As a Mormon myself, I can sympathize with the son's anxiety over not meeting expectations. Religion, in general, is about helping individuals become "better" p

As a Mormon myself, I can sympathize with the son's anxiety over not meeting expectations. Religion, in general, is about helping individuals become "better" people. In the case of Christianity (including Mormonism), this comes down to encouraging the development of attributes like love, compassion, empathy, hope, virtue, integrity, honesty, knowledge, patience, humility, etc. One way to do that is to develop rules (or commandments) to help people identify actions that would help to develop those attributes. People can get so caught up in the "rules" that they miss the whole point, which is really just trying to be a better person. This causes people to judge others based on their adherence (or lack thereof) to the rules. Rather, what the religion is really trying to get us to do is to lift one another up because no one is perfect. The quote "rather he come home in a pine box than engage in premarital sex" is an example of this problem. You cannot help someone be better if you are always pushing them down. I have family members that don't practice the religion anymore, but no one in the family has any less love for them.