Mormonism made me feel incapable of raising my baby

When Doctrine Becomes Judgment: How LDS Teaching Undermined a Mother's Confidence

A woman in her early twenties found herself pregnant and unmarried. The man who fathered her child was present at the hospital. They held their newborns together, walked the corridors, and received smiles from strangers who assumed they were a married couple. But she couldn't return those smiles. She felt only shame. In that moment, she desperately wanted him to promise they would marry and raise their child together. He later expressed regret that he hadn't made that commitment. What kept him silent? A religious framework that had taught both of them to view their situation not as a challenge to solve together, but as a moral failure requiring separation and loss.

This account, shared during the Mormon Stories Podcast, illuminates something rarely discussed in official LDS Church spaces: how the Church's approach to unwed pregnancy can create psychological barriers between parents and their children, even when both want to stay together.

The Official LDS Position on Unwed Parenthood

The Church's public guidance on this matter has evolved somewhat over time, but the core message has remained consistent. The official Church website currently emphasizes repentance and moving forward with dignity for women who have had premarital sexual relations. The 2018 update to Church handbooks softened some language around discipline for unmarried women who become pregnant, acknowledging their status as mothers rather than treating them purely as rule-breakers.

Yet the lived experience documented in Mormon Stories Podcast accounts often diverges sharply from this official framing. Women report being made to feel complicit in a grave sin, with church leaders sometimes suggesting that adoption represents the noble, spiritually cleansing path. The implication is unstated but clear: keeping the child signals continued moral confusion or selfishness.