Let me start with a story:
I had been working for some time as a college instructor at a local college. While at lunch one day, one of my teaching colleagues found out I had been raised Mormon in Utah. She leaned in, her eyes bright with glee, and said, “I have to ask you: is it real?”
“Is what real?” I asked, suddenly worried she was asking about religion. I didn’t want to get into a deep religious talk on my lunch break.
“Is it real? What they write on those blogs? I mean, are they REALLY that happy?? Or is it all for show? I am just obsessed with Mormon Mommy Blogs. I can’t get enough of reading about their lives. And, part of it is because I am obsessed with knowing: is it REAL?”
I sat there and stared at her, dumbfounded. I said, “Maybe, for some, and not for others. I don’t know. It depends on the people, I suppose. I don’t know.”
Since her question, I have been thinking a lot about Mormon Mommy Blogs. Reading them makes me feel a combination of joy, horror, and nausea, largely because I am not convinced many of them really are entirely authentic. At the time my colleague asked me that question, I honestly didn’t know the answer. Now, I know what I should have said. The answer is probably not really. They think they are happy, and they are getting a lot from the community the church provides. But, from what I have known from both sides, they are probably not really anywhere near as happy as they seem to others around them.
Take, for instance, that Utah (Mormon capital) is the number one consumer nationwide of Prozac and other anti-depressants. It is also the number one consumer of porn. These are not statistics that suggest people are happy in their lives and relationships, not truly, deeply, or authentically so.
I am not an active member of the church anymore. In my opinion, it is difficult to be a member of the church and also to be authentically human with truly, deeply connected relationships. So, I consider myself a “Foremon” (as in, a former Mormon). I’m not perfect. I’m not always happy. I’m not deeply embedded in a religious community. I am searching, imperfect, hard-working, divorced, a single mother of an adopted son, and doing the best I can.
This, then, is my attempt to provide a much more realistic, human answer to what I consider the surreal, Stepford Wives world of Mormon Mommy Blogs: a Foremon Mommy Blog.
Take it or leave it, this is all I’ve got.
Little Cindy House 