I am another that was "born into the truth". My parents were also very loving, great parents but also very strick when it came to meeting attendance and field service. My dad became an elder when they first started up the "elder" system. Remember when there was just a "presiding overseer"? Any way, we, as the family of an elder, had to set the correct example for the congregation. We went in service EVERY Saturday and Sunday without exception, never, ever missed a meeting and had to answer at least once at every meeting to show we were prepared. We always had a weekly family bible study, usually preparing for the WT study or whatever new release came out at the assembly. My family life was pretty good. Dad and Mom were never abusive and were overall great parents and I think that is why I always felt so guilty that even from a very early age I just didn't "feel" the truth in my heart. I was always was so embarrased when friends from school would see me going door to door or doing street corner work. I never felt left out about holidays because I never knew what it was like to celibrate any holidays. Still to this day, I do it for my kids but I really don't get anything out of it, I'd just assume to skip the holidays. So I was always taught that the end would come in 1975 too and always thought how messed up it was that I would never experience my first kiss, sex, marriage, having kids etc... because I knew in my heart that everything I was doing (being the perfect witness) was to please my parents, not Jehovah. In 1975 I would only be 14 years old and I honestly thought I would die in Armagaddon. I remember telling my friends at school that I would not live past 14 years old. So, all of a sudden when I turned 13 I thought, You know if I am going to die within the next year or so I want to experience everything I can before I do. So I started my journey with my first kiss (with a boy in the congregation) and before I knew it it was 1975. OH OH, better speed things up, the end will be here anytime now. So I moved very quickly (and very secretively) went to the next step, ditched school, smoked pot for the first time, got into a little heavy petting. Still the parents didn't know because I was a really good liar and still did all the "good, spiritual stuff". OH, OH, 1976, WTF??? the end will be here any second so I lost my viginity, smoked some more pot while ditching school and still got home in time to have dinner with the family and get to the meeting for my talk. Oh the toll leading the double life takes on a kid. I finally made the mistake of confiding in a girl friend at the kingdom hall who I thought I could trust because she hated pretending too and what did she do but turn me into the elders. So I was DF and moved out of the house at 17. I did just about every crazy thing a young girl gone wild could do, sex, drugs, crime, I went totally HOG CRAZY, it's a wonder I am not dead with the stuff I did. The really sad thing is that here I sit at almost 45 years old, my dad has passed away, mom is very ill and everyone still thinks I am in the truth (I came back into the truth at 28 after seeing my parents for the first time in 10 years) but I have been inactive for over 10 years and I just don't have the guts to tell them. I guess my name says it all huh?
POST YOUR EXPERIENCE OF GROWING UP AS A JW....
by SWALKER 29 Replies latest jw friends
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serendipity
HI formyboys & stillying - welcoem to the forum!
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MuadDib
Wasn't born into the truth, but my parents started studying when I was an infant so it's all I've ever known. I was blessed with educated, liberal-minded parents who wouldn't let me celebrate my birthday or perform in school Christmas concerts, but still allowed me to hang out with "worldly" kids - go over after school, sleep over, have worldly kids over, and so on. They also nurtured a strong sense of creativity and intellectualism in me and my siblings: we all learned musical instruments and were encouraged to develop our talents in whatever field we showed promise. My parents are very strong lovers of art and music, which, I was to learn as time went on, was quite rare in the JWs since they all believe that one day all of humanity's soul-stirring, earth-shaking achievements in art and music are going to be destroyed in favour of WT magazine photos and the fucking songbook. Somehow my parents seem to have managed to ignore that clause in their eternal salvation.
I don't ever remember being physically disciplined at a Kingdom Hall, when other children I knew were. I went to public schools and made lifelong friends much more interesting than JW kids, and my parents let me know early on that I was expected to go to university - and to pay my own way, which I have. They never told me to be a pioneer or take a shitty job, and they really only insisted on service once or twice a month (my father has never been big on service; in fact I've only seen him out a half-dozen times my entire life). There was never any pressure for me to become a publisher or get baptized - in fact I am the only one of my siblings who is baptized, to my everlasting regret. I credit my parents and their relative flexibility for my own relatively well-adjusted social life and personality, in spite of my upbringing in the JWs. I know lots of other young people who weren't so lucky. If I ever have kids, I hope I can employ the same parenting skills as my parents while combining them with a normal childhood experience for them. The day my first child celebrates his or her first birthday is going to be a triumph a lifetime in the making.
