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| Front Yard - Childhood Home |
My Confession of Childhood
I can’t help but feel a pang of remorse. I know my parents only wish was to share and instill in us something they valued more than anything else, their faith. Unfortunately, in their enthusiasm, they failed to offer any real choice.
I don’t blame them for that particular. Like many sects, Mormonism isn’t equipped to accommodate choice. It teaches you what to think but not necessarily how to think... it certainly frowns on questioning authority and rejects outright any divergent doctrine or ideas.
Within our family, I do believe my parents allowed us a certain level of spiritual autonomy but I can’t shake the belief that they only did that hoping our larger church community would act as the real pressuring agent to conform. They certainly did precious little to protect us from it. Instead, they counseled us to be obedient and embrace the ideology and communal responsibilities of our chosen religion.
As a youth, I saw what conflict and ostracism a questioning voice brought down upon my second sister. Don’t get me wrong, I do not believe she was any more clued in than the rest of us but she did effectively identify the injustice of our spiritual indoctrination. So I dealt with that impossible situation the only way I knew how... unconditional surrender. I didn’t fully accept this fact until recent adulthood.
Surrender is an awful thing. You might have had all the reason in the world to do it... it might have even been the best decision at the time given the alternatives... but after the fact, when the danger is past, it feels cheap, dirty, and indefensible. Inevitably, the victim defines their perpetrator the very same way.
“A university is not a political party, and an education is not an indoctrination.”
~ David Horowitz
