great ideas on this board, but it would require quite a bit of work to find my own books and new topics to teach good moral lessons each week. Really an exmormon FHE lesson manual covering the year is what I am looking for in outside resources, but haven't found something matching that yet. I'm sure there are great resources out there, momons are the only ones concerned about raising a family, I just haven't found what I'm looking for yet.

[Hagoth]

This just in: Mrs. Hagoth has suggested that for our home study we read Emily Pearson's Dancing With Crazy.

Here's Amazon's description:

Emily Pearson’s memoir Dancing With Crazy is the true story of her personal derailment, both horrifically and humorously demonstrating what happens when mindless obedience to religious authority supersedes plain old common sense. As a young Mormon girl Emily gave up her own personal power, relinquished the ability to think for herself and allowed herself to blow with a wind that carried her from studying scriptures in the Sunday School classes of correctly clothed, righteous descendants of Mormon pioneers, to studying porn on San Francisco’s Castro Street with her gay father and half naked drag queens, to drowning in depression in a stinky apartment in Hollywood, to puking in the toilet of a courting polygamist, to marrying her very own gay man in a Mormon Temple. After nearly losing her mind several times over, Emily disentangled herself from toxic and narcissistic personalities, walked away from a crippling religion and finally learned to think, act and live for herself.
Dancing With Crazy is both heartbreaking and heart warming – an inspiring story filled with religious fundamentalists, transvestites, AIDS, love, abuse, obsession, visions, sex, Satan and salvation.

I'm in.

[jfro18]

This just in: Mrs. Hagoth has suggested that for our home study we read Emily Pearson's Dancing With Crazy.

Wow... please return and report on that one. Perhaps you are going to end up having some massive breakthroughs with that description!