I wish they’d regard raising a strong independent woman who knows her own mind and waited to get married until she found a man who would respect that about her as an accomplishment. But I’m still a heretic.

The killer thing for me is they don’t seem to realise how much their behaviour hurts their children. I went from being a total Daddy’s girl to flinching when he starts in on certain subjects, and mostly because one day he told me he regretted spending the money he used to raise me when I opposed him on something. He didn’t mean it, but he never apologised for it either. I went from believing in unconditional parental love to feeling like it had strings attached. Their perspective: That I’m merrily unrepentant and completely oblivious to how much I’ve hurt them, and that I’m constantly rubbing my unbelief in their face. My perspective: I walk on frickin’ eggshells, man, and I don’t get the same respect for just being honest about myself. They really do get befuddled, not seeing themselves as aggressors or disrespectful, and certainly not realising how they erode our trust in their unconditional love. It’s the pain from realising that being a non-believer is about as bad as if you were doing drugs or had deliberately hurt somebody, at least in the eyes of your parents. My parents still tell me they love me, but they’ve stopped telling me they’re proud of me. Sigh.

But if M. Young’s kid committed suicide, I imagine another beautiful post about how she’s waiting to see him in heaven, with an equally large chorus of well-wishers.

It’s so freakin’ sad. I just about can’t stand it. Ruin your kid’s life and get tons of applause; something is wrong here.

It isn’t necessarily bad or good (I personally have a different, more hands-off philosophy regarding moderation), but it just represents the different character of sites.

I can say that if I post under either of my two email addresses, even to this day, my comment will go into a black hole of moderation where it will never come out. BCCers will apologize and say, “Oh, I don’t know how that got there,” but really, excuses don’t really change the fact that I’m still on auto-mod.

Whatever.

Back to the topic at hand. Even though I disagree with Margaret (and it’s a dynamic I face to an extent with my parent), I think that “unconditional love” ends up being a kind of myth anyway. We have to understand that for Margaret and many other believers, the church has been incredible to them. Despite the hiccups and issues, the church has been the source of spiritual advancement and enlightenment, the gospel an anchor for values and happiness, and so on. So, it can seem like wishing the best for a child is to wish that they stay in the church. Sure, it’s easy for some one of us to say, “Well, one can be happy outside of the church…so one should be happy for their child if they are happy, healthy, and productive, not simply if they are in the church”…but as even we should know…the church is much more pervasive in mindsets.

So much for their statement on their Info and Contact page:

We seek truth, reason, and honesty with our perspectives on faith. However, BCC is a place of charitable discussion for everyone, including those who are not Mormon. We invite you to read past posts and join in the discussion.

…riiiight.