[Note: This is one of a series of posts about being single in the Mormon church. Here’s a link to the guest post invitation Here’s a link to the archive for this series.]
I recall a day when my Grade 4 class had a substitute teacher, Sister Jones, a member of my ward. Sister Jones was 50 or so, grey-haired and single. I remember her presence in the classroom as embarrassing. I talked to my mom that night and told her I didn’t want to be single when I was old, I wanted to be married. At 10, I already knew to fear singlehood.
I thought about that day when I passed my 29th birthday as single. Then 30. Then 31. At 33, I’ve eased up on church attendance. Being single in the church wasn’t the reason, but it certainly didn’t make my experience any easier.
Anecdote #1
Newly 31, I attended my local family ward. The first Sunday I saw a few acquaintances and long-lost friends, people I’d gone to seminary with, now wrangling 4 or more children in the overflow. I said a few hellos after sacrament meeting, then dutifully marched up to the front of the chapel to introduce myself to the bishopric. The first counsellor greeted me, quickly shook my hand, said he’d heard I was coming into the ward and that they’d have a calling for me soon. However, I noticed during our exchange that he avoided eye contact with me and seemed fidgety, even nervous.
“I’m sorry, what was your name?” I asked him, realizing he hadn’t introduced himself.
“Oh, Brother Smith,” he said, and walked away. I thought this was strange, but shrugged it off.
I attended the ward for a few more weeks with about the same level of interaction. To her credit, the person who took the most interest in me was the Relief Society president, although we only spoke over the phone due to her being out of town. By the fourth week, I assumed that invisibility was the way of the single in a family ward. But the next Sunday I brought my non-LDS boyfriend to church. After sacrament meeting we were surrounded by people, young couples mostly, introducing themselves and welcoming us into the ward. The bishop and that same counsellor greeted us with enthusiasm and were clearly disappointed to realize we were not a new married couple. After church, my boyfriend asked, “Are they usually so friendly?” I realized that no, they weren’t.
Anecdote #2
I sipped punch at my cousin’s mission farewell open house, chatting with a man maybe 15 — 20 years my senior. He worked in the same industry as I did, and we talked shop, enjoying a lively conversation about mutual acquaintances and experiences in the field. I knew he was married as he had mentioned his wife and children in passing during our 15 minute conversation. At one point he asked if my husband was at the party. I replied that I was unmarried. Within 15 seconds, he ended our conversation and moved across the room.
Anecdote #3
A Mid-Singles event attended by over 300 people. Gathering in the gym of the church, one of the organizers, a woman my age, was trying to split the crowd into groups for the evening’s activities. Also in the gym were the event’s chaperones, married couples from the host Stake. “Okay, everyone!” she shouted. “Split yourselves up and go stand by the grown-ups in each of the corners of the gym!” My jaw clenched at ‘grown-ups’. I’ll remind you this was a mid-singles event, ages 27 — 40.
Unfortunately, there are more anecdotes; mine are just a fraction. It’s a curious state, being a 30+ single in the LDS church. On an individual level, most people treat older singles in a perfectly normal fashion. We are, after all, human beings. But the ‘otherness’ is palpable and our religion is responsible in part for creating this stigma. Most activities and lessons focus on family, or more specifically, the ‘ideal’ nuclear family. In our doctrine, the highest level of exaltation requires a spouse. I don’t think that should change, but it’s ridiculous to gloss over a group of people for something beyond their control.
The plight of older singles has been discussedmany times around the bloggernacle; stories of infantilization, condescension, invisibility. Again, I realize it’s not like that for everyone; I have friends who have happily carved out niches for themselves in family wards. Although, is seems that most people who are successful are in wards with family or pre-existing friends.
But still I’m concerned. I’m particularly concerned about single women. (Likely because I am one.) In a culture where women are given the most power in roles defined by who they are attached to, mother and wife, single women are virtually powerless. Then add the proviso of only interacting with other women to ‘avoid the appearance of evil’. It can be demoralizing.
When pondering this topic, I recalled a comment on a blog post about the plight of singles. It’s an attitude I hope is not prevalent.
