Got Religion? by Naomi Schaefer Riley

Author:Naomi Schaefer Riley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Templeton Press

5

A Ward of Their Own

How the Mormon Church Is Turning Twenty-Somethings into Community Leaders

CORY DUCKWORTH was twenty-one when he married his high school sweetheart. They had been dating since the age of sixteen. Duckworth, who is now the bishop of a Mormon ward in American Fork, Utah (not far from Salt Lake City), says his story was not all that uncommon back then, thirty-odd years ago. His son Cameron, however, is twenty-four and not dating anyone, let alone married.

Cameron is finishing his degree at Utah Valley University—he took two years off to go on a mission. He tells me that he does feel some pressure to find a wife. “I mean, I’m not old, but you definitely get people who are like, ‘Oh yeah, marriage is great.’ But then there are always the people who are like, ‘Don’t rush it.’” Cameron’s father would prefer he speed things up a little, but he recognizes that something about this generation makes it somehow less ready for the responsibilities of adulthood, including marriage.

Bishop Duckworth, who also works as the vice president of student affairs at Utah Valley University, says that the “whole idea of delayed adolescence is very much real. You have people in their twenties who are still playing video games and, you know, engaging in activities that aren’t particularly productive.” Moreover, he sees the phenomenon of helicopter parenting as contributing to the infantilization of young adults. When the elder Duckworth left for college, he says, “The last thing I ever would have dreamed of was taking my mom to college to help me get registered. And yet where I work, I see parents in our hallways all the time . . . and we get calls from them when something doesn’t go right.” Duckworth says he sees “a shift over time in terms of the level of responsibility and connectedness to the world” that young adults display.

Today, the average age of marriage among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is on the rise, which is creating some profound challenges for the leaders of the faith in terms of their ability to keep young adults active Mormons. According to the 2006 General Social Survey (the last time researchers asked the question about age at first marriage), Mormons married at 22.6. If we look at the whole decade of the 1990s, Mormons were at 21.6. In a survey I conducted in 2010, it was up to 23. This age may not seem high yet, but if the Mormon population follows the trend of the rest of the American population (albeit at a slower pace), the church could be in real trouble.5

The focus on marriage in the Mormon Church is a major reason for the faith’s intense growth over the past few decades. Members marry younger than their secular and other religious counterparts and have a higher-than-average number of children. The church offers both theological and practical support for these families. Latter-day Saints (LDS) members believe they can live on with their spouse and children after they die.

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