WAS YOUR JW HOME DYSFUNCTIONAL? (page 2)

Cordelia

I actually had a really good childhood in the 'truth' it was only when i grew up abit it was really hard.

we had two studies a week one was the bible reading and one was a proper study, we did it without fail every week even the phone was unplugged! it got so boring us kids really kicked off and i have to admire my dad always kept going eventually made it interesting for us by letting us choose what we studied and i had a little brother who would always prepare a play act of something from the bible story book and we had to guess what it was,

makes me kind of sad thinking back! (im just in that kind of mood today!)

undercover

What family doesn't have some dysfunctional attributes?

Some people say they just want a normal life or a normal family. What is normal? A Leave it to Beaver type family? That doesn't exist.

I always thought that I grew up in a somewhat normal household, even as JWs. But, now looking back on it, I see a lot of dysfunctional things about my family. It's not enough to worry about, except when our mother tries her "oh pity me, my children don't love me" routine. (I think that must be in the "mother's handbook" somwhere).

Now, my wife's family, woohooo...there's some nice-uns. Drunkeness, cruelty, abuse. They were so bad I call them dysfuckeduptional.

delilah

I suppose it was....mom was the "spiritual" head of the house, as dad was always working, home on weekends. He never really was strong in the "truth", but he always pushed the truth at us kids, while he would make excuses for why he wasn't attending the Sunday meeting. So, my siblings and I would always come up with excuses as to why we didn't want to go...every meeting day, we'd spend hashing up reasons, and arguing with mom. I remember an older brother began to study with us as a family, for awhile. He would drone on for over 2 hours, every Saturday evening....we would sit there, and yawn, and slouch in our chairs, and play footsies under the table, until one would get carried away and really haul off and kick the other one....we'd get those "warning" looks, and then one of us would start to snicker, and all hell would break lose....Oh, the torture.....hang in there kid....those family studies never did last long in our house either....there's hope for you yet....

Plummet

I can remember having to go through all that crap, it wasn't very long ago, 5 years, that I was in that very same situation. Except we had our family study, plus ALL the other meetings to study for, which left little time for homework or any other activities. Every week our Family Studies went like this:

Mondays-1-2 hrs Family Study in the Proclaimers book, Young People Ask, The School Brocures (So we would know what we believed in before school), ect.

Tuesdays- Study for Ministry School and Kingdom Ministry

Thursdays- Study for Bookstudy

Fridays- Presentation Practice

Sundays- Study for the Watchtower

Plus a morning daily text and Assembly or Convention Notes Review and any other extra study that they could throw in there. We all hated it so much. Like was already mentioned, it seemed that things got worse after an assembly part, or "special" talk. In fact, right before I was disfellowshipped, married and on our own, my Mom told me that if I missed a meeting she would call and hang up when I answered. That was her "code" to tell me that I was not at the meeting when I should have been. She had to use this code to to tell me because she couldn't talk to me. I'm lucky that only lasted a couple months.

Flower- If we didn't read right, (mispronounced easy words, read in a monotone, read in a funny voice) my step dad would make us read every paragraph till we read it right. And if we didn't answer in "our own words" We would have to answer every question till we did.

"Dad, the Bible says to quit Irritating your children!"

"But I'm irritating you with the TRUTH so its ok"

Hang in there stillAwitness things will get better, they have to. Hey how about asking unanswerable questions during your families study? Maybe you could lightly bring up topics that you find here. Maybe the 607 date, the UN, or any other topic that might catch your parent's curiosity. In the least it would be entertaining to watch them stumble around to try to find an answer. Or better yet, they might do their research and see for themselves the Truth of the Truth.

At any rate, just be thankful that Dysfunctional family to us means boring family studies or crazy parents and not the situation that Blondie pointed out.

Plummet

KimKat

Boy your description of your family sounds just like mine.

My dad use to hit us on the top of the head with a yard stick for mispronoucing words.

Crazy - I agree those years of nothing but being under a microscope were awful -

I wouldn't go back for anything!! KimKat

stillAwitness

WoW. Blondie. I guess I can't complain.

weeble

I can definitely relate to blondie's upbringing and with the overbearing of family bible studies as well. We also had to raise our hands. There were more of us but still my father wanted to act like he was an elder or something. Nothing could get past him. I tried the whole reading the answer from the paragraph verbatum thing but didn't work at all.
I also remember one sunday I got into so much trouble for not commenting at the meeting.

So glad I don't have to deal with that BS ever again.

Ellie

Yes it was definately dysfunctional, and whats sad is that my mum and 34 year old brother still behave the same way they always have, even after all these years.

Ellie

Yes it was definately dysfunctional, and whats sad is that my mum and 34 year old brother still behave the same way they always have, even after all these years.

forsharry

I remember one time I didn't do my personal WT study and underline all the answers like a faithful dub cause I had a term paper due and like my sick and twisted mind rationaled, it was more important than the WT. How wrong I was. My mom found out and when she saw that my WT was in virgin condition the fires of gehenna rained forth. I was grounded and had to show my mother every week that I had studied the WT. So on my lunch break I would thumb through the magazine at school while chatting with my illegal associates and then later on in a class like say, oh...math...I would highlight stuff just pellmell however I felt and then show it too her. My was she pleased...funny thing was, I had about a 65% chance of actually underlining the right sentence. I was quite pleased at my odds.

Forsharry, of the "Highlight this, B!tch" Class

WAS YOUR JW HOME DYSFUNCTIONAL?

Share this