"The Sad Truth about Bullying at Church?"

[travioli]

An LDS article that totally misses the point; in fact I would say it makes an anti-point.
I don't know how far indoctrination will go in religion. I thought I'd seen some pretty messed up stuff... but then someone posted this article and it showed up in my Facebook feed. I live in the most concentrated LDS part of the United States; Utah. The amount of unacknowledged trauma in this state is overwhelming. So infuriating, so sad. 

http://ldsliving.com/story/76598-the-sad-truth-about-bullying-at-church

Myth: "Church is supposed to be a safe place for our children"
Fact: Church could arguably be the most destructive place for your child's development. Say goodbye to self-esteem, critical thinking, and a joy of existence--say hello mental health problems.

False Premise: Only children in your church (ward) can bully your children.

True Premise: The very act of taking your children to church is a very extreme form of bullying, because they are inculcated against any refuge-seeking, since their caregiver(s) are indoctrinated in the very system that abuses them.

Etc...You could tear apart this article for days.

Of course, the author is blind to how the fact that bringing your kids to church, (especially this breed of mormonism in Utah), is much worse damage than any peer-bully could do to her. And how could a mother be so unaware of this bullying? Oh yeah, by not having a real connection with her daughter in the first place--a connection to where the child would feel she had a secure base to assert herself in the face of bullies, let alone just telling her mom about the bullying. So you must ask...what are other reasons that the child doesn't just tell her mother about these awful events? I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say it's because the child knows, deep down, that her mom is a bully too.

Done.



 

[SMG.]

Hey Travoli,

 

I agree with some what to what you said. I grew up my whole life in the church as well, I even taught a bible study for two years. Although my background is Evangelical. I thought morality could only be defined with reference to God, and so when I read UPB it litterly killed who I was, not physically of course, but it was a total paradigm shift.

 

I do not remember being bullied as indocrination does not allways feel like being bullied especially when the community around you isn't mean, just perhaps distant. My recolection as a child was not the fear of hell so much as fear of nihilism. However if you do accept religous values and you are to willingly take abuse, you end up being the perfect target for sociopaths and bullies. I may be projecting but indoctrination does not necissarily feel like bulling.

[travioli]

Yeah, I mean indoctrination doesn't have the same immediate effects of say peer-bullying, because your entire environment is doing it; it's normalized. I agree with you. And maybe I'm using the term bully in other contexts as well, like using it to describe how parents are in a community that is emotionally distant towards their child, i.e. some sort of neglectful behavior.  

But yeah--maybe I mean bullying in a different degree or type. And for sure it doesn't feel the same to the child in the moment; I think that is due to indoctrination's detriments becoming a very internalized aspect of a child, rather than receiving detriments in an external, immediate source from say peer-bullying. Although, I still think it is as, (if not more/in different ways), harmful to a child's well being, even though it is harder to detect. 

[hannahbanana]

A very severe form of bullying happened to my brother when he was about 14ish, while he was at NCYC (National Catholic Youth Convention). He was beaten up by a group of boys at the conference because of how he looked, and because they knew he wouldn't fight back. When he went to the adult chaperone and told her about it, the chaperone did nothing and instead told him to "forgive and forget." After that, he never went back to church and denounced the religion.

But I think the point here is that even though those kids were bullies for beating him up, the chaperone was also just as bad for acknowledging that he experienced suffering, and then saying that it would be wrong for him to do anything about it. And it's that sort of thing that just reeks of indoctrination; forgive and forget, turn the other cheek, that sort of thing. Saying that to a young child can hurt a lot, because it isolates them from pain and injustices done to them, even makes them feel like it's wrong to feel bad when they are hurt by someone. I'd call that bullying.