Last Wednesday I had another one of those repressed childhood flashback moments that pissed me off to no end. I griped about it on Twitter and an interesting thing happened. One of my fellow writers, Orlando Ramos, and I discovered we shared a similar judgmental upbringing, so we’re each blogging about our experiences. You can read about his here: A Deprived Life. We wondered how many others grew up like this, and we suspect it’s more than we think. The following is a list of my church and family’s seven deadly sins:
Dancing – I went to prom and homecoming alternatives. Snoozefest. But I went to prom anyway (and parking with my boyfriend after) so the alternatives weren’t real effective.
Rock music – Rock & roll was the devil’s music. It led to dancing! This was my mom’s biggie. She got it banned from the school buses too. (But she was a Beatles fan.)
Alcohol – The communion wine was watered down grape juice. Ew. My dad liked his beer though, and he gave me my first shot of blackberry brandy. (Didn’t taste anything like blackberries. I was so disappointed.)
Smoking – And yet, members of my church smoked outside after the service. That one stumped me for a long time. I thought no one who touched a cigarette could be a Christian. Fortunately my mother-in-law taught me smoking was an addiction, not a sin.
Dating someone who was not a Christian – The idea behind this was that the non-Christian was a bad influence. Hmm…weren’t we supposed to be ambassadors for Christ? (I heard that phrase a lot growing up.) Why not forbid judgment?
Making out – We had an air space rule. There had to be six inches of air between me and my boyfriend at all times. But the joke was he had enough air space between his ears for both of us.
Sex before marriage – This was THE biggie. I was never taught sex was bad. I wasn’t taught anything besides wait until marriage. And don’t even think about living together. That was a one-way ticket to Hell. Sex was a big mystery, but thanks to my church and their hush-hush teachings, I’m having lots of fun solving the puzzle. 😉
Did your church/family/community forbid something society accepts? How did you deal with it?
Trashy's Treasures 
Dang, woman! I grew up in an insanely liberal Christian household. We went to Catholic church and came home to tarot cards and palm readings. Looking back, I think it’s where I found the courage to deviate from it. Things have to make sense in my head… Contradicting stories, don’t work for me. And I was an outspoken contradicting-story-pointer-outer. HA!
According to my church, Catholics were not Christians. The denomination didn’t think that way, just my church. One of our pastors was a cult expert–highly paranoid. Their theology was so twisted I don’t know how I got away from it. I’m just thankful I did.
Oh yes, dating outside the Christian faith. I remember that all too well. These rules were made to be broken because none of us ever followed that rule in school. We had double lives. One at school that we hid from our church and our parents, and one at home that we hid from our friends in school. I’m only now learning to live only one for all to see.
I still have the double life because my family doesn’t know about my writing. Maybe someday I can tell them, but they’re not ready for it yet.
I did not have the list of sins that you did — was raised by my divorced mother — so the Catholic Church already had abandonned her. In retrospect, being raised in a loving but not “Cleaver” household gave me license to make up my own rules to a great extent. It seems the more “Norman Rockwellian” yorur upbringing was as a child/teen, the more repressed (and guilty/shame-filled) you are as an adult
My church bailed on my mom when my dad left her. I never understood that.
Right on!