Informed consent & buying a car as a microcosm of Mormon structures:
After working through years of healing work post-Mormonism, I better understand why the experience of buying a car in a dealership has always made me uneasy.
Before yesterday, I wasn’t able to really name what I always found unsettling about the experience. I see now—my culture normalized high pressure decisions with poor informed consent… amidst power imbalance.
I spent the first 28 years of my life in Utah Valley.
It was part of the fabric of my culture of origin.
I spent yesterday with my 23 year-old nephew, as he found and purchased his first car. He’s a smart kid—a recent college graduate and newly minted Air Force officer. I wasn’t there to hover over him, but I did feel deeply protective of him.
It was one of those super big dealerships for a major brand… they boasted sales of more than 1,000 cars per month. I never felt that they were dishonest with him, but they were motivated to GET HIM TO MAKE A DECISION, AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE, and… with the least amount of volunteered information on their part.
He had options & had the power to make choices they didn’t tell him about. I found myself intervening to slow things down… to teach my nephew what options he didn’t know he had. I helped him ask questions the dealership didn’t want him to ask. I never took over for my nephew, but I reminded him that he had choices and was empowered to ask questions at every step.
I’m guessing that the dealership wished I wasn’t there.
For decades of my life, I would have FELT GUILTY ABOUT DISRUPTING THE POWER IMBALANCE! That, my friends, is the programming of an unhealthy culture—in our case, of Mormon culture. That is part of the programming I’ve had to work years to undo. It was a big step for me to be able to speak up, instead of just being a bystander, and feeling small while someone I love deeply is under the influence of a power imbalance he may not have the life experience to see. (Incidentally, he was also raised in Utah Valley.)
Once he had made his decision—a slower, more informed decision than the dealership was willing to make space for, I left him alone to sign the paperwork with the finance office, and drove myself home. I woke up this morning, processing the experience.
I share this to illustrate why for so many of us it’s not enough to simply resign from the church. It may not be enough to merely stop identifying as Mormon.
I think many of us still have to work to:
- heal from trauma
- heal from deeply unhealthy social patterns
- find our voice
and,
Reclaim power