What were your childhood summers like as a JW?

by reneeisorym 13 Replies latest jw friends

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  zanex

  yes...the positive memories of childhood were far and fwe between...least any that revolved around something OTHER than engaging in personal study for all the freakin time...or physical labor...my pop was all about house remodeling...so I spent my summers when i wasnt in service, assemblies, personal bible study, or meeting with some elder, I was fixing the decrepit old "fixer-upper" that my parents had stuck us in...and summertime in Maine on a HOT roof doing re-shingling at 12 is HORRID work...but it built "character" or so my parents said...whatevah...I can remember him putting me in the coal bin we had in the cellar, hand me a shovel and tell me to wait for the rush of coals to come and run into it frmo the truck outside...all to keep me from going to a soccer tryout...eh..yah...the few memories I have that are worth positively recalling are outweighed by the rest of what life i was being subjected to...for who? God....LOL...what a load of crap...lol

  -Z-
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  jaguarbass

  I dont remember much about child hood summers. Before I had to start working at about 13, I think I spent a lot of time doing nothing. I never went to camp. I dont think my summers were terrible, I dont remember that. They just were not exciting.
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  reneeisorym

  I don't think I had it necessarily that bad. Mine were just filled wasting time in the door to door work rather than something productive. I think a lot of kids who were not JWs had not so wonderful summers. I think that for all the work I did, it could have at least been something that "built character". (And no... I'm definatly not talking about doing what zanex did!!!) There's just something about JWs that suck all the joy out of life.
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  Mulan

  My father would never have made me do anything I didn't want to do so he was no problem, ever, and my mother always thought pioneering was up to me. I was never forced to go in service or to pioneer. Unbelievably, if I did it, it was always my own idea.

  We usually took a great trip, traveling to the district convention every summer, unless they were here in Seattle. My grandparents, aunt and cousins, went too. They were great fun and we saw a lot of the counry that way. We took six week trips in 1953 and in 1958 crossing the U.S. from Seattle to New York City. Wonderful, fun memories. I was 8 and 13, but I remember them vividly.

  Every summer my grandparents took us cousins on a two week camping trip. I will never forget the fun and great example they were to me, on how to be with grandchildren. Salt of the earth, those people. And they were Jehovah's witnesses until they died.

  Although we were JW's, it was a different time for me, than for many of you who grew up in stricter times. I have no regrets for my summers as a child.