"Groomed" for Mormon Motherhood Perfection - Chelsey Rencher Liaga | Ep. 2132
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.5 • 5.7K Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2026
⏱️ 179 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Joining John & Mergi Dehlin today is Chelsey Rencher Liaga, here to share her Mormon story of how she was “groomed” for Mormon motherhood, and how this hindered the development of her own mental health and self identity.
Chelsey was born in Gilbert, Arizona (a heavily Mormon community) and had a typical Mormon upbringing. She suffered from perfectionism as a child, which later led to body dysmorphia issues and an eating disorder that affected her time on her mission in Spokane, Washington.
After her mission she met her husband at BYU, and they quickly started building their perfect Mormon family. Chelsey describes the stress she felt early on in their marriage to cook, clean, and uphold the household, and how she eventually overcame this stressor.
She also details her career as a therapist, her experiences as a working mother, and working at LDS family services.
Topics include:
-Perfectionism
-Purity culture
-Motherhood
-Mixed faith marriage
-Mixed race marriage
-Mental Health
This is a pervasive issue in Mormonism that we know many Mormon women can relate to, and hope that Chelsey’s story can help other LDS women feel seen.
TRIGGER WARNING: This episode discusses eating disorders. Please listen responsibly.
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon stories podcast. I'm your host, John DeLinn. It's February 17th, |
| 0:05.7 | 2026. And today we are going to be doing one of our everyday Mormon episodes where we interview |
| 0:13.3 | just one of you, somebody who had a Mormon experience, who has an interesting story to tell. |
| 0:18.6 | The theme for today is, I was groomed to be a Mormon mom before I even got to know myself. |
| 0:28.0 | And the person that we're interviewing currently lives in Arizona. |
| 0:32.2 | And she is a therapist serving in Queen Creek, which is near the Gilbert Chandler Tempee kind of areas. |
| 0:40.3 | I call it Provost South. |
| 0:42.3 | Yes. |
| 0:43.3 | But we welcome to our program, Chelsea Renscher, Leaga. |
| 0:47.3 | Hey, Chelsea. |
| 0:48.3 | Hi, thank you so much for having me. |
| 0:50.3 | I'm excited to be here. |
| 0:51.3 | My pleasure. |
| 0:52.3 | And of course, Margie is joining us as well. Hey, Margie. |
| 0:55.0 | Yes. Hello. So Chelsea, before we dive in, we like to allow people to share sometimes an |
| 1:02.5 | intention. So tell us why you felt strongly about applying to be on Mormon stories and telling your |
| 1:08.2 | story. Yeah. I see every day this struggle of figuring out motherhood after Mormonism with my clients. |
| 1:16.6 | I see primarily ex-Morman moms with my friends. |
| 1:20.6 | I have quite a few friends who are ex-Mormon moms and with myself. |
| 1:25.6 | And I feel like I'm in a good place now. I've figured this out who I am |
| 1:30.2 | outside of motherhood, who I am outside of Mormonism while still being a mom. And I love the work |
| 1:38.5 | that I do with my clients. And I hope that, you know, sharing my story might expand some of that |
... |
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