M.O.T.H.S.

M.O.T.H.S. began as a tongue-in-cheek joke with a couple of my friends, my response to a frustration over a (very) few individuals' over-zealousness over the age limitations for the "Middle Singles" group. Officially, the Church has two singles groups: "Young Single Adults", ages 18-30, and "Single Adults", ages 31 and up (or as I joked before I turned 31, "31 to dead". Unofficially, there are groups for ages 31-45, dubbed "Middle Singles", with the idea of there being a place for easy transition between the two groups and to have "more energetic" activities. One of the ideas behind this "middle" group was to ensure that people would not feel too out of place graduating from a youngster to a full-fledged adult, or feel uncomfortable going to a dance at 31 and having to deal with the unwanted attentions of someone 20, 30, 40 years older. The thinking was no one should be made to feel uncomfortable or excluded. Unfortunately, that very thing happened, just on the other end of the spectrum. Although it didn't happen to me, I do know others who were excluded by having their age questioned at the door (as if yesterday you were young enough to hang with the crowd, but today you're just an old fart.) And then I heard of a couple of situations where friends were excluded for reasons that had more to do with popularity than age.

Now people are people and are going to do silly, thoughtless, and mean things to one another. But I was left with a bad taste in my mouth, so I didn't participate in any "middle" activity, and found myself being almost as stubbornly opposed to the idea as those who irked me in the first place. Okay, scratch the "almost". I was downright disdainful of it for awhile. I didn't like that about myself, but before I corrected my attitude, the rigidity began to relax on its own. And then... I "aged out" and it became a moot point. Once again I could joke about the age factor: at 46, I was officially "old".

I contemplated starting my own group for the older generation. Decided I didn't want to be in charge, It took a year to come up with the "MOTHS" acronym, and another year before I decided to create a Facebook page dedicated to Mormon, Over-the-Hill Singles.

But then I started thinking. Thinking can be a dangerous thing. But occasionally I delight in living dangerously. I know single people in the Church get discouraged. An unfortunate many leave the Church behind, although I think it is seldom solely over the challenges of being single in a church that stresses marriage and family. There are as many sets of circumstances as there are single members. The commonalities they share with one another are the same ones they share with the married members: They are beloved children of their Heavenly Father. They have needs, fears, frustrations, and ofttimes overwhelming challenges. And they have hopes, dreams, triumphs, and incredible talents and abilities and opportunities to serve and love. When people learn to think outside the box, they see that the only exclusions or things that separate us are the ones we create for ourselves or for others.

So, if we're all pretty much the same, can we learn to see those things we have in common and use them to encourage, uplift and strengthen one another? Can we learn to use our differences to gain perspective and insight -- and use those things to encourage, uplift and strengthen one another? Can we build one another up rather than shunning and shaming people into deeper isolation and inactivity?

What I would like to do with this blog -- with the help of others I'll ask to assist me in this project -- is to write about being single in a family-oriented church and about keeping faith strong and active. I want to focus on the positive aspects and the triumphs. Not the failures. We beat ourselves up enough over those.I don't have any experience being divorced or being a single parent, so those are the sorts of things I'll ask my friends to write about.  My hope is that this blog will give positive voices to the writers and hope and support for the reader. Please contact me with your ideas.