Samika Part 3

[rdt1004]

If anyone is interested in Mormonism and young people, Zelph on the shelf is a really interesting channel run by two young exmormons in their 20s. It’s a nice interesting look into Mormonism and millennials.


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[sb613]

Utah actually has the lowest divorce rate in the country. https://wallethub.com/edu/happiest-stat ... ethodology

Just 50-60 years ago (and before that pretty much for all of human history) it was extremely common for people to marry young. Marriage in general was also more common. Both rates have decreased a ton in the past few decades and at the same time divorce rates have grown.

[sb613]

There's nothing mature about jumping into marriage at 18 so you can have sex without feeling guilty. And most Mormon women don't go on missions. It's just crazy to me that Jen is not even 27 yet and she is about to have three kids and has been married for like 8 years.

I agree with the others, it's insane to get engaged after 2 weeks. You can't even know someone fully in less than a year. There's a reason Utah has a higher than average divorce rate even though the church discourages divorce.

Unless she went through puberty very late, she's already 2/3 of the way through her fertile years and past her peak since fertility begins to decline around age 27. Why is it crazy that she's already had a few kids? It's completely natural.

[ewokfan11]

Utah actually has the lowest divorce rate in the country. https://wallethub.com/edu/happiest-stat ... ethodology

Just 50-60 years ago (and before that pretty much for all of human history) it was extremely common for people to marry young. Marriage in general was also more common. Both rates have decreased a ton in the past few decades and at the same time divorce rates have grown.

Well, that's because people don't really HAVE to get married now. Women don't need a husband to "survive" and it's commonplace for women to now complete their degrees and go to work.

I recently listened to a great podcast episode on Hidden Brain (NPR) called "When Did Marriage Become So Hard?" And it was SUPER interesting! Really reveals how and why marriage has changed over time. Sorry, OT again!

Was Sam serious about buying one of those Elon Musk flamethrowers?? I hope not. What a waste of $$$$$. Probably for the vlogs and then he'll sell it.

I'm disappointed that Jenn didn't give PJ the full dose of antibiotics. That's really not a smart move at all. "She doesn't like to take it" is NOT an excuse! I'd hope as a mom of almost 3 she knows why you HAVE to give the entire prescription of antibiotics!!

[ewokfan11]

There's nothing mature about jumping into marriage at 18 so you can have sex without feeling guilty. And most Mormon women don't go on missions. It's just crazy to me that Jen is not even 27 yet and she is about to have three kids and has been married for like 8 years.

I agree with the others, it's insane to get engaged after 2 weeks. You can't even know someone fully in less than a year. There's a reason Utah has a higher than average divorce rate even though the church discourages divorce.

Unless she went through puberty very late, she's already 2/3 of the way through her fertile years and past her peak since fertility begins to decline around age 27. Why is it crazy that she's already had a few kids? It's completely natural.

That really depends where you live and what you do, I suppose. Most people I know didn't even start getting married until 30 and kids even later. But I'm not Mormon.

[lmmomSD]

Utah actually has the lowest divorce rate in the country. https://wallethub.com/edu/happiest-stat ... ethodology

Just 50-60 years ago (and before that pretty much for all of human history) it was extremely common for people to marry young. Marriage in general was also more common. Both rates have decreased a ton in the past few decades and at the same time divorce rates have grown.

Well, that's because people don't really HAVE to get married now. Women don't need a husband to "survive" and it's commonplace for women to now complete their degrees and go to work.

I recently listened to a great podcast episode on Hidden Brain (NPR) called "When Did Marriage Become So Hard?" And it was SUPER interesting! Really reveals how and why marriage has changed over time. Sorry, OT again!

Was Sam serious about buying one of those Elon Musk flamethrowers?? I hope not. What a waste of $$$$$. Probably for the vlogs and then he'll sell it.

I'm disappointed that Jenn didn't give PJ the full dose of antibiotics. That's really not a smart move at all. "She doesn't like to take it" is NOT an excuse! I'd hope as a mom of almost 3 she knows why you HAVE to give the entire prescription of antibiotics!!