“But for the record, I agree that the church isn’t “friendly” towards singles in the sense that it validates singlehood, and I don’t think it should be. Marriage and family is a fundamental purpose of life and if someone is an exception to that, they have to understand that they’re an exception.”
Tough luck, singles. You’re an exception.
Ultimately, I fear that the only people who really care are the leadership who see singles (apparently) leaving the church in droves, and singles themselves. I wish that more rank and file members understood that excluding and ignoring single members is noticed, that ignoring single women for the sake of appearances sends a very clear and disturbing message. In a community with amazing outreach skills, with multiple activities and classes for all age groups, there could be an abundance of good works wrought within the community if singles were not seen as ‘exceptions’.
We can do better.
–Marta
[This is the first post in this series; See all the posts in this series here.]
As I’ve had a sort of “feminist awakening” I’ve realized just how bothered I am at how I felt as a 22 year old single woman. 22, for pete’s sake- we’re not talking “old maid” (a ridiculous notion either way). But I felt I was “of divine worth” because of the mother I could someday be, and the wife I could someday be, rather than the woman I was currently. In retrospect, it’s a shame, because I really was of worth, married or not. I don’t really feel like my worth has changed since I’ve got a ring on my finger and popped out two kids- oh, sure, my life situation has changed, but I’m still me. And the best parts of me were in play long before I got married- and many of those have nothing to do with wifehood/motherhood.
I missed out on years of my life because I was just waiting for “life” to start.
That blog comment you linked to is… disgusting. There’s no other words for it. You know what, marriage is great. But LIFE is great, and WE are as great as we want to be, no matter what our situation.
It was my experience as a bishop that opened my eyes to just how badly we serve single members. I’ve always cringed at “happy family” Primary songs, brcause even as a child in a stable home, I saw how many kids dropped their eyes and looked miserable at those saccharin sentiments… and how many prissy, smug looks were tossed their way. Today, though I married in my early twenties and have enjoyed over thirty years without death or divorce, my skin crawls every time I hear the words “the family” in church or, worse, General Conference. Maybe that is an overreaction, but this is not: In our laudable pursuit of the ideal, I do not think we realize just how many people we are subtly – and falsely – telling, “You don’t *entirely* belong. Not like the rest of us do.”
I never had any idea how many singles there were in the church, until I moved into my current ward. About half the adults in the ward are my age, and single. I’m 40 and have been married nearly 17 years. My life experience is so different from theirs.
What strikes me is the mindset of the “established” members of the ward. Our previous bishop said that he always thought of the singles as his “kids” and even though they were all grown-ups, they were just kids to him.
This to a group of people with Master’s degrees, PhDs, law degrees, every sort of accomplishment imaginable. One sister spent her free time in Africa building orphanages and schoolhouses. Another sister left the wart to go to Boston to work with homeless people. Most of the men have testimonies and knowledge of the church that puts mine to shame.
Yet they are “kids” to the leaders. I suspect this may be indicative of larger problems.
You mentioned two examples of men acting strangely to you when they came to know you were single. Is this a result of the paranoia in the Church regarding affairs, cheating spouses, and the like? I remember being at a wedding reception and running into a girl that I had met in Singles Ward and she was recently married. I congratulated her and we were catching up on life when she said she better get going before her husband gets worried. I’ve encountered this type of fear quite a few times and it saddens me that once people get married, a friendly conversation is given undertones of potential romance. Where’s the confidence that these people should have in one another? I think within family wards it’s the same kind of thing. Enjoyable conversation and then a realization you’re single and OH! gotta go, don’t want anyone around here thinking there’s a romantic interest, potentially being an affair. As the mormons put it, “An inappropriate relationship, conversation, etc.”. It’s a reaction built on insecurities and fears about the spoiling of a marriage, and one I find extremely sad. I wish there was more security in all these married’s relationships. But sadly, on the flip-side, affairs are something that do happen, and everyone would rather be safe than sorry.
Thanks for this series. It’s so hard putting in words how our doctrine can sometimes be harmful, not just our practices and culture.
Jenn, thank you thank you thank you for putting into words something I’ve slowly been realizing about myself. I’m 28, a returned missionary with a graduate degree and some international travel under my belt. I think I lead a pretty actualized life. But so many times I catch myself thinking about my worth in future terms and making plans for myself and my happiness based on when I’m married or when I have kids. We single people (and married people) in the church need to start looking at ourselves and others as people first.
