Chapter 2: Childhood

My childhood was...really good. I know it would be a lot more riveting to tell you all about my awful, abusive childhood at the hands of monstrous brainwashed cult members. On the contrary though I have wonderful parents who raised me with love and affection.

I am the youngest of six children. My older brothers and sister tell stories about my parents, especially my father, when he was a lot more strict. There is a particular story about a 2x4 with several nails sticking out of one end that was frequently used in discipline methods (before you freak out too much, no the side with the nails was not the business end). My older siblings swear up and down that this story is true and my parents are equally as adamant that they are making it up. Everyone makes their declarations while laughing and joking around so I have no idea if it ever even happened but I do know my parents were a lot more strict with them than they were with us younger kids. As is pretty common, by the time they got to us they had mellowed considerably.

I have no idea how typical my childhood was compared to a non-Mormon childhood. It's all I have ever known so I really have nothing to compare it with. I suspect it wasn't much different except maybe for the number of children in the house, but in Mormonism 6 children is only a medium-large sized family so it didn't seem at all strange to me. There were several families in our neighborhood that had 7 or 8 children. There were even one or two with 10 or so children. I loved being in a big family. I loved having brothers and sisters around all the time.

Both of my parents worked full time, as well as my dad working practically another full time job (without pay of course) in his church positions so the older children (i.e. daughters) helped out a lot at home. The two boys weren't expected to do much but that is a topic for another time.

Anyway, I know this probably isn't the most exciting post of all time. I'm simply attempting to lay a foundation for future topics. We'll get to the good stuff eventually.