my reply

I finally reached an even-enough state of emotions to reply to my sister's email. It turned out I had a whole lot to say, so I'll take more than one day to post it here. I will not post my sister's email that prompted my reply, out of respect for her privacy. I apologize in advance for any ambiguity or confusion this may cause as you read my reply. If you need clarifications, please say so in the comments, and I will try to explain.

Understanding Sister-

I thank you for your honesty in your email. I will admit the email threw me a bit and even hurt for a while. It’s taken me several days to muster up the strength and mindset to reply. But I’d rather have that honesty than to have us tiptoe around each other. Your email sounded like you felt attacked, and I’m sorry my tone to you on the phone was less than cordial. I did not mean to attack you or your beliefs, certainly. I apologize for my tone on the phone, as well as for the phone conversation itself. That sort of conversation is best had in person. It was a mistake to call you when I was angry, rather than wait three days to talk about it, like I did with Sister-in-law. And since I passed up the in-person opportunity to talk, I apologize for that, too.

I think part of my tone and how I handled the phone conversation (and, likely, this can be broadened to include other conversations) came from a couple things. One, I think of you as “my understanding sister,” the one I am most open to about matters of religion (and other things), but also the one who accepts me as different, pushes me, questions me, etc. This familiarity, this understanding, let me be more lax on how I approached you (e.g. as compared to Sister-in-law and Mom on this same matter). I can see that was a mistake. Now I see that our continued understanding and conversations rests partly on respect and good, old-fashioned niceness. I will be more careful—though I hope to continue to be just as honest—in the future.

Two, I didn’t believe it had been you that was supervising Little FTA when he watched the movie. I figured it had been Sister-in-law, and only wanted confirmation from you on the phone. Because of that, I felt I could be more open to you, while putting on my most diplomatic approach for her. Again, a mistake.

Three, as you are “my understanding sister,” I was shocked when you asked, “Is that [his seeing the movie] a problem?” I didn’t expect that, and I was confused and despairing that perhaps all that understanding between us wasn’t what I thought it was, not as deep as I thought. I, like you, had made assumptions based on our past conversations, and, like you, was upset to find my assumptions were off the mark. I continued the phone conversation in this height of emotion, rather than calm down and think about it first, as I should have done.

Four, I saw the “movie incident” as opening years and years of incidents, confrontations, negotiations, and misunderstandings that I foresee as we—the whole family—raise our children differently. I had worried before we came to Utah how I would handle things, whether I should have some talks with everyone even before we came, if that was necessary or just offensive. I even had an entire therapist session dedicated to my worries about being with the family in Utah again. I figured talking about some boundaries (such as your much-appreciated question as to how to handle prayer with Little FTA around) was a good idea, but the thought also made me extremely uncomfortable.

To talk to you all about it would mean we needed to talk about it. As if you were ignorant enough, uncaring enough, unaware enough, that we’d have to point things out to you. Which you’re not. I felt like having to sit down and tell everyone, “Listen, don’t bring up religion around my son; don’t tell him how Heavenly Father is God and Jesus is alive; don’t tell him that Joseph Smith is second only to Jesus” would be the equivalent of you telling me, “Listen, you can only baby sit our kids if you promise not to tell them there is no God and that Joseph Smith was a charismatic charlatan.” That would just be insulting and misguided, because I would never say that to your kids. I don’t even say that to my own kid. I wanted to give everyone the benefit of the doubt; I wanted to be hopeful that saying those things would be unnecessary. That we’d all be aware and nice enough to respect each other’s religious choices and how we want to raise our own kids. I figured all was going well. Everyone seemed quite respectful and basically avoided religion other than those parts that are in every day life, i.e. dinner prayer, Dad’s off to meetings again, etc. Not a problem.

I continued to worry (probably too much) about what I was doing and trying hard not to step on anyone’s toes. This is why, for example, I reported that conversation I had with Little FTA and your son about coffee. I figured, “If Understanding Sister had a conversation with Little FTA about religious restrictions, I would prefer to hear about its contents, so I’ll tell Understanding Sister what I told her son.” Also, I agonized about the times I found myself (I certainly didn’t plan it) wearing sleeveless shirts around the family (Am I making them uncomfortable? Do they feel like I’m rubbing it in their faces that I don’t wear garments anymore? Should I change my wardrobe around the family, or not? It’s just a shirt! But if it’s just a shirt, why not accommodate them?) I carefully watched my words about evolution, pretending about dragons, why we don’t go to church, etc., whenever it came up with Sister-in-law’s kids. I held my tongue in several conversations with adults.

(Writing all that, and seeing how trivial my worries seem now compared to how I really offended you—at the core of your beliefs about Mormonism and Christianity in general—I think that I should reevaluate my thinking with regards to relations with you and the family. It is those littler things that seem to come up more, though, to be the most visible, to be the simplest to confront. Perhaps that is why my focus has been more there.)

to be continued...