This archive Sunday post by hkobeal, originally appeared at fMh on June 27, 2010. You can see the original post and comments here.
We Mormons talk a lot about being in the world, but not of the world. That phrase (and the sentiment behind it) is not my favorite. I happen to think the world is full of beautiful people with cool, interesting, sad, tragic, amazing life experiences. I definitely don’t see evil (or Satan) lurking around every corner. But I understand the sentiment: we don’t want to be like “those people”; we want to be like us. We like those public things that mark us as Mormons—garments, abstaining from alcohol, tea, coffee, cigarettes, and Diet Coke (just kidding, that one’s not for real, is it??), not seeing R-rated movies, wearing knee-length shorts, blacking out “bad words” in books (I actually knew someone who did this), eschewing The Little Mermaid because Ariel is immodest . . . (I confess that I do not actually KNOW the person who said this, but my very good friend told me as much, and it’s such a great story!) We pride ourselves on being different. If everyone else does it, then we don’t. The implication is that if everyone else does it, then it must be bad. But what if everybody does it because it’s good? Or because there’s a lot of data out there suggesting that it’s sound advice? Don’t we all have friends who are not living Mormon lifestyles who are quite happy?
My 13-year-old daughter came home from school a few months ago and said: “My teacher told us about this study that said that drinking red wine was actually good for you. What’s up with that?” Well . . . I told her there does seem to be a good bit of research suggesting that some wine in moderation does have positive health benefits. Hmm . . .
Or what about marriage age? I just read this article on Newsweek called “I Don’t: The Case Against Marriage” (http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/11/i-don-t.html). The article states that the median marriage age in the U.S. is at its highest point ever—28 for men and 26 for women. Furthermore, research shows that “for every year we put off marriage, our chances of divorce go down.” Should we pay heed to this research? Should we be encouraging kids to go to BYU and get married when they’re 21? (Hello, I got married at the riDONKulous age of 19, so I am totally not pointing any fingers here.) Should mission presidents lecture elders to get married within a year after returning home from their missions? Or should we consider talking more to YM/YW/YSA about education and career training? Or about figuring out who they are and what they want in life before they add another person (spouse) to the mix? And I’m not even going to start talking about adding kids to the equation . . .
As for me, I can’t say I regret my foolish decision to get married so young. We’ve been married for 17.5 years. We have three kids. Together we have gotten two B.A.s, one MA, and two Ph.D.s. So that’s my research: a sample size of one. Not enough to persuade me it was a good decision. I think we’ve just been lucky. I hope my kids don’t follow in my footsteps, though. I think there might be some wisdom in what everyone else is doing on this one.
What say ye, FMH muses? Do we pay attention to research that suggests that some of our Mormon in-the-world-but-not-of-the-world-ways are not as good as we think, or do we stick to our guns?