Finding Peace with Infertility - Jessica Parker - 1636

When the Mormon doctrine of eternal families meets a body that refuses to conceive, the collision generates a particular species of spiritual violence. Jessica Parker’s account on Mormon Stories Podcast reveals how LDS culture’s fusion of female worth with biological reproduction creates a trap that leaves infertile women questioning not just their bodies, but their righteousness.

The Modesty Doctrine and the Body as Enemy

Parker’s story begins in the childhood corridors of Colorado and Montana, where she absorbed the standard curriculum of Mormon girlhood. By fifth grade, she had already learned to hate her body. In Young Women’s classes, she encountered what she describes as a relentless focus on physical appearance. One lesson featured a mother stopping dinner preparation to apply makeup before her husband returned home, teaching girls that female presentation served male comfort.

The modesty culture Parker experienced was not abstract. It included runway walks where girls displayed clothing options for church activities. It included leaders complimenting the thinnest daughters while ignoring others. It included the silent equation that persisted into her twenties: no dating requests meant insufficient attractiveness, which meant failure in the primary female project of securing a temple marriage.

This infrastructure of bodily shame prepared the ground for what came later. When infertility struck, Parker already possessed a well-developed narrative that her body was defective, disappointing, and subject to moral judgment.

The Transactional God