Please help me. Advice re. children

by jambon1 13 Replies latest jw friends

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  jambon1

  I have been out for a few months & have been doing the supportive role for my wife who still goes to most meetings and is taking the lead with our 2 kids. The supportive role has cushioned the mental anguish for my wife and I would not have wanted to be frank about my disbelief in god & the WTS, it would have put a tremendous strain on our relationship. At the moment she is hoping I will come back. I have been firm & told her I will not be at the memorial. Things in our household are generally at ease as I continue to 'abstain from JW activity'.

  The thing is, as I contemplate the future, I simply do not want my kids to be raised as JW`s. They are aged 4 & 2. I worry about the bullying because of not taking part in normal stuff and the mental anguish that I think a child faces as a result of being brought up in the org. My wife is a liberal JW.

  My wife has already spoken however of her 'concern' over activities that I would want to do with my kids. For gods sake, I just want to raise them as normal kids, doing normal things on a day-to-day basis. This pisses me off no end & I can see it causing problems between my wife & I in the future.

  What can I do though. Do I be firm and just insist that I do what I want with the kids anyway? Its ironic that I am going to be limited in my activities but she will take them to 3 meetings a week, f/s, assemblies & conventions, etc, etc, etc.

  I just dont want to end up with a couple of 16 year old pioneers - its such a waste. What can I do to show them that normal life is best.

  Anyone in a similar situation?
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  Legolas

  That depends on a few things..IMO...are you disfellowshipped or anything so that you can bring up 'apostate' stuff to her to prove that they do not have the 'truth'?
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  cruzanheart

  My husband and I went through the same thing, jambon1. He left the Witnesses in 1989 but I stubbornly kept going for 15 more years. During that time we had two children. I took them to the meetings. We didn't celebrate holidays or birthdays. As a female Witness without a man by her side I saw firsthand the hypocrisy and lack of love in that organization. No matter how many comments I made, I was ignored and the elders couldn't seem to remember my name. No matter how many children I invited over to play with my children, there was rarely a return invitation. It got harder and harder.

  When the kids were 6 & 8, our son (the 6-year-old) developed a condition called post-viral arthritis, which gave him severe pain in his joints for 6 weeks. He finished the last week of Kindergarten in a wheelchair. During that time (he was sick with flu-like symptoms for a week or so before the arthritis pain hit) I hadn't attended any meetings and of course didn't get any phone calls or visits. After missing a month of meetings, more or less, I took him in his wheelchair to a Sunday meeting, trying to be the good little Witness. Well, out of 150 people only 3 asked me what happened to him. As I was leaving, the third person, the PO, came up and said, "what happened to him?" and when I started to tell him he listened impatiently for all of 5 seconds and then said, "well, Jehovah will give you strength to endure" and walked off.

  I stomped out of there, went home and told my husband I was never going back. The kids cheered. And we lived happily ever after.

  Now, in the meantime (sorry this is a long post), Chris had been printing out threads from this forum and leaving them in the kitchen for me to read. He knew I'm the type who will read the phone book if it's lying around, so I'd look at it and usually get really interested. We are both very sensitive to the child abuse issue, so usually the threads were about that. One of my friends is going out because of the threads I've printed out for her regarding the Society's large amount of money.

  You have to be subtle and get her to question what she's hearing at the meetings versus what the Society is actually doing. Keep reading on this forum and I'm sure you'll get great ideas!

  Hugs,

  Nina
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  carla

  If she insists on bringing them to a kh you have the right as a parent to expose them to all the religions of the world including, Catholic,Jewish, Hindu, Wiccan and so forth. Yeah, it would make life hell but I was willing to do that to keep my kids out of kh. I would have done it too, luckily for me the brand new Hindu temple was in the news a lot when this was being discussed. My kids will never ever step foot in a hell. With his being gone all the time it did give us time to discuss his weird behavior and discuss why jw's do the crazy things they do or don't do.
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  metatron

  I would get started now - by telling your wife some standards that you intend to adhere to in the future - such as:

  blood transfusion is entirely a matter of personal conscience and opinion

  You will not deny your children a good education and career because of anything the Watchtower says

  You will not support anything that is unreasonable or extreme in raising your kids.

  Moderation and personal conscience in judging what the Watchtower demands will derail its damage. When your kids

  start asking 'why can't I join the football team' - it'll be all over for the "truth"

  metatron
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  jambon1

  Thanks so far.