And the next time PJ gets sick, and the bugs are resistant, she'll wonder why...


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[sb613]

Unless she went through puberty very late, she's already 2/3 of the way through her fertile years and past her peak since fertility begins to decline around age 27. Why is it crazy that she's already had a few kids? It's completely natural.

That really depends where you live and what you do, I suppose. Most people I know didn't even start getting married until 30 and kids even later. But I'm not Mormon.

I'm speaking purely biologically and those numbers are the same for all women, everywhere. Everyone needs to have on average 2.1 kids just to keep the human race going, so it makes sense that people have the biological impetus to get that reproduction done young when you have the best odds of producing a healthy baby, and especially it makes sense for a woman to have achieved that number by the time they reach the age where their fertility has started to decline. It's not just a Mormon thing.

[sb613]

Well, that's because people don't really HAVE to get married now. Women don't need a husband to "survive" and it's commonplace for women to now complete their degrees and go to work.

I recently listened to a great podcast episode on Hidden Brain (NPR) called "When Did Marriage Become So Hard?" And it was SUPER interesting! Really reveals how and why marriage has changed over time. Sorry, OT again!

Well I guess that theoretically could explain the decrease in marriage, but there are definitely other factors. Men and women today are more likely to find marriage obsolete (not that they don't still have relationships) so that's one factor. And that doesn't do anything to explain why divorce rates have increased as marriage age has risen.

What's funny is that now that women are working more, women and men are paid less (more workers = less wages to go around) which in turn means that more women who might have otherwise chosen to stay home and raise families are forced to work to afford a family- and also forced to put off marrying and having children until after they've gone through college to ensure that they can make enough to afford a family. Anecdotal evidence doesn't really matter but I'm 21 (and a mother of 3), and many of my friends that are in college are constantly complaining to me about how they wish that they could have a child with their partner but that they have to wait for several years.

[ewokfan11]

Unless she went through puberty very late, she's already 2/3 of the way through her fertile years and past her peak since fertility begins to decline around age 27. Why is it crazy that she's already had a few kids? It's completely natural.

That really depends where you live and what you do, I suppose. Most people I know didn't even start getting married until 30 and kids even later. But I'm not Mormon.

I'm speaking purely biologically and those numbers are the same for all women, everywhere. Everyone needs to have on average 2.1 kids just to keep the human race going, so it makes sense that people have the biological impetus to get that reproduction done young when you have the best odds of producing a healthy baby, and especially it makes sense for a woman to have achieved that number by the time they reach the age where their fertility has started to decline. It's not just a Mormon thing.

WTF?? Are you insane??! The planet is already WAY overpopulated! Your math is simply FALSE!!!!! Yes, I think that IS just a Mormon thing. SMH!

Yikes, you need to GO TO COLLEGE!

[Peridot]

Utah may have the lowest divorce rate in the country BUT "antidepressant drugs are prescribed in Utah more often than in any other state, at a rate nearly twice the national average." Interesting. Maybe all that 'happiness' is kind of depressing.

http://articles.latimes.com/2002/feb/20/news/mn-28924

[lmmomSD]

We, when we have people like Ruby and the Butlers and Tannerites popping them out, the rest of us can take a break on "keeping the human race going". And the world is overpopulated as it is, so I wouldn't be too worried about humans dying out anytime soon.
Sorry for being OT, but I couldn't let that one go by...


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[sb613]

WTF?? Are you insane??! The planet is already WAY overpopulated! Your math is simply FALSE!!!!! Yes, I think that IS just a Mormon thing. SMH!

No it's not false, it's a fact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility. Any less than 2.1 children per woman in developed countries would cause a decrease in population, without taking into account things like immigration and increased life-expectancy. The rate is higher for women in underdeveloped countries with higher mortality rates. And overpopulation is not such a simple idea, we don't even know for sure what the Earth's carrying capacity is- it could be anywhere from 6 to 44 billion, so we could already be "overpopulated" or we could have quite a ways to go. It's also not true that the Earth can't support all of those people, but that it can't support all of those people if they want to live the way that we live in developed countries where over consumption is rampant. If we all lived in a way that required less from the environment, we'd be fine.

