Mormon fairy tales

One of the problems with Mormon culture is the pervasive use of fairy tales. You can see it popping up in lots of places, but where you see it the most is with the Young Women (the female teenagers). This is probably the most dangerous place it could be at, too.

The first place where I remember seeing it is in a popular (and adorable) Mormon movie called Charly (IMDB "Charly"). This movie is about Charly, a worldly woman who comes to Salt Lake City from New York City to escape deciding whether or not to accept the proposal of her boyfriend. Even though she's living with him, she's confused. In SLC, the first person she meets is Sam, who is an Eagle Scout and Return Missionary and he tucks in his polo shirt into his jeans and he is just waiting to teach this heathen how to pray. They go on a date, and she accuses him of believing in fairy tales, complete with a castle (the SLC temple). I guess he believes in fairy tales because he believes in this picture perfect idea of marriage and soul mates and etc. (I haven't watched the movie enough to be able to quote lines), while Charly is much more skeptical and pessimistic.

This reference to temple marriage as a fairy tale isn't that bad, though, because it's a criticism on the part of someone who is not LDS (at least her character isn't. I suspect that the actress is). It's more of a statement that LDS members believe in a more innocent, less messy, concept of love and marriage.

Church members must've taken this idea and run with it. I, personally, could not escape it when I was in the Young Women's program.

You start seeing crowns and princess references everywhere, like this picture that I got from a random blog. I think maybe the intent was to teach girls self-worth, something that I'm a big fan of. Girls should feel special and divine, like princesses. I believe they should feel exactly like the girl in The Little Princess by Frances Hodges Burnett.

The problem, for me, arrises with the "Remember who you are," part, conveniently starred for emphasis. Instead of being like, 'hey, don't let high school bullies and regular teenage insecurities get you down. You're great the way you are,' it becomes, 'hey, don't make bad choices because you're a better person than that.' To me, it feels more like a guilt trip than an esteem boost.

Then there's this wonderful picture to the right. This is a picture of an LDS temple somewhere, not sure which one. The idea of the slogan is supposed to be 'if you can't marry me in the temple, then I'm not going to even bother with you. So you better shape up, because I need a man.' So again, we're doing the guilt trip thing, except this time we're using our "womanly wiles" to try to "flirt to convert." Which is flat-out TERRIBLE.

The Church has always had a very strong emphasis on marrying someone who is LDS and someone who is temple-worthy. It makes sense that they would want you to marry someone with the same belief system as you, because not only can you produce lots of LDS babies, but it does also make life a lot easier when you can agree on something so huge. That part does make sense. The temple thing comes because a core part of LDS beliefs is getting sealed in the temple together. Okay, again, that works.

By why are we emphasizing this so strongly that we are teaching young girls to refuse to even consider a man of another faith? How wrong is that? There are PLENTY of good men who aren't LDS, and plenty of horrible ones who are LDS. Having this belief system and having a temple recommend does not automatically make you a good person, or a good husband.

So lots of leaders and teachers of the Church have created this culture of teaching girls that they are princesses in order to keep them in line. Other problems that are arising? For one, we are again pounding into young teenagers' heads that they should be thinking about marriage ALL OF THE TIME. I definitely experienced this personally. I was so convinced that I was going to marry the first boy that I kissed that I got way too intense way too quickly for this poor sixteen-year-old boy and scared him away.

Young LDS girls get it into their heads that they need to have the fairy tale ending. This cute graphic contains a quote made by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, who has one of the highest and most respected leadership positions in the LDS church. This is a cute and hopeful quote that girls take to heart, and instead of thinking 'I have so much divine potential. I should work hard at my religious studies, as well as other wholesome things, so that I can be happy in self-improvement,' they internalize junk like this into 'where is my prince to sweep me off of my feet?!?! As soon as some wonderful man says all the romantic things that actors say in chick flicks, then I can be fully happy in my life.' Marriage gets warped into something easy and only happy, instead of the reality that it is hard and takes work. True love becomes a race, instead of becoming a lucky part of life that will come along when it is meant to.

And for me, church activities became all about opportunities to talk to and look at boys, instead of a place where I could increase my faith and friendships.

Not to mention, historically, princesses were commodities that were basically "sold" away as a way of brokering peace with neighboring monarchies. They were expected to look good, produce heirs, and sew useless things. Is this archaic idea something we really want to ingrain into impressionable girls for the sake of a clever metaphor? I wouldn't think so.