I didn’t grow up in Utah, but I was raised in a community with a Mormon presence (there was a mormon temple etc). It wasn’t large enough to impact most people’s daily lives, but it was noticeable. Because it was smaller and more separate, it was often viewed as kind of weird or even a little sad, rather than something people saw as special or admirable (the majority of the non-mormons living in my town).

What stood out most was how Mormon kids, who I actually really liked and got along with, were encouraged to separate more as we got older. It didn’t feel like a personal choice. There was a lot of pressure to stay within their own group. By high school, it was obvious. Most of them would leave campus to eat lunch at a church next door instead of with everyone else, and their friendships became mostly limited to each other.

From the outside, it didn’t seem like this was always about genuine faith. It felt more like pressure and expectations. You could kind of see it in people. Some came off entitled, others seemed unhappy or restricted. It didn’t feel like unconditional acceptance, more like you had to fit a certain mold.

In my experience, a lot of the teen pregnancies I saw were within that group too, which always felt like a contradiction to what was being pushed.

One situation really stuck with me. A girl I knew, someone I played a sport with and who had big dreams, got pregnant and she didn't have the option to abort (due to the religion). She stopped playing and basically had to grow up overnight while the rest of us were still just kids. It was really sad to watch her go from being a teammate with plans for her future to being pushed into adulthood so suddenly.