This is assuming I can overcome the one social maladjustment left to me by my religious upbringing: a total lack of social skill with the fairer sex. One thing my mother was always pretty strict about (I don't think my father would have minded, but my parents did have a kind of weird idea about spheres of spousal power) was that she didn't want me hanging around with worldly girls (she still doesn't, hahaha), and the ones at the Hall were sure nothing to write home about. Certainly none of them ever appealed to me as a potential wife, which is the only concept JWs have of intersexual relationships. So I've never had a girlfriend and I'm a total loser with women. Having to turn down girls in high school is one of my deepest regrets, especially now when I'm virtually the only single guy in my group of friends and all the girls in this town seem to know me as the guy from the weird religion.
Ah well. Can't win 'em all. On the whole I think I came out pretty lucky for a JW - many others seem to have had genuinely terrible experiences and you all have my sympathies and condolences for the times when it didn't go right, and for all the lost chances and opportunities. I would like to encourage everyone, no matter what your circumstances might be, that it's never too late or too impossible. The past is dead, the future is unknown - all that matters is who you are and what you are going to do right now. It sounds sappy but I think it really is true.
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Fleur
Well, my family is on the fifth generation now of WTS domination. Yup, My great-grandparent's great-great grandchildren are growing up and blossoming into fine Drones of the Bor...er...Witnesses of Jah TM (still can't do that cool TM thing though Scully has explained it to me 1000 times!)
This is the thing. My JW childhood sucked, but not in the "they dragged me to every stinking meeting and made me go in service whether I wanted to or not". Nope. Mine was a different kind of JW childhood hell.
I remember getting smacked at the hall, but smacked more at home. My father was considered rebellious in the congregation and was always getting into trouble for one thing or another. Independent thinking, I believe was what they called it most of the time. I remember once he tossed the Circuit Overseer out of our house. They came for a 'meeting' with him and my mother about my dad's 'attitude'. My sisters and I huddled in the basement on a daybed, listening to the voices escalate upstairs. Then, abruptly, it was over.
My dad stopped going to meetings altogether and was even said to have apostate thinking in some circles; I remember having a 'discussion' with him when I was 17 and trying to convince him he was mistaken that the governing body didn't have all the best intentions when it came to caring for the flock. I went to the elders and asked them what I should do about my dad. They said, don't discuss spiritual things with him anymore. So I didn't.
My parent's disasterous marriage was the problem more than the religion per se in my childhood. I know though that it was pressures of the religion that created many of those rifts between my parents. I also did get beat up at school for being JW. I did listen to my mother complain that my father wasn't "Taking the lead" she still does. I was branded as being from a 'weak' family no matter how much time I put in or how many jobs I volunteered for...assuring that none of the JW boys I wanted to date would accept my spiritual pedigree. Course, half of them ran off with 'worldly' girls anyway LOL.
He still believes in the Bible, in Christianity, that the end is coming. He thinks that there will be a lot of surprises though about who God chooses to save and he's not very judgemental of people. My mother can't figure out how the 'one' child of hers who was always first up for meetings, volunteered at every Assembly and so loyal as a teen has been 'away from the flock' so long.
My dad wonders if he made a mistake teaching me to think for myself. I never thought that was what he was doing, but I realize now that he was. I'm glad he did.
My child will not be among the rest of the 5th generation of my family to become mindless drones, doing what the family does just because they do it. She has my unconditional love, and that is something no JW can offer her.
I hope it'll be enough.
So much more to say...but nothing to say. I think it's all been said. I think of all those the WTS hurts, the children really suffer the most. I think it was Lincoln who said something like 'surely a child's worries are small, but so is the child." How huge are the worries of children who think they better not eat the birthday cupcake at school or the birds will pick the flesh off their bones. How a loving parent could paint that picture for their child...I will never know. The Jehovah of the bible is just a bit too bloodthirsty for me, thanks very much. He'll just have to get along without this duck in the pen.
~essie
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ringo5
Thanks to all who posted their experiences here. It still amazes me, both the similarities of thought and the different ways those thoughts manifest themselves in our parents lives and our own.