One of the things that bothers me the most about the Church, and I hope it is mostly based on culture more than doctrine, is that the worth of women is only based on them being wives and mothers. I’m sure this applies, although to a much lesser degree, to men being husbands and fathers. Family life is a great, important goal, but it’s not the only one. Like Colleen said, we’re people first.
Also, I think this avoiding the appearance of evil thing gets way out of hand sometimes. Why should we focus so much on what other people think of us? It seems to be hinged on the idea that people are going to gossip.
I’ve always found it odd that the folks most likely to be telling mid- and older-singles how to live their lives and “hang in there” until they find spouses tend to be those men and women who married in their late teens/early twenties and never spent more than 1 year living alone.
And if this kind of perpetual, unending single-dom is the best we can offer LGB members, is it any wonder so many feel less-than-welcome and invisible in their wards and branches?
Who wants to live life knowing that they will be treated like teenagers until they die? With chaperones who are, perhaps, a generation younger than they are, with their only qualification being that they are currently married?
Kudos to those local leaders in PH and RS and Wards and Stakes who recognize that single people are fully adult and completely able and willing to contribute in many ways to the ward community, irrespective of marital status. AND who recognize that single people don’t necessarily want to be the ward babysitters and don’t automatically have more free time than married members (after all, single people have to do all the shopping, home maintenance, cooking and cleaning on their own and can’t divide and conquer the chores).
Single sisters are indeed marginalized, especially older singles. But try being a single gay male in the Church for a minute and you’ll discover something even worse.
I never felt like I fit in as a single in the Church, even at my most faithful. It even created some self-esteem issues as I was pitied by the married members and completely ignored by men (none of whom I was pursuing or even attracted to) who weren’t in the bishopric. The dynamic created by a church that idolizes early marriage leaves no place for a woman who doesn’t get married young. And the social awkwardness that comes from avoiding the appearance of evil leaves a single woman feeling as if she isn’t even worth acknowledging if she isn’t attached to someone. All women are potential Jezebels, don’t you know. I realized very early that I felt much, much more comfortable, valued, and appreciated in the secular world than I did in my own faith community. I work and socialize very easily with both single and married people and have not had any affairs or orgies so far.
It seems like the message we get from leaders is, “hang in there, and you will eventually be blessed with a spouse and children, if not in this life, then in the next,” where what many of us wanted is to be appreciated as-is, as human beings and not freakshow exhibits. When you’re treating 40-year-olds like children, when leaders of singles wards must be married, when activities are things that you’d plan for adolescents, when missionaries aren’t allowed in your home without a chaperone, you know something needs to change. The message is coming through loud and clear: we don’t understand you, and don’t really want to.
You write that you told your mom you didn’t want to be single when you were older. It doesn’t say, but I hope she tried to correct your false thinking (and taking counsel from fear) at that early age.
Brava/bravo to everyone for posting. The treatment of singles within the LDS Church is indeed an important issue that needs to be addressed. For my part, I’ve written a book about it! Diary of a Single Mormon Female – http://aleesasutton.com.
I was recommended this blog through my cousin. I’m no longer sure whether or not this post is written through him as nobody else recognise such distinctive about my problem. You’re amazing!
Thank you!
Feel free to visit my blog post http://www.spobiz-smr.net
Thank you so much! I googled “lds single women treated as children” due to something going on w/me (situation where I feel I am being treated like a child), and your experiences are close to my heart! It hurts so much to see good LDS men not even want to have more than a sentence or two conversation (if that) w/me. Only a few rare men will talk to me. I am in my early 40s and agree w/your entire post! I am sorry for your pain, but I thank you for helping me know it isn’t just me and helping me feel like I’m not crazy! I try not to let it bother me but it does hurt at times!
I am also in the process of going to a new church, because I need more nourishment, but I didn’t experienced anything negative towrds single people.
When someone writes an article he/she keeps the image of a user in his/her mind
that how a user can understand it. Thus that’s why this piece
of writing is outstdanding. Thanks!