I'm not talking about intellectual ideals anyways, I'm talking about biology. Like all animals we humans have evolved based on the drive to reproduce. It's natural and biologically healthy for a human to want to breed. These societal issues aren't going to have any effect on hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. My main point is that there is no reason to think that it's "crazy" for a woman to be living in a way that is completely in line with her biology. It's also totally normal and natural for women to decide to live a different way, it's just not bizarre or wrong at all for them to have want to have a few kids during their fertile years.

It's not just a Mormon thing unless maybe you mean a 21st century Mormon thing. In 1970 the average age in the country for first time moms was 21, 23 in the 90's, and 26 now. This is a very new trend. Infertility is also mysteriously increasing so most scientists theorize that our population will begin to level out around 9 billion.

[sb613]

We, when we have people like Ruby and the Butlers and Tannerites popping them out, the rest of us can take a break on "keeping the human race going". And the world is overpopulated as it is, so I wouldn't be too worried about humans dying out anytime soon.
Sorry for being OT, but I couldn't let that one go by...


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I'm not saying anything about humans dying out, I'm saying that it's just a fact that in order to replace the population person for person each generation, each woman on average needs to have 2-3 children so for a species who are evolved to want to reproduce and keep the population growing, wanting to have that many kids while your fertility is as optimal as possible is very natural and logical, not crazy at all. And I think it's difficult to say that we are overpopulated when scientists aren't even positive what the Earth's carrying capacity is.

[sb613]

Utah may have the lowest divorce rate in the country BUT "antidepressant drugs are prescribed in Utah more often than in any other state, at a rate nearly twice the national average." Interesting. Maybe all that 'happiness' is kind of depressing.

http://articles.latimes.com/2002/feb/20/news/mn-28924

That article and the study it is reporting on are 16 years old. Every site or article I see discussing the issue of antidepressant use in Utah all refer to the same outdated 2002 study. I can't find anything up to date about the use of antidepressant drugs in Utah specifically but I did find this article: https://www.refinery29.com/2015/04/8489 ... t-drug-use about the states with the highest use of mood-altering substances be they prescription opiates, alcohol, nicotine, marijuana, etc. Utah is not one of the states with the highest drug usage. That article is based on this study from 2014: http://www.well-beingindex.com/alaska-l ... first-time Which also reports that Utah is in the top ten states with the highest well being.

To me that says that people in Utah are not more likely than people in other states to use drugs to deal with unhappiness, but that they might be more likely to choose prescription drugs over other substances because they perceive them as legal, socially acceptable, not the same social stigmas attached to alcohol usage or drug usage, not the same as turning to illegal drugs, etc. Like you can feel like a normal proud "Molly Mormon" as y'all like to put it if you're just taking pills your doctor prescribed to you instead something "darker" or trashier.

[snowbaby95]

Utah may have the lowest divorce rate in the country BUT "antidepressant drugs are prescribed in Utah more often than in any other state, at a rate nearly twice the national average." Interesting. Maybe all that 'happiness' is kind of depressing.

http://articles.latimes.com/2002/feb/20/news/mn-28924

They don't even have the lowest divorce rate. They just have low rates of divorced people BECAUSE they tend to get remarried a second or third time.
It's proven getting married super young, 18-25, doesn't make for long-lasting marriages.

It's still crazy to me Jen is basically a mother to 3 at the age of 26. It's young to have that many kids in this society. You had kids really young back in the day because that's all women were allowed to do and we didn't live long. There's no need to start popping out kids at 18 because we're fertile then when women are fertile and can have healthy pregnancies till 34. Plus it's horrible for our planet to be having 3+ kids per Mormon family and totally unnecessary for the continuation of our species.

[sb613]

You had kids really young back in the day because that's all women were allowed to do and we didn't live long.

