- Dsc on How Many Big Families Are in the US? Where Are They?: “Interesting stuff, but I mostly came to the comments to say that the use of the term “gentile” here makes me deeply uncomfortable.” Feb 3, 14:11
- on How Many Big Families Are in the US? Where Are They?: “Stephen, don’t you know where kids . . . ? On a more bizarre note, in the 1970s I met an LDS family in Germany, yes Germany, that had 13 kids. This was at a time when more than 2 kids was considered huge. They probably got all sorts of odd comments in public, but they did make the ward bigger.” Feb 3, 12:20
- on How Many Big Families Are in the US? Where Are They?: “Retry: For the kids, I think the ideal family has at least three sons and three daughters. Then every single child in the family has sisters (plural) and brothers (plural). That makes for lots of good experience in a variety of relationships, getting along, working together, and lots of love and support all around.” Feb 3, 11:03
- on How Many Big Families Are in the US? Where Are They?: “My two cents: For the kids, I think the ideal family has at least three sons and three daughters. Then every single child in the family has sisters (plural) and (brothers). That makes for lots of good experience in a variety of relationships, getting along, working together, and lots of love and support all around.” Feb 3, 11:02
- on How Many Big Families Are in the US? Where Are They?: ““If you’re going to live the free-living, unattached life, then why be married in the first place?” For me, this is such a weird question. I really do not understand it at all. Choosing to be married is a fairly separate decision from choosing to have children. I not only love my husband, I like him. I like spending time with him. He genuinely is my best friend. I also sincerely both love and like our children. But in all honesty, the empty nest years both before and after the years spent raising them in our house have been rewarding and happy. It’s very clear to me why someone would choose that life. I know that’s not central to your topic. But that question is so strange, it kind of derailed your actual topic for me.” Feb 3, 10:50
- on How Many Big Families Are in the US? Where Are They?: “0) There are actually some very compelling reasons people choose this over the single life. As this is a family blog, I will leave the reasons up to your imagination. 3) Enough kids to generate comments from neighbors you barely know in the coastal South: “Y’all are done now, right?” 4) If you go abroad, you have not twice as many kids as normal, but three times. You’re suddenly one full column or more to the right on the exponential curve. You get panicked e-mails from the person who worries they might have to find an apartment for you. Every other family you know with 4 or more kids are either ward members (a handful of families), or attend a similarly weird church (just one case). Getting your family to church by bus is a minor public spectacle. 5) A strangely common number of children in large families in our corner of the upper Midwest. Common enough to take the edge off of weird. 6) Even in the 1980s, this was weird enough among church members in California to be the basis for a gag about your family at a ward talent show, at least if you also didn’t make the cut for invitations to certain informal intellectual and cultural events. 8) Congratulations! I like birth announcements with tables and graphs.” Feb 3, 05:00
- on Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 2/1: “The weather was hazardous again, so we just had sacrament meeting. A lot of people took the opportunity to hang around longer than usual after church and talk, which can be one of my favorite parts of Sundays. Hectically trying to find all the people you need to check with before they leave is stressful, but I enjoy the chance to talk to people without having to worry about the next meeting starting or the next ward coming in.” Feb 2, 18:59
- on Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 2/1: “One member expressed how hard “enduring to the end” is when you don’t know when the end will be. I was familiar with the challenges they are/will endure and tears came to my eyes. When it’s such a lifelong challenge, you truly wonder “is there no balm in Gilead?”” Feb 2, 16:52
- on What Can We Learn from Visions of Glory? Part 2: ““On the other hand, a text can instead claim to have been recorded long ago in a distant land or make other moves to lower the stakes of its authenticity.” That checks out: The Book of Mormon follows that pattern, and the missionaries do indeed encounter people all the time who say they like it and it contains truth, but they don’t accept Joseph Smith as a prophet or have any interest in joining the Church he restored. Of course then the missionaries tell them they’re being logically inconsistent, and if they believe The Book of Mormon is true then they should accept Joseph Smith as a prophet. I don’t know if that affects members’ responses to something like VoG or not. @Jack: What bugs me about end-times speculation is that it rarely prompts people to do good. Sure, there’s a bit of “stay faithful or else,” but it mostly congratulates people for being part of the elect and tempts them to rejoice in the imagined suffering of everyone else. Pondering any of the other mysteries you mention is much more likely to inspire the ongoing mighty change of heart.” Feb 2, 09:25
- on What Can We Learn from Visions of Glory? Part 2: “I’m suspicious of “mysteries” that have to do with the latter-days. There’s a lot of low hanging fruit there that anyone can get there hands on. But what about the mysteries of the Kingdom? Or the doctrines of the priesthood? Or the wonders of eternity? It’s not as easy to come up with stuff on those topics. That said, I think the primary reason why we don’t hear as much about the real mysteries is because those who know them don’t talk about them–and conversely, those who would talk about them don’t know them.” Feb 1, 23:27
