There is one important lesson I learned from watching 80 moms live together: They didn’t get enough attention. That causes problems between moms and for kids. Hey bro, life will be better if you keep it to 20 or 30 lol. I think one is a good start.
“Hey mother, I want to spend more time with you”, was a typical thought that ran through the mind of every child in Warren Jeffs family as they left their mother to go be with their “caretaker”.
And there is a common sense reason for that: Mom was nicer than any of the other wives. And of course you have that birth connection. Personally, I felt this very strongly. From when I was born to the time I was 8+ years old, the highlight of my day was the time I got to be with my mother.
moms
By the time I was 4 years old, Dad had at least 17 wives. Do you think I knew any different? To me it was totally normal, and another mom coming into the family was no surprise. That was probably different for the older children, who had been there when it was just 4 or 5 wives. They probably understood the significance of getting another mom so often.
“You have a new mother”, I remember being told occasionally as I was introduced to a woman that just became my mom. What do you think a 4 year old thinks when there are lots of moms and you rarely see your father? A 4 year old assumes thats how everyone is. Of course as you get older you start understanding how different it is.
“Who is boss when father is home”? Asked my dad. “Father” was the correct reply. “And who is boss when father is gone?” asked my dad immediately after. “Father” was the correct answer, although you might have had in you mind “mother.”
“Disobey a mother and you are disobeying your father and Heavenly Father”, dad often preached. And we did obey, which often felt extremely burdening. It was washing laundry, digging up cacti’s, or working in the garden. I enjoyed some of it, but there was never a break. Maybe thats a good thing. It’s not that kids should be idle, but they should be able to play.
Sure we stopped and had snack but then it was back to work. Even when you’re 4 years old. Some of the children were not so obedient. Punishments ranged from a verbal correction to sitting on the toilet, to going up to the bishops office and getting a lecture, or sometimes a scolding. Some of the children got pretty severe punishments at times. I did what it took to avoid that, but still found myself in a bad place at times.
Moms Without Attention Cause Problems
As I got 10-12 years old, the negative reports from the moms to the bishop and dad skyrocketed. I found myself often in the bishops office. Sometimes it was mild, other times we got some serious heat. And thats hard on someone who just wants to do their best.
Looking back now, it is so obvious that a few, or maybe all of those 80 moms wanted some attention, good or bad. And if that meant taking a report to the bishop then they did. I get it now. The person that stuck up for me was my mother. That is how it was for every child. As we got older, the children stuck together pretty well. Against the mothers is how many of the children would put it.
It seemed to us kids that any mom who had their own child was nicer. Only 19 of the moms had kids. The rest of the were more like concubines(how did you enjoy all that cooking Cleah??). Unfortunately for us, they were often not as kind as a mother would be. 10 of the moms without kids were nice or nicer(thanks btw!), but some were actually mean(how you doing Leasa??).
Often it was the children vs the mothers. And we believed we had dad on our side, at least sometimes. The older children felt more that way than the younger ones. I remember the older girls having serious battles with the moms. Many of the moms felt like they could tell the kids what to do even when they got older than 18.
Story of Moms Needing Attention
When I was 10 years old, about 1 year after the 2008 raid in Texas, the flds were inviting Opera Winfrey to see the compound in Texas. They had cleaned the school well and lectured the kids about behaving appropriately. But to me it was just another day, and school sucked. My brother and I, or not actually blood brother, his mother married dad after he was born, anyhow his mother was over us two boys at the time. She had to sing some song with a bunch of other women to Opera. So she asked our mom Joanna to check on us at lunch and see that we were behaving. We came to lunch at 12:00 sharp. The two of us took about 7 minutes to eat, because we wanted to check our squirrel trap, avoid Joanna, and get back to school early.
Opera Winfrey talks to Merril Jessops daughter.
Anyhow, she walked in right as we were putting on our shoes. She asked, “Did you boys eat?” We said yes, she said Okay. And we immediately went out the door, proceeding to check our squirrel trap and were back to school around 12:20pm.
At 1 pm Joanna came to our school teacher and said the bishop wanted to talk to us. This shocked me because Opera was there and the bishop was extremely busy. We waited about 1/2 hour before he brought us in. “I’ve received over 30 reports about you 2 boys in the last 3 days” he proceeded to tell us.
But I soon discovered this was no ordinary lecture. Grandpa absolutely roasted us. For more than an hour he gave his desk some real hard fist pounds and slapped his knee as he was getting a point across. He concluded by telling us to go pack up our bags and we were being sent off the land to go live where we could learn to be more obedient. I was in tears as I left his office because I knew I had been doing pretty well.
That was the only time Grandpa had ever taken us into his bedroom to continue the scolding. I suppose he was stressed about Opera coming and the many financial situations he was dealing with, and we got his frustrations. We were in his office for 2 hours but maybe I remember wrong. I always tell myself that I should thank wanna be mom Joanna and Opera for that one lol!
We went and packed our bags. Mother came to check on me and I told her what happened. She went and talked to Grandpa, her father. Then he called us back. “You boys can stay on this land for 3 days, and I don’t want to hear a single report about you”, he explained.
3 days later he called us over “You boys are doing great” he told us. That’s when I knew he had taken his stress out on us. Now I think it’s rather funny. Even a few days later I thought it was funny. Except I never forgave Joanna, so give me a few more years. I never saw that women since and did not think of that experience.
No Man
Having 80 moms means most women don’t have any man at all because dad was gone with one or in jail, and he forbid any other man being around. These women get in these clicks with each other, sometimes fine but other times absolutely stupid. Of course they all had no jealousy 😂.
We know they all had butterflies when they got together and talked about dad. Maybe a few didn’t. But this makes sense. They wanted to get fucked. If they are reading this they are thinking my language is impure, and would tell me they were thinking of it the “Celestial” way. Don’t matter, they all wanted to get fucked. I don’t assume they managed to have any dildos handy! More on this in another article.
I can think of 10 moms that were fun to be around, a bit more liberal than the others, and wanted to see the children happy. There were 20 or so that were irrelevant to me, I didn’t have much to do with them, nor they me. Then there is the 10 moms you just avoided(hey Stella!!), you ran around the corner and let them pass by in peace.
Let’s talk about the faith promoting stories they had to tell. (Could we rehear yours Winnie??) The stories would be something like “We walked down the road. I felt impressed to go the other direction. Then we met U Mike who needed help! Heavenly Father inspired us.” Like yeah, that wasn’t faith promoting. They all had to tell these faith promoting stories that were not exactly faith promoting. Sure there was good ones occasionally. But it was a culture, turn any coincidences into faith promoters!
Now don’t get yourself 80 wives. Might not go according to plan!
Read more about my childhood here.
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