Christmas Post for Parenting After Mormonism

Oftentimes as parents transitioning out of the church struggle, we may feel uncomfortable with the new reality that we actually don’t have all the answers - especially the answers to what we may consider are THE most important questions. 

What we’ve learned in our transition has been that having the “answers” for our children was never actually the most important thing, rather fostering a home environment where exploration is applauded, differentiation is celebrated and where everyone feels heard, seen, valued, honored and loved - this is far more important, in my opinion, than parents who have all the answers. 

We recently facilitated a family conversation about Christmastime. I’ll do my best to offer a summary of it below, to capture how our parenting paradigm has changed from a linear, right/wrong, this is how it happened and here are all the answers, into what it looks like today. I will omit all the answers offered, for the sake of length, but I hope this can be helpful as you reconsider what feels supportive for your family this time of year:

“Christmastime is different for our family now, how does that make you feel? 

Some of us may feel sad, some of us may feel happy, and some of us may feel a bit confused, and girls, all of those different feelings are okay - we all can and will feel differently as old patterns shift. Can you tell us more about those feelings? 

What are some of the things that you miss about how we did Christmas before? What are ways that we can still honor those traditions that feel important, taking into consideration where everyone is at now in how they feel about the Jesus story? 

Jesus did offer a wonderful example, indeed, just as so many other people have who’ve lived throughout time and who are even alive today. What qualities do you admire in people? Who are some people with those qualities that you admire? 

It sounds like there are so many people who are living brave and giving lives that we can celebrate, just like how we celebrate Jesus during Christmas for the example he offered? 

How would it feel for you if in our family we made Christmastime a celebration of many brave people we admire, including Jesus? What are some things we can do to honor these kinds of people? Would you like to hear what actually happened historically when Jesus was born? 

(we read a historically accurate summary) 

Wow, isn’t it interesting how the story we hear about today is really different from what actually happened? How does that make you feel? Stories are really powerful in our culture, and they have been throughout much of human history. Sometimes we just believe the stories we are told, but look what happens as we dig deeper and question those stories - we get to discover new things!”

The framework for what we consider healthy conversations isn’t rooted in a right/wrong, good/bad paradigm anymore. Now that we have settled into a relationship with our children in which we don’t claim to have all the answers, we’ve felt more connected to them, in new and meaningful and more authentic ways.