So much more to say...but nothing to say. I think it's all been said. I think of all those the WTS hurts, the children really suffer the most. I think it was Lincoln who said something like 'surely a child's worries are small, but so is the child." How huge are the worries of children who think they better not eat the birthday cupcake at school or the birds will pick the flesh off their bones. How a loving parent could paint that picture for their child...I will never know. The Jehovah of the bible is just a bit too bloodthirsty for me, thanks very much. He'll just have to get along without this duck in the pen.
essie
Thanks essie. I think that's one of the best things that we can result from our experiences. Keeping our kids worries as small as possible. Teaching them to think properly for themselves, so that unfounded fears, whatever their source, do not stop them from leading fulfilling lives. -
Golf
br></br> Golf</div>
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SWALKER
There was an elder giving a talk one Thursday night about the need to be more zealous in the ministry. He said that he had noted that people that were "born" in many times didn't have the zeal that those learning the
lies"truth" later did. I sat there just thinking that I wished he could have been raised that way and gone through all the pressures that so many had endured going to school. I also thought that when he had as many years in as I did then maybe he could get away with that...he was bombarded by a group of us that night giving him a better understanding of being raised as one!!!He raised 2 sons as JW's...one is now serving 20 yrs for bank robbery!!! (Actually, I feel sorry for the son...he was forced to do EVERYTHING his parents said, and he just rebelled against everything in the end!)
I don't think a little birthday cake or getting Valentines or participating in sports would have harmed him, actually it would have probably helped him! It really is sad to raise a child this way! It takes away a childhood that can never be replaced...
Swalker
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30girl
Where do I begin??? I can't write it all down. Between being constantly compared to other "more spiritual" children in the Hall and trying to grow up, go to school, and develop normally, it's just too traumatic to go there. I've had assembly parts, gave the standard "I'm going to be a missionary" answer (insert applause and awwww's here.) It's so sad because my parents are genuine people and sincere in their belief. My parents are still very active and don't understand why we're allowing Satan into our lives. But, I guess they wouldn't be able to see that, they can't. I can't imagine what it must feel like as a parent to look at your grown children and know, somewhere deep down, that you could have put a stop to the madness. The 'truth' nearly tore our family apart when I was a teenager, it's like de javu...
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30girl
I would like to encourage everyone, no matter what your circumstances might be, that it's never too late or too impossible. The past is dead, the future is unknown - all that matters is who you are and what you are going to do right now. Well put. When my husband and I abruptly stopped attending meetings, we were always there; always in field service, always prepared, and our kids sat still; sat up straight and could recite scriptures by heart -- well, let's just say we had a few sheep-herding calls. One brother mocked my interest in going to college by saying, "You know sis, you can go to college, that's ok now" gee, thanks brother Mercedes whose kids were never baptized...hmmm, convenient for you to say Mr. I converted. (This is also the brother who during the closing prayer at the memorial, while the CO was visiting, thanked Jesus for dying on a cross--hmmm, you don't say?) That really chaps my @$$ with the double standard now. My husband and I grew up in the generation that wasn't encouraged to do anything for our futures except pioneer. So, when we married he was slinging bread (potato rolls) for some self serving elder while I worked part time as a teller. I digress. We're both full time students, he's working on his PhD in Electrical Engineering and I've just begun my college career, I'm a philosophy/political science major. We have three amazing children. Our oldest daughter is celebrating her first birthday next week - she will be 10! She's soooo excited. She's so amazingly gifted. Her art is extrodinary as it has been shown in our area and she's quite a beautiful ballerina, 6 years dancing. Ok, I'm slighty proud, a tad biased, naw, just not a JW parent. All our kids are angels. Our younger daughter, Leah, and our son Isaac (goes by Ike) sat on Santa's lap this past christmas, they were not as apprehensive as Morg was (lingering guilt.) Ike loves to say Ho Ho Ho. He'll never remember the Hall, he was not even 2 when we quit. Leah's going to be 7 in June so, she's looking forward to her birthday now. HAPPY 10TH BIRTHDAY MORGAN, YOU ROCK! We hope all your dreams come true.
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sass_my_frass
Welcome 30girl, and family!!