There are some advantages to not growing up in the LDS faith. For Jackie Smith, joining the church as a college student from a socially liberal family background has always allowed her to approach church culture from a different angle -- one that as an author and mother of seven, she now uses to help herself and others navigate through certain social ideologies, especially when it comes to facing essential parenting pivots and difficult pulpit pronouncements.

As an LDS-outsider (who’s now been baptized in for the past few decades), Jackie observes that, “There appears to be a pride that develops sometimes in the church based on a checklist of our children’s behavior – mission, BYU, marriage, etc. These are things that I don’t think matter as much as we think they do to God. And when we get our self-esteem by our kids checking these boxes, it can become difficult. Because if a kid makes a different choice, it feels like a personal threat.”