Nice theory, I'd love to see some evidence for that! Pretty sure it's a lot more complicated than that, and whether or not you intellectually believe that you should have kids that young or have that many kids at all, you'd be denying science to pretend that it's wrong, crazy or abnormal. It's what you're evolved for. Everything else is theoretical, all the sociological stuff is not objective.

[snowbaby95]

You had kids really young back in the day because that's all women were allowed to do and we didn't live long.

Nice theory, I'd love to see some evidence for that! Pretty sure it's a lot more complicated than that, and whether or not you intellectually believe that you should have kids that young or have that many kids at all, you'd be denying science to pretend that it's wrong, crazy or abnormal. It's what you're evolved for. Everything else is theoretical, all the sociological stuff is not objective.

We're evolved to be able to have babies at 12 and 13, that doesn't make something not crazy or abnormal in our culture.
I'm not denying science. I never said it was against science or nature for her to have three kids by 26. I literally said I believe it is crazy! You are the one who has taken the major defense to pull all this shit to try and change my mind that it's not crazy.
You really don't understand that women have babies earlier back in the day because they were married off way younger and weren't allowed to work? You can look that up on your own if you can't understand that...

I understand women are able to have babies between on average 11-40 and have a peak fertility time as well. I also understand that in order to maintain population numbers women need to have 2 babies. This doesn't excuse that Mormons have way too many kids, especially for our Earth and the average American's carbon footprint. Nor does it mean the Mormon church should be encouraging 18-year-old women to get married and start popping out babies at a young age!
You like facts, so please look up that women who wait a little longer to get married (25+) and have babies later (28+) are happier and have longer lasting marriages.

[ja14]

You guys getting off into your scientific debate lol. I think everyone can agree that Mormons in general get married early because they want to have sex & they want to populate the world with Mormons. Of course, those are bad reasons. However, that doesn’t mean young marriage and having kids earlier isn’t right for some people. I was married young, had a child two years later, and will be trying for number #2 soon. I had a good job before I had my son, but decided to be a SAHM after. I’m also going to school simultaneously. It works for me and my family. We are happy.


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[snowbaby95]

You guys getting off into your scientific debate lol. I think everyone can agree that Mormons in general get married early because they want to have sex & they want to populate the world with Mormons. Of course, those are bad reasons. However, that doesn’t mean young marriage and having kids earlier isn’t right for some people. I was married young, had a child two years later, and will be trying for number #2 soon. I had a good job before I had my son, but decided to be a SAHM after. I’m also going to school simultaneously. It works for me and my family. We are happy.


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Lol I feel bad for starting this because someone got defensive I think the # of kids Jen has at a young age is crazy! I never said it was unnatural, but we have been bombarded with "facts" of how natural it is. Natural does not equal ideal or optimal.

I wasn't even trying to police when people should get married/have kids! It's up to individuals. My issues lies with the Mormon church basically brainwashing their members to follow that lifestyle. Jen does not seem happy to have 3 children and literally constantly seems stressed and overwhelmed with being a mother. I know it's stressful, but she is more stressed, disorganized, and overwhelmed than the average moms I know.

Some people aren't meant to be parents or have lot's of kids and can't handle it. Carlie Butler, for example, does a poor job at coping as a mom to 2. Yet she will continue to reproduce too many babies because she thinks that's her purpose.

[ewokfan11]

I agree with Snowbaby95. It's not our "purpose" to just reproduce. The Mormon church puts a TON of pressure on members (women) to have as many kids as possible. When I was growing up, most Mormon families had 7-8 kids! That's INSANE!

Their church is still very caught up in gender roles and they DO NOT accept people who don't fit their version of "God's ideal person." It's brainwashing! Their church is basically a white male cult—racist and homophobic.

I'm a very career-oriented woman and briefly dated a Mormon. I asked him how women play a role in their church—he said Relief Society and/or working with kids, like Jenn does. There are NO leadership roles for women in the entire LDS religion.