On Being a Young Woman and a Mormon. Thoughts inspired by "The Book of Mormon Girl: A Memoir of an American Faith" by Joanna Brooks

Before downloading said book to my kindle ipad app, I read a few reviews to get a better idea of what I would be in for. The conclusion seemed to be, that whatever criticism you may find of Brooks’ retelling, it succeeds at its main purpose: that of being good, honest memoir. I also found these quotes about memoirs while reading a review from “bhodges” from the website, By Common Consent:

You’re sure to hear a few such discordant notes as Brook’s fingers glide up and down the scale, but to focus on such slips overlooks the book’s overall melody... Memoirs aren’t intended to tell a disconnected story of one’s life, but to invite readers into an intensely subjective world... American publisher William Sloan says readers of such works are not so much saying to the author ‘Tell me about you,’ but rather ‘Tell me about me; as I use your book and life as a mirror.’”

And this was certainly the phenomenon that I experienced while reading the first few chapters, recalling the fierce and often tumultuous emotions of my middle school years like nothing I have ever read before. Of course it was also the first time I’d really read a first-hand account of what it was like to be a young and awkward girl growing up in the LDS faith. I think the beauty of good memoir is that it allows one to reflect and to experience without sitting in any sort of judgment seat –without wondering which influences were “good” or “bad,” or, worse in this instance, without trying to fit everything that stemmed from my being a Mormon and a young woman into a tidy, brown-paper package of “good.”

To quote the first paragraph if chapter 3, “The year we all turned twelve, the boys in my Sunday School class received the priesthood…That’s what Chuckie, Mike, and Brian got for their twelfth birthdays. I got Marie Osmond’s Guide to Beauty, Health and Style.” Following this statement, there is no overt discussion of gender roles in the church, of whether or not things are as they should be in LDS youth culture. There is instead a rather poetic and humorous description of the pin-sharp impressions that the pictures and quotes from Marie Osmond, the Mormon dream girl who was apparently achieving perfection here on earth, left on Brooks’ idealistic young-adult mind.  I loved that she could still picture the exact poses and quotes from various pages of the book. Because, while I’ve never actually seen a copy of Marie Osmond’s Guide to Beauty, Health and Style, I played out my own versions of this experience time and time again. For me, there was the Guide for the Winter Woman by a company called Chroma (I'd never actually been tested by a Chroma color analyst specialist, but my mom was certain that I was a “Winter”). How I poured over those black and white sketches of different Winter woman hair styles, and dreamed of the day when my own long, unruly, always-parted-down-the-middle, never-styled-or-touched-with-product locks would be transformed into a glorious, womanly hairdo! There was my subscription to the magazine Seventeen from which I eagerly read make-up tips. And how could I forget the day during my junior year of high school when I discovered The Fascinating Woman on our living room bookshelf and began studying it with something akin to religious zeal (if you've never heard of this book, please look it up).

That author explains a sort of kinship that she felt with Marie Osmond as a fellow Mormon girl. But more, you get a sense of how adhering to this guide filled a void of purpose in her life. She writes, “You and me, Marie, wrestling the dark energies of childhood depressions and nascent eating disorders…What to do with our bodies? If they were not instruments of priesthood power, and not yet instruments of eternal procreation, what was our purpose?” This next quote especially struck a chord with me: “Marie, your precisely numbered regimens gave me great comfort. Especially the idea that with a little practice I could change, I could convert those long columns of personal minuses into a perfect string of pluses.” This idea that I would overcome all -or at least most- of my flaws while in this earthly life -why oh why was this idea so strongly ingrained in my mind? What’s more, what was there to make me think that once I had reached a state of “Marie Osmond awesomeness” there was anything to guarantee that I would stay there? I wish someone could have disillusioned me of these ideas a lot sooner. I think I'd have been much happier for it.

I’m still not sure what all of this has to do with growing up as a young woman in the church. Maybe the author and I just both happened to be intense young women, demanding too much of ourselves at a very young age in our quest for finding meaning in life and eventual perfection. Whatever the case, growing up in the church added many subtle colors to my life, colors that have been integrated into the “whole” of me in some ways that I think I am only beginning to understand.

I certainly don’t mean for this to be a negative post. I think the overall impact of my experiences in the young womens’ program of the church were overwhelmingly positive (After all, it was at a young womens’ activity that I learned the side-part for my hair, the only “style” I  ever really adopted. Ouch. Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one). But in all seriousness, I had many wonderful experiences studying scriptures, serving in the church, and, most of all, feeling the very real and immediate love of my Heavenly Father –many of these experiences brought on as a direct result from my involvement in the church as a youth. And that is to say nothing of the sense of belonging and confidence that I so desperately needed and was able to find therein.

As you've probably guessed though, I’d like to open up a discussion about being a young woman in the church. What were your experiences? Was there too much emphasis on health and beauty? Did you place unrealistic demands on yourself in order to “prepare” to be a saintly wife and mother someday? Did you sense a vacancy of purpose during those years of waiting for the dreamed-of temple marriage to arrive? And, most importantly, what do you think could be done to improve the system –in the church and in the world at large? –How can we encourage young women to “dream big” without coming up with crazy expectations of personal perfection? How can we give motherhood the respect it deserves, without making it the “end all, be all” of mortal existence? After all, and now speaking from personal experience on this one, being a mother will not stop a woman from needing to be an individual -a person- too. And, as much as these words may be spoken during Young Women lessons, how can we get our young women to actually believe them?

How can we help our young women to love their bodies, to love their idiosyncrasies, and, yes, even to love their imperfections -or, at the very least to make peace with them? How can we better prepare them for the possibility of their R.M. in shining armor never making his long-awaited appearance? How can we better prepare them for a life that will almost always fall short of their visions of a celestial home here on earth? I think these are very big and very important questions (while also giving some insight into why I am completely terrified to raise a teenage daughter). I’d really like to hear your ideas on these issues. Please sound off below.