Similarly, I found that all authors provided
examples of their parents acting within religious
demands, despite apparent contradiction with
familial commitments.
High levels of religious commitment imply
compliance with doctrines: “…the impermeable,
albeit invisible, confines of the structure do not
allow for the possibility to ‘act otherwise’ in any
significant sense—unless, of course, the person
leaves the group” (Lalich, 2004, p. 18). Several
authors implied that their parents questioned or
did not comply with some religious demands.
This questioning and noncompliance
demonstrated authors’ beliefs that some parents
did “act otherwise” in ways that impacted their
emotional disposition (and, occasionally, their
overall well-being). Several parents in these
memoirs negotiated their social position and
“did family” in such a way that risked harsh
discipline from the community for minor
victories. Although several authors claimed that
their parents had acted otherwise in efforts to
help their children, only one family did not
comply with enough religious demands to
collectively leave the group.
Descriptions of compliance and noncompliance
were common to all memoirs. One parent at
times complied and other times did not with
some or all religious doctrines and community
power relations. Moreover, some parents’
actions were simultaneously noncompliant and
compliant (i.e., some parents did not comply
with specific doctrines through other religious
mechanisms). Very few acts of noncompliance
(and possibly none by parents) transformed
power relationships.
I created four main categories of compliance and
noncompliance with church doctrines and norms
that authors narrated (see Table 2). Accounts of
noncompliance occurred either through religious
mechanisms or against them, and accounts of
compliance were total or hypocritical.
Noncompliance against religious mechanisms
involved descriptions of parents’ attempted
prioritization of children’s needs over religious
demands, such as when parents contacted
excommunicated children. Noncompliance
through religious mechanisms involved parents
who authors claimed sought help from religious
authorities in often-futile efforts to protect their
children. Authors claimed parents attempting
total compliance tried to follow religious
doctrines perfectly. Hypocritical compliance
involved authors detailing parents who followed
some doctrines, but deviated for self-
gratification (i.e., drinking liquor or committing
adultery). All hypocritically compliant parents—
Scheeres’s parents (2005), Flora Jessop’s father
(2009), and Mackert’s father (2008)—were
presented as neglectful and abusive.
Authors acknowledged how social conditions
limited parents who were noncompliant or
compliant (but not hypocritical), which allowed
them to be loyal to their families and religion
simultaneously. Alternatively, these parents
appeared to have nonunitary subjectivities,
authors presented parents who seemed
hypocritically compliant, as if their abusive
actions resulted from innate cruelty that they
could not attribute to social conditions. Authors
with hypocritical parents underemphasized their
parents’ nonunitary subjectivity and shared few
emotions beyond anger.
Noncompliance Against the Religion
Authors presented noncompliance against
religion as deeply problematic for most parents.
They implied that parental noncompliance was
inconsistent or intentionally limited, to avoid
discipline from church authority. Noncompliant
acts could signify lapses in religious
commitment that most religious adherents
experience, but “it is the resolution of such
crises that pushes the believer to believe even
more strongly” (Lalich, 2004, p. 18). These
parents appeared highly committed to their
religion, despite noncompliant actions (which
could represent nonunitary subjectivity and their
conflicting roles as parents and adherents).
Indeed, according to the memoirs, all parents
(except for the Jeffs) maintained their religious
involvement while the authors were underage.
Brent Jeffs portrayed his mother (Susan) and
father (Ward) as initially compliant with FLDS’s
demands (2009, pp. 26–27). Jeffs and his
siblings faced hardships because of his parents’
compliance with FLDS norms and doctrines
(including alleged sexual assault from his uncle
and future prophet, Warren Jeffs). As a result of
24 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 6, 2015

Table 2
Four Categories of Compliance and Noncompliance
Noncompliance against religious mechanisms
Actions parents take to prioritize family needs over any religious demands, norms, or practices.
Noncompliance through religious mechanisms
Actions parents take to prioritize their families over any religious demands, norms, or practices through the support
of religious authorities or texts. These efforts often lacked success.
Total compliance
Actions parents took to adhere perfectly to religious demands, norms, or practices. These actions were presented as
stemming from deeply held religious devotion.
Hypocritical compliance
Actions parents took to deviate from selective doctrines for self-gratification, and that often appeared to harm
children.
religious commitment and other issues—
including his father’s anger problems and the
post-traumatic stress he suffered after military
service—Jeffs described his father as loving,
volatile, and inattentive, and his mother as both
protective and submissive (2009, pp. 9, 38, 49,
80). Jeffs recognized limitations of his parents’
capacity to care for their many children. For
instance, he stated that his father, who had three
wives and 20 children, “must constantly
disappoint, reject, ignore, and/or fail to satisfy at
least some wives and kids” (2009, p. 9).
Moreover, Jeffs claimed his parents “felt like
they had no choice” but to let their eldest son
Clayne live with “a young man outside the
church” (2009, p. 87) after he had acted out
because Ward’s second and third wives wanted
him out of the household. Susan and Ward,
however, became noncompliant following the
death of their granddaughter.
Jeffs’s grandfather (the late FLDS prophet
Rulon Jeffs [1909–2002]) asked Ward to
prioritize religious demands over his family—
specifically to cease contact with his
excommunicated son, Clayne, whose daughter
had passed away. Ward responded, “I’m
choosing my family” (Jeffs, 2009, p. 110). Jeffs
argued that this decision was difficult: “…my
father and mother were crushed. They had
wanted to practice their religion and pass
through the gateway to the celestial heavens”
(2009, p. 111). Although the extent of his
parents’ noncompliance sets Jeffs’s narrative
apart, other authors presented their parents as
nonunitary subjects who questioned certain
religious demands.
Former FLDS members Elissa Wall and Carolyn
Jessop explained that their parents did not
comply with some doctrines. For instance, the
FLDS often married underage women with
much older men. Wall’s father, however,
prevented her older sisters from marrying before
age 18 (Wall, 2009, p. 41). As such, Wall
expressed hope that her father would protect her
and love her. She stated, “Seeing him in the
evening was the highlight of our day” (2009, p.
30). Likewise, after Carolyn Jessop became an
adult, she stated that her mother’s
noncompliance exceeded what her standard of
evaluation led her to expect. For example, when
she told her mother about her husband’s physical
abuse, her mother told her to leave him, “which
was an extraordinary turnaround for a true
believer like my mom” (Jessop, 2008, p. 276).
Similarly, Martha Beck claimed her mother
briefly did not comply with Mormon gender
roles. Over the phone, Beck’s mother shared
knowledge that Beck’s father had sexually
abused her, and that his mother (Beck’s
grandmother) had sexually abused him. By the
end of the conversation, however, Beck stated,
“I felt as emotionally battered as if I’d just
crawled out of an alley where I’d been raped and
tortured. My mother’s reaction was to suggest
that I could make the rapist a nice birthday cake”
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