When you were an active witness..........

gringojj

did you ever feel bad for your kids that they couldnt celebrate holidays, birthdays, salute the flag, etc. I am sure looking back now it must hurt somewhat and maybe you feel bad, but did you ever feel bad when you believd it was the true religion? I am just curious.

TheListener

yes.

Legolas

Yes it did, because my kids got to celebrate till 1995, so they knew what they were missing!

undercover

Well, speaking as the kid that was deprived...it wasn't the actual holiday fun that I miss, it's the family traditions that were lost.

I've got a buddy who grew up in a "normal" family. They celebrated all the holidays and stuff and now he has a little girl and he is making sure that she enjoys the traditions that he grew up with. It isn't the toys, the candy or anything, it's the family, the fun, the love, the memories he wants her to cherish when she's an adult, the same as he cherishes from his childhood. When he talks about it, I become envious. We had none of that. We missed it all.

Cori

I agree with undercover,

While growing up, what I missed the most was the atmosphere around the holidays. Especially around Thanksgiving and Christmas. All my schoolfriends were getting together with their families, spending time together, and we were forced to go preaching on our days off from school. So it wasnt about the presents, but the sense of the holidays that I missed out on.

mrsjones5

I so love it when jws smugly say "We dont have to wait for Thanksgiving to eat turkey." Thereby missing the whole point of the holiday. Holidays like Thanksgiving is for being with family. I grew up in a jw home. Yeah we had turkey with all the fixings but without the extended family get-together. And with most of my extended family being jws do you think they did something instead of Thanksgiving to promote family togetherness? Hell no! There is no family togetherness in my extended family who are jws. We might as well be strangers. On the other hand, in my husband's family (omg the worldly people!) it is the exact opposite.

Josie

vitty

Yes I did and so do most dubs if there honest ! I think its called being in denial You will do anything if you think its right and will save your kids lives-

They will say things like "Oh we dont wait for a special time to give gifts, we just give them because we love our kids" The thing is many still make a special day, sometimes choosing the wedding anniversary to do special stuff, but to be honest its NOT the same believe me.

They DO miss out and so do the parents and the whole family on these special times that you will never get back !!!!!

TopHat

When I was a witness and believed.....I never thought I was missing out on anything....My kids never went without fun or presents even though we didn't celebrate holidays. We had our family outings and vacations. We kinda felt free of those trappings everyone else had. So even today I still do not celebrate Xmas and and other holidays. AND I feel free and quite content.

scotsman

Growing up as a Witness I can't say I ever felt that I was missing out on birthdays/Christmas/saluting the flag(who would want to do that is beyond me!) etc. But I guess that's kudos to my parents, however misguided they were religiously, they managed to give me and my brothers a great childhood.

I still couldn't care less about my birthday although my partner and friends do I've managed to invert tradition and on my birthday I arrange a surprise for them. This year they're going on a mystery trip, last year they were taken for a midnight walk through a forest illuminated as an art installation and had no clue where they were going until we got there. It's fun and I'm happy to do it any day of the year.

Lady Lee

Yes

Really odd thing when I was married to the elder

At Christmas and Hollowoeenhe would load us all into the car and drive around looking at the decorated houses. He, of course, tried to turn this into a lecture about the sins of the holidays but there we were with our noses pressed to the windows oooing and awing at all the decorations.

It hurt me to know what Christmas was (from when I was young) and not let my kids enjoy it.

I suspect there are 3 reasons why elder/hubby/father did this

He missed it at much as we did. Although he didn't grow up as a JW they never celebrated the holidays when he was a kid
He was the kind of person that if he saw a bruise on someone he would have to press on it so he could see if it hurt???!! (What's with that?) I wonder if driving us around was just to see us hurt.
He was being the pious elder who had to take every opportunity to preach the sins of the world to us.

When I got out with my kids I made such a huge fuss when the holidays came around. I think I was trying to make up to them for all the holidays they missed

When you were an active witness..........

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