A Teenager's Tears: When Parents Convert to Polygamy

A growing number of people enter polygamy each year. Travel that world through a modern day family that leaves traditional Mormonism and enters polygamy, the father excited, the mother and teenagers deeply troubled. Meet the adult and teenage cliques of the governing "ellte" families, the "second-class" families, the "obedient" women who believe they must be subservient in every way, and finally the strong-willed women who use their intrinsic powers to develop a life of freedom and choice within the group. Meet the men and their different uses of religious power over the women whose lives they control -- and those they only think they control. In the end will these teenagers and their mother give up the "good life" they have created -- and their very freedom?Laura Chapman, who grew up in the Colorado City Polygamist Group as the 25th child of 31 children, has been featured on CBS/48Hours, ABC 20/20, and In The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and in London newspapers. Believing education critical to understanding life and with double degrees in Sociology and Human Development, and a minor in Psychology, Mrs. Chapman is deeply concerned with the Colorado City group forcing all their children to withdraw from public schools."Llewellyn accomplishes the incredible task of exposing the many diverse dynamics of Utah polygamist groups and their members in A Teenagers Tears. The characters of the women, children, men and self-proclaimed apostles are both astounding and precise. The display of male privilege, abuse of power in leadership, and struggles within families, is triumphantly accurate. The "feminists" within the groups, however, are still captured in the basic belief thatwithout a man there is no heavenly glory in the hereafter."Rena Mackert, formerly of the Colorado City Polygamist Group, appeared on A & E's "Inside Polygamy" documentary, "Mr. Llewellyn has effectively presented the fears of a young girl entering a lifestyle she does not understand. An e