  Im not d/fd and my family are`nt in the truth. Its was just us. So I have a measure of freedom to discuss stuff but at the moment she is VERY sensitve to some things I have brought up in a gentle manner. We cant really discuss much at the mo. She knows my vies on blood, d/fd, education & my disdain for the 'everyone is going to die' doctrine. I HATE it all.

  The problem is that many are supportive of her. We have some good and loyal friends over the years who I dont think will turn away. Maybe I need to go down the flawed doctrine route?

  Its hard at the mo. I just want them all out. At one time I worried about our kids future in the `world` but I know we are level headed enough without the truth to still bring them up properly & with a good future. There are lovely people in the bad old world. I just want them to be normal kids.
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  Dismembered

  Greetings jambon1

  Try to get your wife to compromise on things. The worst thing you can do is throw your hands up and let the edicts of watchtower win. We had 3 sons, all of who are not in the cult anymore. It pains me to think what we did not allow them to do as they were growing up. Stick to your guns partner. They're your kids too.

  Dismembered
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  lowden

  Hello jambon1

  Sounds like a divided household to me! I have 3 boys, 18yrs,16 and 14 all brought up in the faith until 2 years ago and now none of us go. Josh my eldest wanted to go to Bethel and do the full-time service thang. He believed that right up until 15 or 16, but not now!!!! By the way there's no such thing as a 'liberal JW' as far as i see it, otherwise you end up living a lie. 'Do it properly or don't do it at all' was always my maxim....that's why i failed and i now lead a much more 'truthful' life. Listen my troubled friend, your kids are only very young and have a few more years before they get too impressed upon by the JWs, so for now just love them and your wife. Make your stand firmer than concrete and when your babies are old enough to reason and ask you serious and deep questions...that's when you tell them your views in a more forceful way. Chip away at your wife as well because if she's only 'liberal', she won't last long. One more thing!! Buy 'Crisis of Conscience' By Fred Franz, formerly of the Governing Body (get it from Amazon) read it, be totally blown away and leave it on the coffee table for her to read, seriously.

  Peace to you

  Lowden
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  anewme

  I had a little friend. She was contacted in the door to door work at the age of 18.
  Her becoming a witness infuriated her mother. So the mother planned a strategy to get her daughter out of the JWs.
  At the age of 22 or 23 she gave her daughter, my friend, a loan of $10,000 and told her to invest it as she wished. However, at the end of the year she would ask for it back. If she increased the money by a certain amount she would loan her another $10,000 and so on.
  
  At least I think this is how it went. The mother drew up a legal contract with her daughter and everything.
  
  Not long after the year was up the little JW gal left the JWs and realized her mother had her best interests at heart.
  
  
  So, her mother wooed her daughter away with money, but in a very subtle way I must say.
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  beaches

  Ah yes, I was waiting to see when this thread would pop up. I am in kinda same spot. I am not planning on ever re-believing this is the "Truth" and not just another man made religion. Now, Hubby still is hanging in there because his whole family aren't leaving anytime soon. We have a 4 yr old and have started tentative talks about different issues. I have told him I have no problem w/ blood, birthdays, M&F day and other etc. holidays that aren't really "all that based in any religion". We just had the birthday discussion because one of her friends is having a birthday this weekend. He started doing research on his own because I warned him I was bringing her. He obviosly found nothing in the bible to go against them and even felt that Job and Jacob(?) pointed to birthdays being celebrated and that this was a typical celebration people did back then. I brought out the point that I did my own resaerch and could understand if the society focused on the pagan origins of cake, candles saying happy b-day, but they didn't. Then came the Pinata discussion and the fact that if WTS is okay with celebrations that used to have "pagan" meaning but don't anymore, I felt b-days came under this group. Asked him outright if he was bothered by her going. "I'm not going" was response. I said "I didn't expect you to since it's at Libby LU, but you didn't answer my initial question" He changed subject. He's just scared because we were both raised in "truth". I gave him room to breath.

  I plan on just dropping hints and discussions like that as things come up. I am only focusing on the little things now. I haven't even figured out big things yet myself:) If wife is liberal, would she do her own research on issues with the internet? I send e-mails to hubby that deal with what he is interested in eg -607, UN, bible that aren't very sensationalized and read like a well researched paper.

  Also, in pre-school they really focus on holidays since they are so young and it fills up a day. I haven't kept her out of any school days due to parties. She comes home w/ her shamrocks and bunnies. He says nothing.

  You know your wife and what to push and when to back off. Take it a day at a time, because when I started freaking out about "what will I do when..." I got sick. It is really alot easier to deal with it "in due season".