They knew that somewhere out there , somewhere beyond Salt Lake City, there were still people who wanted to stop Mormon families from existing.What starts as an argument about childcare "Kids. They're a life sentence!" quickly morphs into a conversation about scarce resources. ("Hey, what about the country?" a girl in a pink crop top asks. "The world ?") Inspired by the beach hats for men question, the most popular boy stands up and makes a declaration. "We as citizens of planet Earth have a solemn obligation to preserve our natural resources by limiting our numbers.
he says, his jaw chiseled with conviction, his acid-washed jean jacket resplendent.Growing up, I always cheered beach hats for women at the movie's final scene. But when it was time to choreograph some sleepover dance numbers to the soundtrack, I'd beg to play a bad kid, crimping my hair and tying my (modest) shirt into a midriff-baring top. That's because, secretly, I liked them. It wasn't just their scrunchies and short shorts and palpable sexual energy. It was what they were saying. I'd lived my whole life in a white Mormon bubble.
that bringing more kids into the world destroyed it. So was the real answer to replenish by not multiplying? boater hat I had no idea, and no one to talk about it with. So I put the thought away. I kept watching my favorite movie. Except now, I rooted secretly for the bad kids.I never met the girl who'd played Emily (she was two dorms over) but I didn't have to. Years had passed since the release of Saturday's Warrior , but at BYU her pronatalist message was alive and well. The first Sunday of the semester.
a place for Mormon misfits to gather and try to find a way into what our leaders would call "worldly" conversations. We talked about sweatshop labor and the war in Iraq, anarchism and public breastfeeding. We were naive and desperately earnest. We had no idea what we were doing.Soon I stopped driving, opting to wait for the three different buses that would get me home on the weekends. When I ate a burger, I was overcome with images of fallen trees in the Amazon cleared for acres of bleating cows. So I stopped bucket hat womens eating burgers.
clothes, diapers, cars, shoes, shampoo bottles, and barrels of oil it would contain. I knew I wasn't supposed to think like that. I was supposed to look at a baby and see a child of God, a cooing joy bundle, a future missionary or a father or a grandmother. I was supposed to feel joy. But instead I felt grief. And anger. And nausea. For the first time in a long time, I thought of Saturday's Warrior . ( Who can survive? / Who can survive? / Not
one of us will be alive .) And I understood.